Where did I say that x86 was a standard? I never even used that word. Although the term "de facto standard" certainly does apply.
Perhaps "proprietary" is the wrong word for SPARC. I need a word that means, "not commodified and therefore more expensive". Any suggestions?
The fact that there's an IEEE standard describing SPARC is completely beside the point. The purpose of a standard is to facilitate adoption of a technology. It's not a guarantee that this technology will be widely used.
Sun used to believe that SPARC could compete head-to-head with x86 in almost every market. Their ignoring ample evidence to the contrary is a big reason they're in this hole. (I know Sun people who are still in denial about this.) Going from the information on sparc.org (and ignoring dead links!) here's SPARC's standing in the following markets:
Desktops: nobody. Not even Sun.
Servers: Sun, Fujitsu, Themis
Embedded systems: Motorola.
That's it. With only four manufacturers left, SPARC may not be proprietary in a technical sense, but in economic terms it's pretty much the same thing.
It's definitely you. Bluetooth may not work well with all the things people try to do with it, but the use cases where it is useful are pretty common. Do I need to point out all the bluetooth borgs you see on the street? Not to mention wireless keyboards and mice you can use without a dongle, being able to sync your phone without finding a USB cable...
We're talking about the height of the MS-Sun feud, right? Which was about 10 years ago. If McNeely was telling people that they didn't need word processors, it was well before then.
I'm sorry, I don't recall that particular meme — and I was working at Sun at the time.
What I did hear was not McNealy telling us we didn't word processors and presentation software. It was him telling us that the alternatives that ran on Solaris were just as good as the ones that ran on Windows. Mind you, this was even before Sun acquired StarOffice!
I think we're in agreement that McNealy didn't understand the marketplace or the needs of his users. But the whole desktop thing is just a symptom, not a cause. It did waste a lot of effort and opportunity, but not nearly as much as his belief that SPARC could compete with x86 head to head in almost every market.
Your little rant is correct about the dysfunctional mindset in the Linux community. But that's really kind of beside the point. If and when Linux gets critical mass on driver support it will take off. That will attract grownups to the marketplace.
It was too busy "competing" with MS to focus on it's core market - high performance computers.
Sun did waste a lot of effort on desktop initiatives. (Still does.) But that's never dominated management's attention. It's just what got the most press, because the issues of hardware manufacturing and sales don't make good copy.
(Right now, I'm working on a system that's in the process of being upgraded from Hypertransport 1 to Hypertransport 3. Doesn't that send chills up and down your spine? No?)
The problem is not that management didn't pay attention to the hardware business — they paid plenty. The problem is that they kept selling to the 1998 marketplace long after the game changed. In 1998, there was so much demand for computers, and people were so unpicky about costs, Sun could sell expensive systems just by boasting how powerful they were. Then the dotcom bubble burst, and people either went out of business or survived by looking for ways to do business cheaper. And a big way to cut costs is to switch from proprietary architectures (SPARC, MIPS, PowerPC) to the commodified x86.
Took Sun a long time to come to terms with that. When the bubble burst, the party line at Sun was that it was a temporary downturn and they could just ride it out. Well, the downtown was indeed temporary, but the customers never came back. They wanted commodity systems, and Sun was only working on SPARC systems. Yes, they had acquired Cobalt, but the SPARC-uber-alles mindset at Sun soon drove the Cobalt people away and destroyed a product line Sun had spent $2 billion acquiring. When they finally admitted to themselves that they had to change with the marketplace (and there are lots of Sun people who still haven't drunk that koolaid) they had to build up the business all over again, partly by outsourcing design, partly by buying up yet another x86 company. Ironically, that company was founded by Sun co-founder Andy Bectholsheim, who had left Sun partly because of this very issue.
So, despite the attention it got in the press, the Sun-MS feud was just a sideshow. What really hurt was their inability to adapt.
But IBM would likely push developers to use SWT instead.
IBM is already pushing developers to use SWT. And I think IBM already has more influence with Java developers than Sun. (Compare the relative popularity of their toolsets.) Hasn't had much effect.
It's going to take a lot more than an improved widget library to get Java going as a desktop app platform. Face it, we can't run 1998 over again.
Ah, content-free conversation, nothing like it. Why make a point or pay attention to what the other person is saying when you can just throw zingers back and forth? Save your brain cells for important stuff, like beating the next level in Halo!
So what have you [Chris Tucker] accomplished with your life. I'm betting you're a worthless piece of shit.
You really need to get a life. That kind of pointless flaming (in defense of a writer you don't even like!) is the sign of somebody just a little short on purpose.
I don't know anything about the background of those writers either. It's just that I don't see the any HE-style prose in their work. Care to cite a passage or two?
There are many technologies at Sun that IBM might covet, but no one of them is worth that much money, or even a substantial part of them. They'll certainly want Java, but Java is mainly a server-side technology these days. It's client side tech is floundering, both marketwise and developmentwise. Same goes for Solaris. (Sun's workstation lineup is down to one system!) As for OO/SO, IBM already has a free office suite, and it's not doing any better.
Having a realistic alternative to Windows is every geek's dream, but I don't see anything that Sun owns really changing the game. And big companies like IBM don't really have any incentive to revolutionize the desktop — not that much money in it, and there are too many risks. Which is why IBM has moved away from desktop computing in recent years.
Upper management at Sun has been rabidly pro-OSS for some time now. The problems opening up their products are legal (you can't open source that you licensed from somebody else without their permission) and cultural (developers who don't like the idea can't be easily bypassed; one key Java architect left Sun rather than participate in opening up the platform). Not a lot IBM can do to change these factors.
On the other hand, Java would get a big boost from being owned by IBM. Big Blue has a lot of Java talent, and a lot of Sun's Java talent now works at Google.
Also, opening up software requires a lot of effort, and Sun has been short of the necessary resources for some time. Being part of IBM would certainly change that.
Ironically enough, IBM kind of hampered the opening up of Java, though not intentionally. A lot of Java's globalization code started out as part of the Taligent OS, which ended up as IBM property after Apple, Motorola, and HP pulled out. Before Sun could open up Java, they had to come to terms with IBM about that. Not a huge factor, but not one they could ignore either.
Dude, if we're going to going to have a flame war, you have to work on your antisocial skills. If you can't manage condescending, you could at least try for irritating. If you politely disagree and cite evidence supporting your point of view, I have no choice but to do the same, and then where are we?
"Repent Harlequin", to me, is a prime example of HE in gonzo-cute mode. Lots of people like that stuff, but to me it's just precocious BS.
Clever title, though. One thing he does consistently well is titles.
I've read 3 (Drake, Weber, Scalzi) of the 5 authors you cite, and I have to say I don't see HE's influence in any of them. In fact, they could all benefit from a little of HE's playfulness.
Sigh. TTWT features small furry space aliens that reproduce quickly. Heinlein's book "The Rolling Stones" features small furry space space aliens that reproduce quickly. Do I have to spell it out for you?
And yes, I know David Gerrold wrote TTWT. I got this anecdote from David Gerrold.
Consensus and truth are two separate things. In 1967, everybody and his mother was doing stuff that "pushed the boundaries". Some of it had lasting value (civil rights movement, women getting all uppity, an end to the "my country right or wrong" mentality). But a lot of it was pure crap. I judge stuff that came out of the 60s by its lasting value, not by how it shocked Goldwater Republicans.
He invented a collaborative development model that has become the basis for a lot of projects, including our favorite OS.
That wasn't what he set out to do, of course. He meant to destroy the idea of software as property. That was based on some silly libertarian theorizing combined with a grudge against AT&T for commercializing UNIX. But there was a good idea amongst all the crap, and we're all the better for it.
Yeah, I dislike the guy too, and it irks me to have to say that he made my life better. But he did.
... if he can sell the carcass for double its current market cap, he's a far better salesman than I've given him credit for.
Uh, no. Even in its decrepit state, Sun is worth a lot more than its current market cap. Cash reserves alone are worth almost that much.
The tiny market cap reflects the stock price, and the stock price reflects (among other things) lack of confidence is JIS's management. In 2007, Sun was trading at about 3 times its current price. JIS actually deserves a lot of credit for getting it up there. But that was then and this is now. JIS has been struggling since then to keep the company together, but the street isn't buying. If IBM takes over, they're getting a bargain, even at a premium over the market cap. That does not reflect well on JIS, who will spend the rest of his life with "former CEO" attached to his name.
Slashdot Mirror
Where did I say that x86 was a standard? I never even used that word. Although the term "de facto standard" certainly does apply.
Perhaps "proprietary" is the wrong word for SPARC. I need a word that means, "not commodified and therefore more expensive". Any suggestions?
The fact that there's an IEEE standard describing SPARC is completely beside the point. The purpose of a standard is to facilitate adoption of a technology. It's not a guarantee that this technology will be widely used.
Sun used to believe that SPARC could compete head-to-head with x86 in almost every market. Their ignoring ample evidence to the contrary is a big reason they're in this hole. (I know Sun people who are still in denial about this.) Going from the information on sparc.org (and ignoring dead links!) here's SPARC's standing in the following markets:
Desktops: nobody. Not even Sun.
Servers: Sun, Fujitsu, Themis
Embedded systems: Motorola.
That's it. With only four manufacturers left, SPARC may not be proprietary in a technical sense, but in economic terms it's pretty much the same thing.
It's definitely you. Bluetooth may not work well with all the things people try to do with it, but the use cases where it is useful are pretty common. Do I need to point out all the bluetooth borgs you see on the street? Not to mention wireless keyboards and mice you can use without a dongle, being able to sync your phone without finding a USB cable...
I'm not defending anyone. I'm calling you an asshole. The fact that you don't get the difference kind of makes my case.
OK, I stand corrected. But that's more a rant against Death By Powerpoint, which everybody agrees is an issue!
And I still don't believe he ever denied the need for word processors. CEOs never write letters?
Incidentally, Sun acquired StarOffice in 1998. So a year after he was saying presentation software was a waste of bandwidth, he was selling it.
We're talking about the height of the MS-Sun feud, right? Which was about 10 years ago. If McNeely was telling people that they didn't need word processors, it was well before then.
Too bad. Nobody's required to respond to your posts in a manner of your choosing.
Then why are you bent out of shape by my flame?
You're the one who went ad hominem, sunshine.
Belief it or not, "ad hominen" is not a fancy way of saying "name calling".
I'm sorry, I don't recall that particular meme — and I was working at Sun at the time.
What I did hear was not McNealy telling us we didn't word processors and presentation software. It was him telling us that the alternatives that ran on Solaris were just as good as the ones that ran on Windows. Mind you, this was even before Sun acquired StarOffice!
I think we're in agreement that McNealy didn't understand the marketplace or the needs of his users. But the whole desktop thing is just a symptom, not a cause. It did waste a lot of effort and opportunity, but not nearly as much as his belief that SPARC could compete with x86 head to head in almost every market.
If you read it, you ignored it. You simply contradicted my initial sentence without dealing with any of the arguments I made.
Thing is, I don't entirely disagree with you. I just get tired of people whose dialog consists entirely of brainless zingers.
Your little rant is correct about the dysfunctional mindset in the Linux community. But that's really kind of beside the point. If and when Linux gets critical mass on driver support it will take off. That will attract grownups to the marketplace.
It was too busy "competing" with MS to focus on it's core market - high performance computers.
Sun did waste a lot of effort on desktop initiatives. (Still does.) But that's never dominated management's attention. It's just what got the most press, because the issues of hardware manufacturing and sales don't make good copy.
(Right now, I'm working on a system that's in the process of being upgraded from Hypertransport 1 to Hypertransport 3. Doesn't that send chills up and down your spine? No?)
The problem is not that management didn't pay attention to the hardware business — they paid plenty. The problem is that they kept selling to the 1998 marketplace long after the game changed. In 1998, there was so much demand for computers, and people were so unpicky about costs, Sun could sell expensive systems just by boasting how powerful they were. Then the dotcom bubble burst, and people either went out of business or survived by looking for ways to do business cheaper. And a big way to cut costs is to switch from proprietary architectures (SPARC, MIPS, PowerPC) to the commodified x86.
Took Sun a long time to come to terms with that. When the bubble burst, the party line at Sun was that it was a temporary downturn and they could just ride it out. Well, the downtown was indeed temporary, but the customers never came back. They wanted commodity systems, and Sun was only working on SPARC systems. Yes, they had acquired Cobalt, but the SPARC-uber-alles mindset at Sun soon drove the Cobalt people away and destroyed a product line Sun had spent $2 billion acquiring. When they finally admitted to themselves that they had to change with the marketplace (and there are lots of Sun people who still haven't drunk that koolaid) they had to build up the business all over again, partly by outsourcing design, partly by buying up yet another x86 company. Ironically, that company was founded by Sun co-founder Andy Bectholsheim, who had left Sun partly because of this very issue.
So, despite the attention it got in the press, the Sun-MS feud was just a sideshow. What really hurt was their inability to adapt.
I'm "flaming for fun"???!!! You were the one that threw out a malicious one-liner in response to a post that you didn't read past the first sentence.
But IBM would likely push developers to use SWT instead.
IBM is already pushing developers to use SWT. And I think IBM already has more influence with Java developers than Sun. (Compare the relative popularity of their toolsets.) Hasn't had much effect.
It's going to take a lot more than an improved widget library to get Java going as a desktop app platform. Face it, we can't run 1998 over again.
Ah, content-free conversation, nothing like it. Why make a point or pay attention to what the other person is saying when you can just throw zingers back and forth? Save your brain cells for important stuff, like beating the next level in Halo!
So what have you [Chris Tucker] accomplished with your life. I'm betting you're a worthless piece of shit.
You really need to get a life. That kind of pointless flaming (in defense of a writer you don't even like!) is the sign of somebody just a little short on purpose.
Having negative thoughts about any aspect of the Star Trek franchise can lead you to suspect you're the only sane person in an insane asylum.
I don't know anything about the background of those writers either. It's just that I don't see the any HE-style prose in their work. Care to cite a passage or two?
There are many technologies at Sun that IBM might covet, but no one of them is worth that much money, or even a substantial part of them. They'll certainly want Java, but Java is mainly a server-side technology these days. It's client side tech is floundering, both marketwise and developmentwise. Same goes for Solaris. (Sun's workstation lineup is down to one system!) As for OO/SO, IBM already has a free office suite, and it's not doing any better.
Having a realistic alternative to Windows is every geek's dream, but I don't see anything that Sun owns really changing the game. And big companies like IBM don't really have any incentive to revolutionize the desktop — not that much money in it, and there are too many risks. Which is why IBM has moved away from desktop computing in recent years.
Upper management at Sun has been rabidly pro-OSS for some time now. The problems opening up their products are legal (you can't open source that you licensed from somebody else without their permission) and cultural (developers who don't like the idea can't be easily bypassed; one key Java architect left Sun rather than participate in opening up the platform). Not a lot IBM can do to change these factors.
On the other hand, Java would get a big boost from being owned by IBM. Big Blue has a lot of Java talent, and a lot of Sun's Java talent now works at Google.
Also, opening up software requires a lot of effort, and Sun has been short of the necessary resources for some time. Being part of IBM would certainly change that.
Ironically enough, IBM kind of hampered the opening up of Java, though not intentionally. A lot of Java's globalization code started out as part of the Taligent OS, which ended up as IBM property after Apple, Motorola, and HP pulled out. Before Sun could open up Java, they had to come to terms with IBM about that. Not a huge factor, but not one they could ignore either.
You're forgetting the rest of the saying, which is particularly applicable in this case:
"...but if you can make him float on his back, then you've really got something."
Dude, if we're going to going to have a flame war, you have to work on your antisocial skills. If you can't manage condescending, you could at least try for irritating. If you politely disagree and cite evidence supporting your point of view, I have no choice but to do the same, and then where are we?
"Repent Harlequin", to me, is a prime example of HE in gonzo-cute mode. Lots of people like that stuff, but to me it's just precocious BS.
Clever title, though. One thing he does consistently well is titles.
I've read 3 (Drake, Weber, Scalzi) of the 5 authors you cite, and I have to say I don't see HE's influence in any of them. In fact, they could all benefit from a little of HE's playfulness.
Sigh. TTWT features small furry space aliens that reproduce quickly. Heinlein's book "The Rolling Stones" features small furry space space aliens that reproduce quickly. Do I have to spell it out for you?
And yes, I know David Gerrold wrote TTWT. I got this anecdote from David Gerrold.
Dude, I read the same WP article as you. That's were I got my info. Show me where I said he sued anybody.
Consensus and truth are two separate things. In 1967, everybody and his mother was doing stuff that "pushed the boundaries". Some of it had lasting value (civil rights movement, women getting all uppity, an end to the "my country right or wrong" mentality). But a lot of it was pure crap. I judge stuff that came out of the 60s by its lasting value, not by how it shocked Goldwater Republicans.
He invented a collaborative development model that has become the basis for a lot of projects, including our favorite OS.
That wasn't what he set out to do, of course. He meant to destroy the idea of software as property. That was based on some silly libertarian theorizing combined with a grudge against AT&T for commercializing UNIX. But there was a good idea amongst all the crap, and we're all the better for it.
Yeah, I dislike the guy too, and it irks me to have to say that he made my life better. But he did.
... if he can sell the carcass for double its current market cap, he's a far better salesman than I've given him credit for.
Uh, no. Even in its decrepit state, Sun is worth a lot more than its current market cap. Cash reserves alone are worth almost that much.
The tiny market cap reflects the stock price, and the stock price reflects (among other things) lack of confidence is JIS's management. In 2007, Sun was trading at about 3 times its current price. JIS actually deserves a lot of credit for getting it up there. But that was then and this is now. JIS has been struggling since then to keep the company together, but the street isn't buying. If IBM takes over, they're getting a bargain, even at a premium over the market cap. That does not reflect well on JIS, who will spend the rest of his life with "former CEO" attached to his name.