Why it isn't GNU/Solaris or GNU/Windows
on
GNU Inside?
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· Score: 1
I can think of four good reasons why GNU/Solaris is slightly suspect:
1: It's up to Sun Microsystems to name their product. 2: The GNU additive was done after the fact. You *could* call it GNU/Linux if you really want. Heck, you could call it "MegaMonkey 2000". It's your system.:) 3: GNU wouldn't be part of your "platform", as such. It certainly wasn't required for its operation. 4: Probably the most important reason -- the Open Source community pays back authors with acknowledgement and recognition. Corporations do not.
Whoops... didn't go the direction I wanted to here. Sigh.
I think this issue keeps coming up because most people believe that Stallman deserves some level of credit and recognition. The argument is about both the level of recognition, and the form that it takes.
What would be really useful is a book that is more focused on some of the UNIX tricks and oddities. A few examples...
Why would a df -k/var differ in size used from a du -k/var? When would you find the Solaris pstop command useful? When would I want to use FDDI instead of 100BaseT? What is mutex contention!!?! What are the most useful snoop or tcpdump parameters? Why you rm a large file, but you don't gain any free space? How to stripe for success! How does swapping differ versus paging? Where did 10% of my brand new filesystem disappear to?
There's the generic topics... How to identify the major system bottlenecks. How to tune a cache. How to manage users.
And then there's a few vendor specific oddities that would be good. Like that HP (forgot the model, DOH!) that for every four physical processors in the machine, you only get the power of one. But the upside is that it is redundant and somewhat auto-fault detecting, and you can live-yank out components without warning the OS. That and the Sun E10000 which can transform from eight individual systems into a mighty 64-way machine. MEKK-KA-SPARKY-SO-LAR-IS-A!
Forgive my Solaris-centric self. I need to pick up a few more OSs.
Everytime I see an article about Sun on Slashdot, no matter how positive, there's always a lot of mudraking going on? Bitter SGI folks? OS envy? Hatred of computing corporations?
Sun has done some nice things for Linux. Sure, they get something out of the deal too, but that's the name of the game. They're not betting the farm on Linux, but they really have gone the extra mile more than other vendors to work with us.
Or the Freedom of Linux, for that matter? It was psuedo "plus points" that I made up so I wouldn't be dragged into an argument like this. Gee, thanks!:)
I love Sun to death and they have a 50:1 ratio in the data center to the Atari equipment.:) I have to take exception to your characterization of Sun.
x86 Solaris isn't that big of a hit, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in Sun is looking for a way to justify its existance. If they can sell a suit on, "Have the power of Solaris and the freedom of Linux", so be it. There's nothing wrong about it either, unless you're trolling for Stallman.
Binary compatibility is nice to have, but it really isn't going to marginalize Linux in any way on the x86 hardware. It really looks like a win for Sun and a win for Linux. Hurray!
> 97% of Linux software is available as source > and will compile with cc or gcc on Solaris
A lot of the *in house* code you'll find at various companies isn't so portable. It is a selling point for Linux and a selling point for Sun if they get binary emulation on the SPARC hardware. Then, a scalability argument against Linux could possibly be nullified.
Of course, it could be the evil trick of Sun to try to convert Linux from an operating system and into a language. Ohhhhh... that would be EVIL. And then marginalize that with Java! HA!
[Actually, the thought of Linux being a language and not an OS. Hmmmm... I like it, but I hate it for a reason I don't understand. Hmmmm....]
Putting an Atari SX212 modem in the data center is easy enough, but the suits just aren't buying the "Power Without the Price " line anymore. Linux is lumped into the same boat as the Atari ST's and TT's.
What's harder to do is to sneak an upright Dig Dug into a corner without being spotted. The blanket helps.
Linux is headed for global domination, folks. This is a major win for Linux, for Sun, and for everyone*. What would be even MORE interesting is Solaris binary compatability in Linux. Hoo Hoo!
Take a look at this article... BSDI is doing the exact same thing with their operating system. But OS emulation on the UNIX side isn't anything new. BSDI also has SCO binary compatability, for example.
Nothing on their home page. Their news department is a little moldy with the most recent news article being from 12/98 about offering Linux compatilibity of some sort. "BSDI will ship open beta software of the new Linux application platform in the beginning of the first quarter 1999."
Sounds like this one is worthy of a mention somewhere. Towards the end of the day, www.slashdot.org wasn't responding to a ping, and a traceroute ended one hop before the final destination. Right now, the "uptime" box shows that this system has been up for ~10 hours.
So the server went down... but what happened to all the stories? The the drive crater on us?
Okay, I read the article. But I felt like I missed something importantly. Namely, the search engine itself.
I was reading how they compare it to Google, saying that the Google search is faster. Does that mean that the Clever search engine will yield better results, but takes hell of computational time?
It is going to be a search engine that scales, or is it going to be stuck in 'research mode' until hardware can catch up to the programming?
I think the subtle irony in all of this is that all Yet Another UNIX Operation System "yauos" is going to do is further fragment. You'll have yet another UNIX operating system. And the only real purpose of this OS is to be a "standard" UNIX OS? I can see why Sun thinks it doesn't have a prayer.
But please tell me SCO and Digital Unix are going to bite the dust to make room for this new one?
I think the subtle irony in all of this is that all Yet Another UNIX Operation System "yauos" is going to do is further fragment. You'll have yet another UNIX operating system. And the only real purpose of this OS is to be a "standard" UNIX OS? I can see why Sun thinks it doesn't have a prayer.
But please tell me SCO and Digital Unix are going to bite the dust to make room for this new one?
I forgot where I first learned about JWZ, but I must say that I'll be watching http://www.jwz.org/card.html to see his next business card! (An even more clever person would invest in the company he throws his weight at.)
Of course, Mozilla isn't his only project. The xscreensaver open-source project has always been a favorite of mine, and various other UNIX types in the company. (Who can't help but to love those sproingies?)
People _really dislike_ DIVX and do not want to see it catch on. DIVX makes an _inappropriate mix_ of the common sales models that exist today... ownership, rental, pay-per-view. This is confusing to some, annoying to others, and least-cost-effective to even more. In addition, their new model is one that favors the distributor, not the consumer.
The animosity is partially from those who are offended by the quite sincere and innocent looking Circuit City ads (and sales/pricing policies), and the rest is simple the market working in an efficient manner. DIVX has been promoted to hell by a single entity, but isn't catching on with the informed consumer.
The market has voted with its dollars, and the sooner they abandon it, the better for all parties.
Too much for one? SCALE IT AND INCREASE BWIDTH.
on
ESR Wants to Retire
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· Score: 1
Eric has done quite a bit to describe the fact that his position has an overwhelming burden. But one might consider that this is a position which may be best shared.
A person for writing, a Mr. Intervew, a Mr. Presentation. There would be an increase 'bandwidth' and the net result would be much more 'scalable'.
And for the more daring, one could implement an 'open source' model for articles and such. [Practicing what we preach?] But unlike he book-in-the-day project, it should focus on quality and revising a final, well-refined product.
BTW.. I couldn't help but notice -- did Eric's message seem like a resume'?
In 1994 when the web wasn't on anyone's radar, I helped start the first ISP in the area. The NSF was still around, but we managed to convince a backbone provider "MIDnet" to give us a link to resell Internet access.
We had a dedicated 56k pipe to the net, and that seemed good enough for the time. And with 30 simultaneous users logged on, there was still bandwidth to spare! (After all, people were either using Telnet, FTP, or Gopher. Anyone remember gopher?!??! That's a dead protocol. So much for my skill at creating gopher pages!)
Of course, the web changed all of that, and bandwidth requirements have gone through the roof. Running an ISP on a 56k link? HA! That's how much a single user can suck down the pipe with a web browser.
> No no no..Then opensource will become > as bastardized as the word "free" here > in the US. "Free" means nothing today.
Then TRADEMARK "open source" or come up with a new moniker and license it out to people who can run the treadmill. I would think that the Open Source movement is in trouble if anyone could claim they've got something that is "open source", and dilute the meaning of the term.
Interesting ports on zeus.theos.com (199.185.137.1): Port State Protocol Service 25 open tcp smtp 53 open tcp domain 80 open tcp http 113 open tcp auth 2049 filtered tcp nfs
TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments Difficulty=26484 (Worthy challenge) No OS matches for host (see http://www.insecure.org/cgi-bin/nmap-submit.cgi).
I couldn't resist. Anyhow, it seems that the best protection for a domain name is to go out there and get a patent. I wish I would take my own advice... I have a domain name that is very 'intuitive' that somebody would like to steal one day... but I've had it since '95.:)
At least with modern technology, you probably wouldn't want normal fusion in your household. By the time you've got a good fusion reacton going, your china set has been vaporized. Not a very pleasant experience AT ALL!
Cold Fusion is the holy grail because instead of heating the apparatus by a few million degrees, it could raise it anywhere (depending on how good the technology is) from 10 to 1000 degrees. That sort of temperature is far more useful for everyday things... not just vaporizing your neighborhood.
Cold Fusion (called "cold" compared to a nuclear inferno) could be captured in a generator, a heater, a weaponm or just plain used to zap a bird in the oven. But you'd probably want to use it in a generator to power other devices.
This appears to be nothing but extreme nit-picking by open source zealots. What is Apple to do? Say US Laws do not apply? Should the open-source 'certification' be denied to them for this reason?
This is all very interesting... to those who are completely ungulfed in the OSS lifestyle (tell Eric Raymond I said 'hi')... but for the rest of us... this is B-O-R-I-N-G.
Slashdot Mirror
1: It's up to Sun Microsystems to name their product. :)
2: The GNU additive was done after the fact. You *could* call it GNU/Linux if you really want. Heck, you could call it "MegaMonkey 2000". It's your system.
3: GNU wouldn't be part of your "platform", as such. It certainly wasn't required for its operation.
4: Probably the most important reason -- the Open Source community pays back authors with acknowledgement and recognition. Corporations do not.
Whoops... didn't go the direction I wanted to here. Sigh.
I think this issue keeps coming up because most people believe that Stallman deserves some level of credit and recognition. The argument is about both the level of recognition, and the form that it takes.
Why would a df -k /var differ in size used from a du -k /var?
When would you find the Solaris pstop command useful?
When would I want to use FDDI instead of 100BaseT?
What is mutex contention!!?!
What are the most useful snoop or tcpdump parameters?
Why you rm a large file, but you don't gain any free space?
How to stripe for success!
How does swapping differ versus paging?
Where did 10% of my brand new filesystem disappear to?
There's the generic topics...
How to identify the major system bottlenecks.
How to tune a cache.
How to manage users.
And then there's a few vendor specific oddities that would be good. Like that HP (forgot the model, DOH!) that for every four physical processors in the machine, you only get the power of one. But the upside is that it is redundant and somewhat auto-fault detecting, and you can live-yank out components without warning the OS. That and the Sun E10000 which can transform from eight individual systems into a mighty 64-way machine. MEKK-KA-SPARKY-SO-LAR-IS-A!
Forgive my Solaris-centric self. I need to pick up a few more OSs.
Everytime I see an article about Sun on Slashdot, no matter how positive, there's always a lot of mudraking going on? Bitter SGI folks? OS envy? Hatred of computing corporations?
Sun has done some nice things for Linux. Sure, they get something out of the deal too, but that's the name of the game. They're not betting the farm on Linux, but they really have gone the extra mile more than other vendors to work with us.
> What the Hell is the power of Solaris?
:)
Or the Freedom of Linux, for that matter? It was psuedo "plus points" that I made up so I wouldn't be dragged into an argument like this. Gee, thanks!
> Solaris only seems worthwhile on SPARC for me.
"Mee too."
As soon as I read the topic, I knew I could find a quote for the ever-loving gnulinux guy! Thanks for keeping up to my expectations.
(Remember, folks! My replies are about self-expression, not providing value!)
I love Sun to death and they have a 50:1 ratio in the data center to the Atari equipment. :) I have to take exception to your characterization of Sun.
x86 Solaris isn't that big of a hit, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in Sun is looking for a way to justify its existance. If they can sell a suit on, "Have the power of Solaris and the freedom of Linux", so be it. There's nothing wrong about it either, unless you're trolling for Stallman.
Binary compatibility is nice to have, but it really isn't going to marginalize Linux in any way on the x86 hardware. It really looks like a win for Sun and a win for Linux. Hurray!
> 97% of Linux software is available as source
> and will compile with cc or gcc on Solaris
A lot of the *in house* code you'll find at various companies isn't so portable. It is a selling point for Linux and a selling point for Sun if they get binary emulation on the SPARC hardware. Then, a scalability argument against Linux could possibly be nullified.
Of course, it could be the evil trick of Sun to try to convert Linux from an operating system and into a language. Ohhhhh... that would be EVIL. And then marginalize that with Java! HA!
[Actually, the thought of Linux being a language and not an OS. Hmmmm... I like it, but I hate it for a reason I don't understand. Hmmmm....]
Putting an Atari SX212 modem in the data center is easy enough, but the suits just aren't buying the "Power Without the Price " line anymore. Linux is lumped into the same boat as the Atari ST's and TT's.
What's harder to do is to sneak an upright Dig Dug into a corner without being spotted. The blanket helps.
Linux is headed for global domination, folks. This is a major win for Linux, for Sun, and for everyone*. What would be even MORE interesting is Solaris binary compatability in Linux. Hoo Hoo!
* - Microsoft is excluded from participation.
Take a look at this article... BSDI is doing the exact same thing with their operating system. But OS emulation on the UNIX side isn't anything new. BSDI also has SCO binary compatability, for example.
Hmmm....
What do you think about having Tempest, or Centipede in the data center?
Sounds like this one is worthy of a mention somewhere. Towards the end of the day, www.slashdot.org wasn't responding to a ping, and a traceroute ended one hop before the final destination. Right now, the "uptime" box shows that this system has been up for ~10 hours.
So the server went down... but what happened to all the stories? The the drive crater on us?
Okay, I read the article. But I felt like I missed something importantly. Namely, the search engine itself.
I was reading how they compare it to Google, saying that the Google search is faster. Does that mean that the Clever search engine will yield better results, but takes hell of computational time?
It is going to be a search engine that scales, or is it going to be stuck in 'research mode' until hardware can catch up to the programming?
But please tell me SCO and Digital Unix are going to bite the dust to make room for this new one?
But please tell me SCO and Digital Unix are going to bite the dust to make room for this new one?
Of course, Mozilla isn't his only project. The xscreensaver open-source project has always been a favorite of mine, and various other UNIX types in the company. (Who can't help but to love those sproingies?)
People _really dislike_ DIVX and do not want to see it catch on. DIVX makes an _inappropriate mix_ of the common sales models that exist today... ownership, rental, pay-per-view. This is confusing to some, annoying to others, and least-cost-effective to even more. In addition, their new model is one that favors the distributor, not the consumer.
The animosity is partially from those who are offended by the quite sincere and innocent looking Circuit City ads (and sales/pricing policies), and the rest is simple the market working in an efficient manner. DIVX has been promoted to hell by a single entity, but isn't catching on with the informed consumer.
The market has voted with its dollars, and the sooner they abandon it, the better for all parties.
Eric has done quite a bit to describe the fact that his position has an overwhelming burden. But one might consider that this is a position which may be best shared.
A person for writing, a Mr. Intervew, a Mr. Presentation. There would be an increase 'bandwidth' and the net result would be much more 'scalable'.
And for the more daring, one could implement an 'open source' model for articles and such. [Practicing what we preach?] But unlike he book-in-the-day project, it should focus on quality and revising a final, well-refined product.
BTW.. I couldn't help but notice -- did Eric's message seem like a resume'?
In 1994 when the web wasn't on anyone's radar, I helped start the first ISP in the area. The NSF was still around, but we managed to convince a backbone provider "MIDnet" to give us a link to resell Internet access.
We had a dedicated 56k pipe to the net, and that seemed good enough for the time. And with 30 simultaneous users logged on, there was still bandwidth to spare! (After all, people were either using Telnet, FTP, or Gopher. Anyone remember gopher?!??! That's a dead protocol. So much for my skill at creating gopher pages!)
Of course, the web changed all of that, and bandwidth requirements have gone through the roof. Running an ISP on a 56k link? HA! That's how much a single user can suck down the pipe with a web browser.
Praise the Lord and hold the anchovies! Wait a second... aren't mushrooms just a little bit GAY?
> No no no..Then opensource will become
> as bastardized as the word "free" here
> in the US. "Free" means nothing today.
Then TRADEMARK "open source" or come up with a new moniker and license it out to people who can run the treadmill. I would think that the Open Source
movement is in trouble if anyone could claim they've got something that is "open source", and dilute the meaning of the term.
Interesting ports on zeus.theos.com (199.185.137.1):
Port State Protocol Service
25 open tcp smtp
53 open tcp domain
80 open tcp http
113 open tcp auth
2049 filtered tcp nfs
TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments
Difficulty=26484 (Worthy challenge)
No OS matches for host (see http://www.insecure.org/cgi-bin/nmap-submit.cgi).
Translation: It doesn't know.
I couldn't resist. Anyhow, it seems that the best protection for a domain name is to go out there and get a patent. I wish I would take my own advice... I have a domain name that is very 'intuitive' that somebody would like to steal one day... but I've had it since '95. :)
At least with modern technology, you probably wouldn't want normal fusion in your household. By the time you've got a good fusion reacton going, your china set has been vaporized. Not a very pleasant experience AT ALL!
Cold Fusion is the holy grail because instead of heating the apparatus by a few million degrees, it could raise it anywhere (depending on how good the technology is) from 10 to 1000 degrees. That sort of temperature is far more useful for everyday things... not just vaporizing your neighborhood.
Cold Fusion (called "cold" compared to a nuclear inferno) could be captured in a generator, a heater, a weaponm or just plain used to zap a bird in the oven. But you'd probably want to use it in a generator to power other devices.
This appears to be nothing but extreme nit-picking by open source zealots. What is Apple to do? Say US Laws do not apply? Should the open-source 'certification' be denied to them for this reason?
This is all very interesting... to those who are completely ungulfed in the OSS lifestyle (tell Eric Raymond I said 'hi')... but for the rest of us... this is B-O-R-I-N-G.
Apple isn't doing anything that is inappropriate.