>Ok, they DO have a legitimate page at princeton, but it doesn't say what the article claims it does.
Really? And what does the paragraph below mean (http://noosphere.princeton.edu/)? Before spreading FUD, get your fucking facts right. ---
The purpose of this project is to examine subtle correlations that appear to to reflect the role of consciousness in the world. The scientific work is at the margins of our understanding, and our view is enriched by a creative and poetic perspective. Here we present two separate ways to become acquainted with the project, and with some of its scientific and philosophical implications.
>If so you're missing the point - YOU DO NOT GET TO KEEP THE SONGS. YOU DO NOT OWN THE SONGS. In a subscription service YOU WILL NEVER GET TO KEEP THE SONGS. That's the point of their buisiness model and their DRM.
It is so indeed. In case you're missing the point, the new idea is that it's pointless and stupid to own songs.
The iPod model is that you pay X dollars for the player and then spend incrementally (as long as you own that iPod) on Apple's Web site (to buy songs) - perhaps Y dollars every month. The Napster models is that the expensive player doesn't matter - you just spend Y dollars every month. To a person who buys some 15 songs a month, Napster and iPod would cost about the same. If you buy more than 15 songs a month, it's cheaper to subscribe to Napster. All you can eat the Napster way.
Sure, you don't own any of the songs, but what does it mean anyway - if you really want to own some songs you can buy them (for course, as a Microsoft user, not from Apple, but from some Microsoft-compatible store) and use Napster for the rest.
It's still cheaper and better than iPod's way as it gives you more choices.
> start whinning about how f*scked up their files are either because of the M$ DRM or a hardware issue and now "their" music is "gone".
That's the iPod user's problem, Napster users won't have such problems.
One thing that most people don't understand is that it is indeed stupid to own songs because all that copying and burning is so redundant and waste of time.
With today's technologies, all one needs to have are playlists and the music can be downloaded from wherever.
Apple, actually, did great so far, but it's easy to see that their product was evolutionary (they did right what others have been trying for years) but in its essence, iPod automatizes things that are so 90's - hoarding MP3s.
With Napster's service one will not have to carry around an MP3 player - you'll be able to play your music from wherever you are - at work, at home, from your mobile phone, or your walkman. That's the idea.
I say lucky Firefox, they didn't test performance of plugins.
"Cold" opening a PDF file (with Acrobat Reader not running) is one of most painful experiences ever. The only worst thing on the Web is CLOSING a tab with PDF file open in it. It takes like 45 seconds (which often needs be assisted with CTRL-ALT-DEL and killing areader.exe).
I use Firefox for 90% of my HTTP(S) needs - all respects, it's a nice and good browser, but it not as stable and fast as MS IE.
Did I get this right - they complain how stealing is illegal?
How about "borrowing" a CD-ROM from a music shop, ripping it and then putting it back on the shelf? Is that stealing? But no matter what I say I'm sure some smart ass will post some quasi counter-arguments...
Before one of top arguments were "bloated" prices of CD-ROMs. Then after songs became available for 99c a pop (no need to buy a whole set of 12 songs), we've learned how "content wants to be free" and similar crap. The new Napster service gives you unlimited access to millions (I guess) of songs for a paltry $15/month or so. If you listen your MP3 player 10 hours a day or 300 hours a month, that's 5 cents for each hour of listening. Is that expensive? I don't think so. To those who "consume" more than a CD a month (I don't), the new Napster might be cheaper than buying from Apple's online store, but in any case, the both are good choices.
I'm trying very hard but can't feel any sympathy for those who complain about this new law. I would understand if one said "Shit, it's already unethical and now it's illegal, too, but what the hell, I'll try my luck". Then once you get busted (or if you get busted), you should accept your loss, but you can't object about the law itself - you can only blame your stupidity, shortsightedness, bad luck, etc.
Governments are known to be inefficient and I think that money is badly needed for social programs and whatnot. If they already want to compete with private enterprises (as this is essentially a service that could be provided by some existing or new private enterprise), they should use some innovative ways.
For example, they could donate WLAN access points to selected households which then can create a big free P2P mesh. Power bill (and "AP management" where applicable) could be paid via tax deductions. Management: they could employ a small number of people to service WLAN in their 'hoods (configure, fix, reboot, monitor via MRTG, etc.).
They should create and not just spend, goddamn wasters.
> MySQL is GPL so you need to pay if you want to use it in any non-GPL software.
I find it quite amazing how dozens of companies I know have no clue about mySQL licensing. They think everything one finds on a Linux install CDs is free.
While it's unlikely mySQL.com will ever squeeze these guys into paying up, it's funny to see all those bozos thinking they've living in compliance.
Does anyone go: "OK, I need the OS for my mySQL project. I'll benchmark BSD, Linux, Windows, and choose the fastest OS."
Difference among OS should be pretty much unimportant unless one's an ISP or big enterprise. I would choose the OS based on completely different criteria: 1) Existing skillset (advantage to existing skills) 2) Existing deployed OS (advantage to OS already deployed) 3) My company's OS strategy (advantage to the OS and the CPU platform we chose to standardize on) 4) Existing software (if I already have X vendor's backup agent for mySQL on Linux or database tuning tools, I wouldn't use BSD just to (potentially) gain an extra 5% in some ludicrous benchmark result).
Today's hardware (and operating systems) are so cheap that it's almost irrelevant what OS and hardware goes into many a project. Look at the new HP's 25p and 35p blades (Opteron-based) - a 2 processor 1GB RAM version is just some $1,700 more expensive than a 1 processor 512MB RAM version. It's easy to lose that $1,700 in downtime, spend it on a Windows engineer's new RHCE or such...
>As they were "randomly" searching 1 out of 3 people, this had a probability of 1 out of 2.1 billion.
Well that's not a problem - that's great for all those who travelled on that route as they were searched (relatively) less frequently than they otherwise would have been!
Those fucking service agreements... You don't even have to read them - it basically means you can do anything unless the site that provides the service doesn't like that, at which point you'll be kicked out.
The same thing as any "standard" NDAs, EULAs, etc. that everyone agrees to every day. It's all bullshit.
MS does not do per-CPU licensing for client software (for example some of it can even be legally installed on multiple computers - at office and home).
> customers are going to be displeased when multi-core chips come on the market or more manufacturers start making systems with multiple moderate power CPUs
Months ago Microsoft was the first major vendor to state that they will use per-socket licensing (i.e. multi-core CPUs will be considered one processor designs). But as I said above, that has nothing to do with customer/client software. That's only for servers and server software.
I bet it'll take at least 5 years before this new thing makes any inroads in financial customers, but this must be really scary for IBM's MQSeries folks.
Things like MQ Series are bread-and-butter of many sales reps as there's no serious competition to their solution - I haven't talked to many banks, but those to which I did all use MQSeries.
OSS is moving from the edge to the data center, it's already half-way there. Five more years and banks will be able to get 80% of their apps under GPL license.
If anything, a) that gives legitimacy to Linux b) that encourages A-V development on Linux because if you do it right, you'll get acquired by Microsoft (or some of their Linuxless competitors)
How the fuck is that interesting? It's outright stupid.
>With how cheap they are speculated to be Have you seen or heard the price?
>If Cell processors also have the Power4 processors in them, this could be a replacement for x86.
What!? In what what is PowerPC a replacement for x86? If anything, it's the other way around.
x86 doesn't have to compete with PPC (and with this amoeba either) for the simple reason that Microsoft isn't likely to port Windows to it for another five or so years (at least).
Which leaves you with the still tiny UNIX/Linux market - say the Amoeba takes a 100% market share in this space, which will make it probably #3, just behind AMD.
> as in knowing my preferences... ie.. remember that I prefer NO BLOGS when I search for news.
Perhaps acquisitions like this could be good for ya - hopefully they'll make a separate search tab "Blogs" which should be quite easy to avoid. Until the acquisition the've probably searched everything at once.
Hate blogs myself. 99.9% of all blogs are absolutely worthless, (compared to about 95% worthlessness of the rest of the Web). Self-centered assholes before had to earn recognition on a forum or somesuch place, otherwise they'd be kicked/banned. Now it's so effortless - all one needs is a blog and they have the mandate for unlimited pullution of the Web.
>It breaks down traditional corporate moloch, it teaches that anarchy-like goal-driven structures are perfectly viable and can outperform hierarchical companies.
In a way, that was proven by Al Queda a while ago. On the other hand, such structures do not excel in creating value, but destroying it.
> It teaches that inforamation must be free (both as beer and as freedom), if it isnt, there will always be ways to free it.
No, it teaches that no matter how you protect something (banks, movies, software), thieves will always find ways to steal it.
> It practicaly demonstrates that acting selfish is not way to go (try throttling bt upload to 1kb/s, see results...), and that being selfish (wealth stocpiling, idea holding) is not way to become succesfull.
Bullshit - if everyone's so generous, then why does eMule ties the max. download speed to the max. upload speed (if you download at 16kb/s you have to upload at 4kb/s)? The answer is: 90% of people are selfish scum and P2P users are no different, so in order to make the platform viable, the takes must be tied to the gives.
> and that sharing with poor does not mean beeing stupid.
That's what Bill and Belinda Gates do.
> All in all, its kind of hippie like philosophy crossed with viable economy (thats not based around money, but around ideas)
Hilarious! Hippie businessmen? When was the last time you saw the Maddog? It's been A WHILE. And what happened to the Napster guy? One failure after another until he created a company that plays by the rules.
>I chose it opver and x86 box for one reason: I/O, which is pretty much where all big-iron architectures trounce x86.
Used to be that way - now you can use cluster file systems to run I/O intensive workloads on x86 servers (Google does it 24 x 7). For example, you can parallelize Oracle databases using Oracle RAC, you can do the same for file and Web servers using a parallel file system like PolyServe Matrix Server, and most application servers have built-in clustering support. It is a bit more management-intensive, but I've seen Intel-based parallel clusters realize big improvements in performance over expensive UNIX systems they replaced, especially in regard with I/O performance.
A cluster of 8 basic Intel boxes can push data at a rate of 1GB/s. I seriously doubt a pSeries box can do better than that.
> The main benefit of running intel apps on i5 is single-level storage.
How is this insightful?
And how is this different from running virtual servers in VMware ESX on a quad AMD64 box (lots of memory and cheaper than AIX)?
Single-level storage is nothing but virtualized storage which means there's an I/O bottleneck in this sytem, which in turn makes those virtual servers suitable for CPU and RAM intensive Win/Lin apps (and a very expensive virtualization platform).
(And the fact that the stupid/. editor posted that blatant ad under disguise of a story makes me sick).
It really goes on my nerves to see people claim that GPL is the only "free" license? CDDL? Big deal - download the software and use it - you never have to pay a single cent to Sun.
The point here is that a) As the fucking article said, Sun's fed up with giving Oracle 50% of every DB deal they close while Oracle constantly competes with their application server platform and b) Lack of their "own" database is deterimental to Sun's utility strategy (presumably even IBM can take their lame DB2 and make money by renting it to their utility or Websphere customers), while Sun is stuck with Oracle. I think GPL databases like mySQL and PostgreSQL are too "Linux-biased" for Sun's liking, so they might be looking for a non-GPL open source DB with enterprise features.
a) It is Open source b) CA is a non-competitor (no application server) c) CA has been harmonizing their open source license with Sun's (I wonder why?) d) CA hopes to make some buck from Ingress and even if they split it even, they're going to make a shitload more than by cooperating with Oracle. e) Ingres has parallel features like Oracle RAC so it's more suitable for Sun's vision and for enterprise customers than PostgreSQL or other open source databases. f) Oracle is competing with Sun (Oracle's application servers compete with Sun's J2EE servers/apps); there's no reason for Sun to help Oracle.
I'd really really enjoy see Oracle on their own. I've really had enough of their sales people...
The time for them to pause and think real hard how they're going to compete in the future. Did they really think their competitors were going to stand idly and watch them take all the money (Oracle + Linux).... Hahahaha....
>Bill Gates is trying to maximize shareholder wealth.
And Bob Young is doing exactly the same.
And (most of) OSS developers are trying to maximize their ego.
And (most of) OEMs are trying to use either Windows or Linux to maximize their shareholder wealth.
All in all, they all want something, and that is the reason why I don't care about that - to me, they're all the same. I use my own head to make my own decisions based on what I like to use, what makes me productive and has a good ROI (meaning that I'll spend $100 bucks on Windows software if it can help me make $150).
> I even have a couple of Fedora Core 2 based servers running 2.4 because 2.6 kept randomly crashing.
That is truly laughable, as you are one of those people whose way of using Linux makes them get less than if they used Windows.
What sane person would use Fedora (any version thereof) for server OS? The same goes for kernel 2.6.
CentOS 3.4, Debian stable, SuSE SLES8 SP3 - these are some examples of stable OS for server use. I install Linux for others (one every week) and have five systems at home but I have never even tried kernel 2.6.
Your post is very insightful. I think Linux vendors are facing pressure to get their shit together and ultimately this will help, but it won't solve all these problems.
For example, RH AS 2.1 had a big amount of RH-added crap. RH EL 3.0 is better, and RH EL 4.0 will hopefully improve again.
The problem with this is that the more standardized Linux distros are, the less premium they command, so financial gains stand in compatibiliy's way. For Linux vendors, it's going to be hard to find the right balance as the only right balance is using unmodified kernels from kernel.org.
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>Ok, they DO have a legitimate page at princeton, but it doesn't say what the article claims it does.
Really? And what does the paragraph below mean (http://noosphere.princeton.edu/)?
Before spreading FUD, get your fucking facts right.
---
The purpose of this project is to examine subtle correlations that appear to to reflect the role of consciousness in the world. The scientific work is at the margins of our understanding, and our view is enriched by a creative and poetic perspective. Here we present two separate ways to become acquainted with the project, and with some of its scientific and philosophical implications.
>If so you're missing the point - YOU DO NOT GET TO KEEP THE SONGS. YOU DO NOT OWN THE SONGS. In a subscription service YOU WILL NEVER GET TO KEEP THE SONGS. That's the point of their buisiness model and their DRM.
It is so indeed. In case you're missing the point, the new idea is that it's pointless and stupid to own songs.
The iPod model is that you pay X dollars for the player and then spend incrementally (as long as you own that iPod) on Apple's Web site (to buy songs) - perhaps Y dollars every month.
The Napster models is that the expensive player doesn't matter - you just spend Y dollars every month.
To a person who buys some 15 songs a month, Napster and iPod would cost about the same.
If you buy more than 15 songs a month, it's cheaper to subscribe to Napster.
All you can eat the Napster way.
Sure, you don't own any of the songs, but what does it mean anyway - if you really want to own some songs you can buy them (for course, as a Microsoft user, not from Apple, but from some Microsoft-compatible store) and use Napster for the rest.
It's still cheaper and better than iPod's way as it gives you more choices.
> start whinning about how f*scked up their files are either because of the M$ DRM or a hardware issue and now "their" music is "gone".
That's the iPod user's problem, Napster users won't have such problems.
One thing that most people don't understand is that it is indeed stupid to own songs because all that copying and burning is so redundant and waste of time.
With today's technologies, all one needs to have are playlists and the music can be downloaded from wherever.
Apple, actually, did great so far, but it's easy to see that their product was evolutionary (they did right what others have been trying for years) but in its essence, iPod automatizes things that are so 90's - hoarding MP3s.
With Napster's service one will not have to carry around an MP3 player - you'll be able to play your music from wherever you are - at work, at home, from your mobile phone, or your walkman. That's the idea.
> So people will move to competition if the competition is more cost effective for them.
Hah, hah! This is sooo funny!
If the world worked like that, we'd all be running Linux and GPL software.
Do you have any idea how painful it is for enterprise users to change their database vendor?
Even upgrading to the latest version is a nightmare.
I say lucky Firefox, they didn't test performance of plugins.
"Cold" opening a PDF file (with Acrobat Reader not running) is one of most painful experiences ever. The only worst thing on the Web is CLOSING a tab with PDF file open in it. It takes like 45 seconds (which often needs be assisted with CTRL-ALT-DEL and killing areader.exe).
I use Firefox for 90% of my HTTP(S) needs - all respects, it's a nice and good browser, but it not as stable and fast as MS IE.
Did I get this right - they complain how stealing is illegal?
How about "borrowing" a CD-ROM from a music shop, ripping it and then putting it back on the shelf? Is that stealing?
But no matter what I say I'm sure some smart ass will post some quasi counter-arguments...
Before one of top arguments were "bloated" prices of CD-ROMs.
Then after songs became available for 99c a pop (no need to buy a whole set of 12 songs), we've learned how "content wants to be free" and similar crap.
The new Napster service gives you unlimited access to millions (I guess) of songs for a paltry $15/month or so. If you listen your MP3 player 10 hours a day or 300 hours a month, that's 5 cents for each hour of listening. Is that expensive? I don't think so.
To those who "consume" more than a CD a month (I don't), the new Napster might be cheaper than buying from Apple's online store, but in any case, the both are good choices.
I'm trying very hard but can't feel any sympathy for those who complain about this new law.
I would understand if one said "Shit, it's already unethical and now it's illegal, too, but what the hell, I'll try my luck".
Then once you get busted (or if you get busted), you should accept your loss, but you can't object about the law itself - you can only blame your stupidity, shortsightedness, bad luck, etc.
Yet another crazy government idea.
Governments are known to be inefficient and I think that money is badly needed for social programs and whatnot.
If they already want to compete with private enterprises (as this is essentially a service that could be provided by some existing or new private enterprise), they should use some innovative ways.
For example, they could donate WLAN access points to selected households which then can create a big free P2P mesh. Power bill (and "AP management" where applicable) could be paid via tax deductions.
Management: they could employ a small number of people to service WLAN in their 'hoods (configure, fix, reboot, monitor via MRTG, etc.).
They should create and not just spend, goddamn wasters.
> MySQL is GPL so you need to pay if you want to use it in any non-GPL software.
I find it quite amazing how dozens of companies I know have no clue about mySQL licensing. They think everything one finds on a Linux install CDs is free.
While it's unlikely mySQL.com will ever squeeze these guys into paying up, it's funny to see all those bozos thinking they've living in compliance.
Does anyone go: "OK, I need the OS for my mySQL project. I'll benchmark BSD, Linux, Windows, and choose the fastest OS."
Difference among OS should be pretty much unimportant unless one's an ISP or big enterprise. I would choose the OS based on completely different criteria:
1) Existing skillset (advantage to existing skills)
2) Existing deployed OS (advantage to OS already deployed)
3) My company's OS strategy (advantage to the OS and the CPU platform we chose to standardize on)
4) Existing software (if I already have X vendor's backup agent for mySQL on Linux or database tuning tools, I wouldn't use BSD just to (potentially) gain an extra 5% in some ludicrous benchmark result).
Today's hardware (and operating systems) are so cheap that it's almost irrelevant what OS and hardware goes into many a project.
Look at the new HP's 25p and 35p blades (Opteron-based) - a 2 processor 1GB RAM version is just some $1,700 more expensive than a 1 processor 512MB RAM version.
It's easy to lose that $1,700 in downtime, spend it on a Windows engineer's new RHCE or such...
>As they were "randomly" searching 1 out of 3 people, this had a probability of 1 out of 2.1 billion.
Well that's not a problem - that's great for all those who travelled on that route as they were searched (relatively) less frequently than they otherwise would have been!
> As a creationist, the only question which concerns me is Which DB Would Jesus Use?
0 9.html)
I am quite sure Jesus would have endorsed Oracle 10g.
(Big Kahuna: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/013/37.1
Those fucking service agreements... You don't even have to read them - it basically means you can do anything unless the site that provides the service doesn't like that, at which point you'll be kicked out.
The same thing as any "standard" NDAs, EULAs, etc. that everyone agrees to every day. It's all bullshit.
>I think if MS wants to do per-CPU licensing,
MS does not do per-CPU licensing for client software (for example some of it can even be legally installed on multiple computers - at office and home).
> customers are going to be displeased when multi-core chips come on the market or more manufacturers start making systems with multiple moderate power CPUs
Months ago Microsoft was the first major vendor to state that they will use per-socket licensing (i.e. multi-core CPUs will be considered one processor designs).
But as I said above, that has nothing to do with customer/client software. That's only for servers and server software.
I bet it'll take at least 5 years before this new thing makes any inroads in financial customers, but this must be really scary for IBM's MQSeries folks.
Things like MQ Series are bread-and-butter of many sales reps as there's no serious competition to their solution - I haven't talked to many banks, but those to which I did all use MQSeries.
OSS is moving from the edge to the data center, it's already half-way there. Five more years and banks will be able to get 80% of their apps under GPL license.
Utter nonsense.
If anything,
a) that gives legitimacy to Linux
b) that encourages A-V development on Linux because if you do it right, you'll get acquired by Microsoft (or some of their Linuxless competitors)
How the fuck is that interesting? It's outright stupid.
>With how cheap they are speculated to be
Have you seen or heard the price?
>If Cell processors also have the Power4 processors in them, this could be a replacement for x86.
What!? In what what is PowerPC a replacement for x86? If anything, it's the other way around.
x86 doesn't have to compete with PPC (and with this amoeba either) for the simple reason that Microsoft isn't likely to port Windows to it for another five or so years (at least).
Which leaves you with the still tiny UNIX/Linux market - say the Amoeba takes a 100% market share in this space, which will make it probably #3, just behind AMD.
All in all what you say here is all wrong.
> as in knowing my preferences... ie.. remember that I prefer NO BLOGS when I search for news.
Perhaps acquisitions like this could be good for ya - hopefully they'll make a separate search tab "Blogs" which should be quite easy to avoid. Until the acquisition the've probably searched everything at once.
Hate blogs myself.
99.9% of all blogs are absolutely worthless, (compared to about 95% worthlessness of the rest of the Web).
Self-centered assholes before had to earn recognition on a forum or somesuch place, otherwise they'd be kicked/banned. Now it's so effortless - all one needs is a blog and they have the mandate for unlimited pullution of the Web.
>It breaks down traditional corporate moloch, it teaches that anarchy-like goal-driven structures are perfectly viable and can outperform hierarchical companies.
...), and that being selfish (wealth stocpiling, idea holding) is not way to become succesfull.
In a way, that was proven by Al Queda a while ago.
On the other hand, such structures do not excel in creating value, but destroying it.
> It teaches that inforamation must be free (both as beer and as freedom), if it isnt, there will always be ways to free it.
No, it teaches that no matter how you protect something (banks, movies, software), thieves will always find ways to steal it.
> It practicaly demonstrates that acting selfish is not way to go (try throttling bt upload to 1kb/s, see results
Bullshit - if everyone's so generous, then why does eMule ties the max. download speed to the max. upload speed (if you download at 16kb/s you have to upload at 4kb/s)?
The answer is: 90% of people are selfish scum and P2P users are no different, so in order to make the platform viable, the takes must be tied to the gives.
> and that sharing with poor does not mean beeing stupid.
That's what Bill and Belinda Gates do.
> All in all, its kind of hippie like philosophy crossed with viable economy (thats not based around money, but around ideas)
Hilarious! Hippie businessmen? When was the last time you saw the Maddog? It's been A WHILE.
And what happened to the Napster guy? One failure after another until he created a company that plays by the rules.
>I chose it opver and x86 box for one reason: I/O, which is pretty much where all big-iron architectures trounce x86.
Used to be that way - now you can use cluster file systems to run I/O intensive workloads on x86 servers (Google does it 24 x 7).
For example, you can parallelize Oracle databases using Oracle RAC, you can do the same for file and Web servers using a parallel file system like PolyServe Matrix Server, and most application servers have built-in clustering support.
It is a bit more management-intensive, but I've seen Intel-based parallel clusters realize big improvements in performance over expensive UNIX systems they replaced, especially in regard with I/O performance.
A cluster of 8 basic Intel boxes can push data at a rate of 1GB/s. I seriously doubt a pSeries box can do better than that.
SW-Soft's Virtuozzo has been capable of doing that on x86 servers for years.
> The main benefit of running intel apps on i5 is single-level storage.
/. editor posted that blatant ad under disguise of a story makes me sick).
How is this insightful?
And how is this different from running virtual servers in VMware ESX on a quad AMD64 box (lots of memory and cheaper than AIX)?
Single-level storage is nothing but virtualized storage which means there's an I/O bottleneck in this sytem, which in turn makes those virtual servers suitable for CPU and RAM intensive Win/Lin apps (and a very expensive virtualization platform).
(And the fact that the stupid
What's it to you?
Keep using your GPL software.
It really goes on my nerves to see people claim that GPL is the only "free" license?
CDDL? Big deal - download the software and use it - you never have to pay a single cent to Sun.
The point here is that
a) As the fucking article said, Sun's fed up with giving Oracle 50% of every DB deal they close while Oracle constantly competes with their application server platform
and
b) Lack of their "own" database is deterimental to Sun's utility strategy (presumably even IBM can take their lame DB2 and make money by renting it to their utility or Websphere customers), while Sun is stuck with Oracle.
I think GPL databases like mySQL and PostgreSQL are too "Linux-biased" for Sun's liking, so they might be looking for a non-GPL open source DB with enterprise features.
My guess is it's going to be CA's Ingres.
a) It is Open source
b) CA is a non-competitor (no application server)
c) CA has been harmonizing their open source license with Sun's (I wonder why?)
d) CA hopes to make some buck from Ingress and even if they split it even, they're going to make a shitload more than by cooperating with Oracle.
e) Ingres has parallel features like Oracle RAC so it's more suitable for Sun's vision and for enterprise customers than PostgreSQL or other open source databases.
f) Oracle is competing with Sun (Oracle's application servers compete with Sun's J2EE servers/apps); there's no reason for Sun to help Oracle.
I'd really really enjoy see Oracle on their own. I've really had enough of their sales people...
The time for them to pause and think real hard how they're going to compete in the future.
Did they really think their competitors were going to stand idly and watch them take all the money (Oracle + Linux).... Hahahaha....
>Bill Gates is trying to maximize shareholder wealth.
And Bob Young is doing exactly the same.
And (most of) OSS developers are trying to maximize their ego.
And (most of) OEMs are trying to use either Windows or Linux to maximize their shareholder wealth.
All in all, they all want something, and that is the reason why I don't care about that - to me, they're all the same. I use my own head to make my own decisions based on what I like to use, what makes me productive and has a good ROI (meaning that I'll spend $100 bucks on Windows software if it can help me make $150).
> I even have a couple of Fedora Core 2 based servers running 2.4 because 2.6 kept randomly crashing.
That is truly laughable, as you are one of those people whose way of using Linux makes them get less than if they used Windows.
What sane person would use Fedora (any version thereof) for server OS? The same goes for kernel 2.6.
CentOS 3.4, Debian stable, SuSE SLES8 SP3 - these are some examples of stable OS for server use.
I install Linux for others (one every week) and have five systems at home but I have never even tried kernel 2.6.
Your post is very insightful. I think Linux vendors are facing pressure to get their shit together and ultimately this will help, but it won't solve all these problems.
For example, RH AS 2.1 had a big amount of RH-added crap. RH EL 3.0 is better, and RH EL 4.0 will hopefully improve again.
The problem with this is that the more standardized Linux distros are, the less premium they command, so financial gains stand in compatibiliy's way. For Linux vendors, it's going to be hard to find the right balance as the only right balance is using unmodified kernels from kernel.org.