Glad somebody pointed this out... yes, stock price is meaningless for comparison purposes, but market cap. is meaningless also: you can validly argue that a small (in market cap) but successful tech company is making better choices than a big, failing company. I think this is what Raymond was trying to get across, but using the wrong metric to do it, and yes losing some credibility as you say.
What Raymond should have said was that Sun could be like R'hat and have over 200% growth in its stock, for the last two years instead of shrinkage... See:
Clarification on passwords as STO: If passwords were always known only to their creators, then that would be plain security, not STO. But many administrators and organizations "issue" passwords, so that they are known both to their users and also a "select" group at the issuing organization. This is STO because the knowledge of the password by the "liegitimate others" in addition to the user can (like all STO info) be compromised. Further, the principle of non-repudiation is voilated: a user whose password was misued can always blame it on others who officially had access. Passwords created by, and known only to, their users don't have this problem, since there is only pure secrecy, no obscurity.
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Glad somebody pointed this out ... yes, stock price is meaningless for comparison purposes, but market cap. is meaningless also: you can validly argue that a small (in market cap) but successful tech company is making better choices than a big, failing company. I think this is what Raymond was trying to get across, but using the wrong metric to do it, and yes losing some credibility as you say.
... See:
= m&q=l&c=rhat
= m&q=l&c=rhat
What Raymond should have said was that Sun could be like R'hat and have over 200% growth in its stock, for the last two years instead of shrinkage
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SUNW&t=2y&l=off&z
This comparison in growth would be fair, at least not outright wrong at least for the two-year time frame.
But it would mask the fact that RedHat is still the wet spot left by a burst bubble:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SUNW&t=5y&l=off&z
which would be dishonest.
Clarification on passwords as STO: If passwords were always known only to their creators, then that would be plain security, not STO. But many administrators and organizations "issue" passwords, so that they are known both to their users and also a "select" group at the issuing organization. This is STO because the knowledge of the password by the "liegitimate others" in addition to the user can (like all STO info) be compromised. Further, the principle of non-repudiation is voilated: a user whose password was misued can always blame it on others who officially had access. Passwords created by, and known only to, their users don't have this problem, since there is only pure secrecy, no obscurity.