Anyone with their hands on a pre-release version of Tiger is either a pirate or is under an NDA, so I doubt you'll get many answers, but I fully expect a performance boost across the board.
Personally, the biggest care I have is whether or not I can apt-get install openoffice and have it work. If it works, then OpenOffice is open enough for me.
I don't say this because I think that as long as it works, what does it matter. I say this because Debian has a 'pure' open-source philosophy, and in a lot of ways, it will reflect what other distros may well do. A dependancy on Java is fine, and that can be reflected in the packages - except that Debian can't redistribute the Java packages (last I checked) so it can't distribute OpenOffice very well either.
If it can't be installed automatically, then where does Linux's vaunted compability go?
I think the bigger issue, however, is to get a proper open-source Java implementation working. Once we can get a drop-in replacement that works well (I know this is a work in progress at the moment), then it doesn't matter if EVERYTHING depends on Java, because it's a dependancy we can provide.
So instead of cursing the OO.o dev team, let's curse ourselves for not being ready for things of this nature - and put more emphasis on the GNU java classes and an open-source JRE and JDK implementation (and maybe even improvements to GCJ as well) - and then we'll have solved two problems with one stone.
Is it just me, or is this new theme MS seems to be demonstrating quite possibly the worst idea in the history of light waves?
Aside from being dark, the title bar buttons are very small, and are flush with the top of the window - meaning lots of missing them and clicking on the window behind it.
It also seems to add a lot of dimensionality that isn't really needed, and just serves to 'busy-up' the interface. Give me a clean, bright, colourful interface over a dark, plum-colored travesty like this any day.
Except that the person who leaked the show worked for the CBC in Canada, not the BBC.
Anyway, as for watching overseas, dozens of TV channels from around the world have picked up the series - except no American channels have decided to do so. If you can't get those channels, maybe you should talk to your local cable or satellite provider instead of complaining to the BBC.
Re:What will Apple do next?
on
Re-Imagining Apple
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think there are a few key things that has made Steve Jobs' term at Apple a success:
He does whatever he wants - no one is willing to say no to him. Some people follow him out of respect, the rest give in because of fear, but the result is that he gets what he wants
He isn't in marketing - he's not sitting there asking twenty-person focus groups 'what would you want an MP3 player to do?' and then implement it all. He decides what HE wants, and makes everyone around him want it, which spreads swiftly.
Reality is no barrier - the famed Reality Distortion Field has been proven by reams of empirical data. Otherwise rational people will listen to, accept, and eventually evangelize things that have no basis in any real or imagined universe. Steve Jobs can tell you the sky is neon green, and you'll believe him. It won't be too long before you think, 'You know, I think the ocean should be neon green as well,' and eventually people will be selling $800 crystal bottles for you to put your neon green ocean water into.
He's eccentric - just because conventional wisdom says something doesn't mean that he'll listen. He's willing to abandon caution to the wind and go with what feels right - something that people are too afraid to do these days, especially with shareholders breathing down your neck.
He's arrogant - He's right. He knows he's right. You know he's arrogant, but you're too afraid to tell him he's wrong, so you just stay quiet and listen, and eventually, you too realize he's right. He's not afraid to tell you what he thinks, and he doesn't care what you think about it - in the end, you know it's not personal, that's just the way it is.
Generally speaking, all of this boils down to one simple summary: Steve Jobs does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and when he does, he makes you want it too, regardless of the reality of the situation.
Are you talking about \\servername (Windows networking, which is part of Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer), or http://servername/ (just a DNS issue)?
IE has nothing to do with \\servername - that's the built-in Windows networking that uses the file explorer capabilities of Windows, not IE.
I don't know what's worse, that you got modded insightful for this comment (instead of 'funny'), or that I had IE open and was looking for the red 'X' for a good thirty seconds before I got the joke.
It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.
Cables are always a cash cow. At Future Shop one Christmas, we were selling printers at a $5 loss ('lowest price') and selling USB cables for them at a $15 markup.
With proper semantic markup and effective use of CSS (including 'mobile' stylesheets), you can create content that renders fantastically nice on the big screen and simply and effectively on the small screen.
Don't believe me? Load up Konqueror, Firefox, IE, or Opera, and go to http://www.csszengarden.com/. Looks nice, right? I particularly like the design called A Simple Sunrise. Pretty nice actually.
Now grab the link for A Simple Sunrise and look at it in Lynx. More readable than most websites I go to.
With very little work, you could accomplish a design that is similar in colours, but is geared towards mobile users, just by adding a second stylesheet to your site (or another section to the primary one).
The problem isn't the tool that people are using to view the site, the problem is the idiots that write terrible site designs. We've had the technology to do things right for more than five years, and yet no one uses it. Why? Because IE is broken, so no one tries (even though most things can be done in IE and Firefox easily). As a result, people think CSS is useless and can't do a lot of things, and therefore don't try.
More important than that, however, is that most 'web designers' are complete hacks. People who grab a copy of Frontpage and commit an atrocity against design, then turn around and sell it. They don't know anything about actual design, use of colour, shapes, graphic design, and so on, so they just kind of splatter text and graphics on the page and there you go. These sites then completely break in any non-IE browser, and choke any mobile device to death.
The problem is not the device - the problem is the designers.
I'm inclined to weigh in in support of the parent. DRM is for when the media is not yours - for when you are distributing confidential PDFs, renting out digital downloads, providing subscription-based services, providing an 'embedded' system with trade secrets, and so on. If DRM will help these situations come about (I'll pay SciFi $1/show to watch Stargate in HDTV downloads), then I will champion them.
DRM should not be used in situations where the media itself is replacing physical media - buying music online instead of buying a CD, etc. I think FairPlay is a fantastic exception to this rule, as it is very liberal and has only a modicum of restrictions (I think three computers is fair, and no extra fees to play on iPod).
People who want to sell you something and be able to take it back, however, should be revolted against.
What's interesting about this is that in some sense, an iPod user has the least reason to switch, as Apple has done such a good job of making iTunes work as well as it could possibly be expect to on both the Mac and the PC. Is it just a design thing?
I think you miss the point. iPod users aren't switching because they want compatibility or more support, they're switching because they realize that, hey, this is just plain better. The iPod is easy to use, friendly, simple, and it does what it's supposed to do, so hey, let's give the Mac a try, and whoosh.
Ah, not so! Even before apt came around, we used dselect to pick our packages and manage dependancies, and then used the http or ftp backends to fetch the packages; then dselect would unpack, configure, and do removals, and everything was hunky-dory.
Apt just makes it even easier than it was to do what Debian was able to do beforehand.
I'll second this one as well. I've had a few instances where someone turning on a TV or monitor has caused me to flee from the room because of the sound, which they, to my surprise, were oblivious to. It doesn't seem as bad as perhaps yours might be, but I've definitely noticed the same effect.
What gets me is that I know it's not 'better hearing' - I have worse hearing and eyesight than most people, and yet I can still pick up on flicker (including some fluorescants) and monitor squeal (from lousy TVs).
Hell, if anyone wants a gmail invite, I have 50, as does everyone else I know. I'm sure those on Slashdot with accounts could easily provide invites to those without accounts.
Fedora is the basic RedHat-without-the-cost installation, and has very little going for it in the server space, other than being free and easy. The one thing it does have, however, is support from other applications.
Other than providing an RPM installation mechanism (and thus supporting software distributed via RPM) and being based off of RedHat (and thus working well with e.g. Oracle), it has one major benefit in the hosting market: control panels.
Popular webhosting services (I use Serverbeach as an example because I've dealt with them and know their URL offhand) offer, generally speaking, Redhat, and as such, the administration control panels available have generally targeted RedHat. ServerBeach now offers Debian servers, but as of yet, does not offer Plesk, Ensim, or CPanel on these servers, because they are not supported.
As such, when a user goes to a company like ServerBeach and wants a control panel, they have to choose Fedora as their option in order to get it. That being said, things in that realm are changing.
Firstly, I noticed that Plesk has Debian 3.1 support coming out in March. At that point, Plesk will be available on servers running Debian (such as those ServerBeach provides). Additionally, cPanel is working on support for Debian 3.0 (which will be easily ported to 3.1, likely with no changes) which is currently in beta. Ensim, from what I can tell, has no plans to support Debian, though for all I know it could be announced tomorrow.
Once the popular control panels are available with Debian, then it will be easier for all-Debian companies like my own to use and promote Debian in our hosting environments. The ease-of-management provided by e.g. Plesk, along with the ease-of-maintenance and upgrading (not to mention longevity) provided by Debian. How could it go wrong?
And since Ubuntu is so similar to Debian, it wouldn't be hard for these manufacturers to support that as well, giving it a boost too.
I was thinking of something similar a while ago, when I was struggling to set up a mail system that was new and improved, and yet worked with the previous configuration the company had.
What I've decided is that e-mail needs to be simpler. Instead of four different daemons (IMAPd, POP3d, SMTPd, LDAP, and optionally an SQL server) running seven different protocols and standards (SMTP, IMAP, POP3, LDAP, SQL, SASL, SSL, TLS, SQL) that still don't work together because the e-mail clients all suck (with the possible exception of Evolution, which everyone here used to use until they switched to Windows from Linux) and don't work as expected.
What I thought of was a single, simple e-mail system. One daemon, handling incoming and outgoing messages, and handling local delivery and mail retrieval as well. One protocol for doing all of this.
The remote host connects. By default, they have 'anonymous' access unless they match an ACL (they can provide username/password, use TLS auth, SASL, SSL, check remote host, check remote ident, etc). Anonymous hosts generally have no access, though sites can allow access for things like browsing a support forum or access to a public contact book (since this system is basically a threaded message storage system).
Authenticated users (generally) can access 'their mail' - mailboxes can be created and assigned to groups, which provides them access to read/write those mailboxes, or users, which provides access to users only.
Messages can be flagged in all manner of ways, such as 'shared'/'public' (so anyone can go to 'Dan's Shared Mail' and see any messages that are there), 'replied to' (and the reply is automatically threaded to the original message as well), and so on.
Messages are always sent through the mail server assigned to the account one is sending from - all your configuration data stays on the server, so all you need is the servername, username, and password (depending on how ACLs are set up), and you're in. You can use any client on any machine, including web-based clients, and have immediate access to all of your mail and all mail functions.
Messages can be reassigned to other users, groups, or mailboxes (so messages bound for support@ but sent to sales@ by a confused user can be easily redirected back to support@).
Servers can establish one-time connections to other servers (for the purposes of sending mail from one server to another) or persistant connections (for e.g. mailbox sharing, collaboration across domains or companies, outsourcing of customer support to a third party company, and so forth).
Since, in this new mail system, users have to authenticate to their local mail server to be able to send mail (unless the remote host allows anonymous reciept), it would eliminate spam by allowing admins to block/filter non-authenticated messages, and/or to block authenticated users and/or hosts that send unsolicited e-mail.
It would have one protocol that would provide access to all the functions of the server - the address book, the mailboxes, sending/recieving, and so on. One persistant connection can be established, or the client can be put into batch mode, where it does essentially burst transmissions - sending and recieving all at once, syncronizing all relevant data, and then disconnecting (for offline use or in situations where connections cost money, such as dial-up or GSM data streams).
For backwards-compatibility, servers could provide the option for SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and LDAP access, so that the rest of the internet would be able to send them messages and recieve their data. As time goes on, and more and more software is designed that utilizes this protocol/architecture, admins could slowly drop support for older protocols. Once a good mail client supports it, for example, and an office migrates to that client (or to a selection of clients), then the admin could remove compatibility with IMAP/POP3.
Well, that's my rant. I've probably just described something like Exchange or Groupwise (which I've never used so I know nothing about them), but hey, it was fun.
Love it or hate it, the hot running, inefficient Intel / AMD cpu delivers more peak compute than any high I/O UNIX platform does. And it's cheap.
I dunno, universities, laboratories and the like have been loving the G4, and the G5 is more and better. Yeah, it runs a little hotter, but it's still a sweet beast regardless, and it comes with a solid 64-bit UNIX core. The question I don't have the answer to, though, is whether or not it runs what you want. I suspect it would though.
Well isn't that a result of Oracle's licensing? I mean, should Sun have to say 'Yes, we have this great new processor and it will make things faster, but oh, here is every piece of software that might not work or might charge you more money', and investigate everything their clients use?
Yes, it sucks that Oracle is trying to (and succeeding in) bend people over a barrel, but look at both sides: Sun is selling processors as processors, and Oracle is treating them as dual processors. Both have their points, but look at things from different angles.
Does Oracle provide a way to limit how many CPUs it runs on? Can you put it on an 8-processor machine and tell it to only use four? If not, then too bad for them, and it's not Sun's fault. If so, then too bad for the DBA that didn't configure it, and it's still not Sun's fault.
If I have a badass database server with 4 dual-core processors and only want to pay for a 4-processor license, then let me pay for that, limit it to four cores, and then I can use the other four processors for database maintenance tasks (cronjobs and so on) if I want to. One dual-core for the kernel and system processes, and one for background processes, cronjobs, etc.
I don't think it's fair to blame Sun when companies get screwed by Oracle's licensing. Besides, if you buy hardware, you should know everything that that entails. If you don't do your research, you deserve to get screwed.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone with their hands on a pre-release version of Tiger is either a pirate or is under an NDA, so I doubt you'll get many answers, but I fully expect a performance boost across the board.
Sun - Stanford University ('Sun' was originally an abbreviation for Stanford University Network)
Unless you have an Airport Express card, in which case your freedom only lasts until your Cat5 pulls taut, and then you're stuck.
Not that that bothers me, mind you. I've been trying to get a copy of OS X for my (second-hand) Powerbook for weeks, and when I do, wireless = happy.
Personally, the biggest care I have is whether or not I can apt-get install openoffice and have it work. If it works, then OpenOffice is open enough for me.
I don't say this because I think that as long as it works, what does it matter. I say this because Debian has a 'pure' open-source philosophy, and in a lot of ways, it will reflect what other distros may well do. A dependancy on Java is fine, and that can be reflected in the packages - except that Debian can't redistribute the Java packages (last I checked) so it can't distribute OpenOffice very well either.
If it can't be installed automatically, then where does Linux's vaunted compability go?
I think the bigger issue, however, is to get a proper open-source Java implementation working. Once we can get a drop-in replacement that works well (I know this is a work in progress at the moment), then it doesn't matter if EVERYTHING depends on Java, because it's a dependancy we can provide.
So instead of cursing the OO.o dev team, let's curse ourselves for not being ready for things of this nature - and put more emphasis on the GNU java classes and an open-source JRE and JDK implementation (and maybe even improvements to GCJ as well) - and then we'll have solved two problems with one stone.
Is it just me, or is this new theme MS seems to be demonstrating quite possibly the worst idea in the history of light waves?
Aside from being dark, the title bar buttons are very small, and are flush with the top of the window - meaning lots of missing them and clicking on the window behind it.
It also seems to add a lot of dimensionality that isn't really needed, and just serves to 'busy-up' the interface. Give me a clean, bright, colourful interface over a dark, plum-colored travesty like this any day.
The DMCA was not designed to put the government's nose into every aspect of your life. I was designed by content providers/creators...
First the DMCA takes away our rights, and now it's posting on slashdot! Will the tyranny ever end?!
Except that the person who leaked the show worked for the CBC in Canada, not the BBC.
Anyway, as for watching overseas, dozens of TV channels from around the world have picked up the series - except no American channels have decided to do so. If you can't get those channels, maybe you should talk to your local cable or satellite provider instead of complaining to the BBC.
I think there are a few key things that has made Steve Jobs' term at Apple a success:
Generally speaking, all of this boils down to one simple summary: Steve Jobs does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and when he does, he makes you want it too, regardless of the reality of the situation.
Are you talking about \\servername (Windows networking, which is part of Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer), or http://servername/ (just a DNS issue)?
IE has nothing to do with \\servername - that's the built-in Windows networking that uses the file explorer capabilities of Windows, not IE.
I don't know what's worse, that you got modded insightful for this comment (instead of 'funny'), or that I had IE open and was looking for the red 'X' for a good thirty seconds before I got the joke.
It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.
Cables are always a cash cow. At Future Shop one Christmas, we were selling printers at a $5 loss ('lowest price') and selling USB cables for them at a $15 markup.
With proper semantic markup and effective use of CSS (including 'mobile' stylesheets), you can create content that renders fantastically nice on the big screen and simply and effectively on the small screen.
Don't believe me? Load up Konqueror, Firefox, IE, or Opera, and go to http://www.csszengarden.com/. Looks nice, right? I particularly like the design called A Simple Sunrise. Pretty nice actually.
Now grab the link for A Simple Sunrise and look at it in Lynx. More readable than most websites I go to.
With very little work, you could accomplish a design that is similar in colours, but is geared towards mobile users, just by adding a second stylesheet to your site (or another section to the primary one).
The problem isn't the tool that people are using to view the site, the problem is the idiots that write terrible site designs. We've had the technology to do things right for more than five years, and yet no one uses it. Why? Because IE is broken, so no one tries (even though most things can be done in IE and Firefox easily). As a result, people think CSS is useless and can't do a lot of things, and therefore don't try.
More important than that, however, is that most 'web designers' are complete hacks. People who grab a copy of Frontpage and commit an atrocity against design, then turn around and sell it. They don't know anything about actual design, use of colour, shapes, graphic design, and so on, so they just kind of splatter text and graphics on the page and there you go. These sites then completely break in any non-IE browser, and choke any mobile device to death.
The problem is not the device - the problem is the designers.
I'm inclined to weigh in in support of the parent. DRM is for when the media is not yours - for when you are distributing confidential PDFs, renting out digital downloads, providing subscription-based services, providing an 'embedded' system with trade secrets, and so on. If DRM will help these situations come about (I'll pay SciFi $1/show to watch Stargate in HDTV downloads), then I will champion them.
DRM should not be used in situations where the media itself is replacing physical media - buying music online instead of buying a CD, etc. I think FairPlay is a fantastic exception to this rule, as it is very liberal and has only a modicum of restrictions (I think three computers is fair, and no extra fees to play on iPod).
People who want to sell you something and be able to take it back, however, should be revolted against.
However, I think what theyre really saying is, "sales of symantec products poor in the UK."
This goes well with their 'Sales of Symantec problems poor on OS X' article from yesterday.
What's interesting about this is that in some sense, an iPod user has the least reason to switch, as Apple has done such a good job of making iTunes work as well as it could possibly be expect to on both the Mac and the PC. Is it just a design thing?
I think you miss the point. iPod users aren't switching because they want compatibility or more support, they're switching because they realize that, hey, this is just plain better. The iPod is easy to use, friendly, simple, and it does what it's supposed to do, so hey, let's give the Mac a try, and whoosh.
In total, we are organizing events in around 15 countries and over 100 cities.
Ouch... I'd hate to be their local Debian mirror.
Ah, not so! Even before apt came around, we used dselect to pick our packages and manage dependancies, and then used the http or ftp backends to fetch the packages; then dselect would unpack, configure, and do removals, and everything was hunky-dory.
Apt just makes it even easier than it was to do what Debian was able to do beforehand.
And, if you so choose, programs to strip the files of their DRM as well, in a lossless manner.
The difference is that Microsoft never announces anything exciting or innovative, in stark contrast to Apple.
I'll second this one as well. I've had a few instances where someone turning on a TV or monitor has caused me to flee from the room because of the sound, which they, to my surprise, were oblivious to. It doesn't seem as bad as perhaps yours might be, but I've definitely noticed the same effect.
What gets me is that I know it's not 'better hearing' - I have worse hearing and eyesight than most people, and yet I can still pick up on flicker (including some fluorescants) and monitor squeal (from lousy TVs).
Hell, if anyone wants a gmail invite, I have 50, as does everyone else I know. I'm sure those on Slashdot with accounts could easily provide invites to those without accounts.
Fedora is the basic RedHat-without-the-cost installation, and has very little going for it in the server space, other than being free and easy. The one thing it does have, however, is support from other applications.
Other than providing an RPM installation mechanism (and thus supporting software distributed via RPM) and being based off of RedHat (and thus working well with e.g. Oracle), it has one major benefit in the hosting market: control panels.
Popular webhosting services (I use Serverbeach as an example because I've dealt with them and know their URL offhand) offer, generally speaking, Redhat, and as such, the administration control panels available have generally targeted RedHat. ServerBeach now offers Debian servers, but as of yet, does not offer Plesk, Ensim, or CPanel on these servers, because they are not supported.
As such, when a user goes to a company like ServerBeach and wants a control panel, they have to choose Fedora as their option in order to get it. That being said, things in that realm are changing.
Firstly, I noticed that Plesk has Debian 3.1 support coming out in March. At that point, Plesk will be available on servers running Debian (such as those ServerBeach provides). Additionally, cPanel is working on support for Debian 3.0 (which will be easily ported to 3.1, likely with no changes) which is currently in beta. Ensim, from what I can tell, has no plans to support Debian, though for all I know it could be announced tomorrow.
Once the popular control panels are available with Debian, then it will be easier for all-Debian companies like my own to use and promote Debian in our hosting environments. The ease-of-management provided by e.g. Plesk, along with the ease-of-maintenance and upgrading (not to mention longevity) provided by Debian. How could it go wrong?
And since Ubuntu is so similar to Debian, it wouldn't be hard for these manufacturers to support that as well, giving it a boost too.
Things are looking good for Debian.
I was thinking of something similar a while ago, when I was struggling to set up a mail system that was new and improved, and yet worked with the previous configuration the company had.
What I've decided is that e-mail needs to be simpler. Instead of four different daemons (IMAPd, POP3d, SMTPd, LDAP, and optionally an SQL server) running seven different protocols and standards (SMTP, IMAP, POP3, LDAP, SQL, SASL, SSL, TLS, SQL) that still don't work together because the e-mail clients all suck (with the possible exception of Evolution, which everyone here used to use until they switched to Windows from Linux) and don't work as expected.
What I thought of was a single, simple e-mail system. One daemon, handling incoming and outgoing messages, and handling local delivery and mail retrieval as well. One protocol for doing all of this.
The remote host connects. By default, they have 'anonymous' access unless they match an ACL (they can provide username/password, use TLS auth, SASL, SSL, check remote host, check remote ident, etc). Anonymous hosts generally have no access, though sites can allow access for things like browsing a support forum or access to a public contact book (since this system is basically a threaded message storage system).
Authenticated users (generally) can access 'their mail' - mailboxes can be created and assigned to groups, which provides them access to read/write those mailboxes, or users, which provides access to users only.
Messages can be flagged in all manner of ways, such as 'shared'/'public' (so anyone can go to 'Dan's Shared Mail' and see any messages that are there), 'replied to' (and the reply is automatically threaded to the original message as well), and so on.
Messages are always sent through the mail server assigned to the account one is sending from - all your configuration data stays on the server, so all you need is the servername, username, and password (depending on how ACLs are set up), and you're in. You can use any client on any machine, including web-based clients, and have immediate access to all of your mail and all mail functions.
Messages can be reassigned to other users, groups, or mailboxes (so messages bound for support@ but sent to sales@ by a confused user can be easily redirected back to support@).
Servers can establish one-time connections to other servers (for the purposes of sending mail from one server to another) or persistant connections (for e.g. mailbox sharing, collaboration across domains or companies, outsourcing of customer support to a third party company, and so forth).
Since, in this new mail system, users have to authenticate to their local mail server to be able to send mail (unless the remote host allows anonymous reciept), it would eliminate spam by allowing admins to block/filter non-authenticated messages, and/or to block authenticated users and/or hosts that send unsolicited e-mail.
It would have one protocol that would provide access to all the functions of the server - the address book, the mailboxes, sending/recieving, and so on. One persistant connection can be established, or the client can be put into batch mode, where it does essentially burst transmissions - sending and recieving all at once, syncronizing all relevant data, and then disconnecting (for offline use or in situations where connections cost money, such as dial-up or GSM data streams).
For backwards-compatibility, servers could provide the option for SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and LDAP access, so that the rest of the internet would be able to send them messages and recieve their data. As time goes on, and more and more software is designed that utilizes this protocol/architecture, admins could slowly drop support for older protocols. Once a good mail client supports it, for example, and an office migrates to that client (or to a selection of clients), then the admin could remove compatibility with IMAP/POP3.
Well, that's my rant. I've probably just described something like Exchange or Groupwise (which I've never used so I know nothing about them), but hey, it was fun.
Love it or hate it, the hot running, inefficient Intel / AMD cpu delivers more peak compute than any high I/O UNIX platform does. And it's cheap.
I dunno, universities, laboratories and the like have been loving the G4, and the G5 is more and better. Yeah, it runs a little hotter, but it's still a sweet beast regardless, and it comes with a solid 64-bit UNIX core. The question I don't have the answer to, though, is whether or not it runs what you want. I suspect it would though.
Well isn't that a result of Oracle's licensing? I mean, should Sun have to say 'Yes, we have this great new processor and it will make things faster, but oh, here is every piece of software that might not work or might charge you more money', and investigate everything their clients use?
Yes, it sucks that Oracle is trying to (and succeeding in) bend people over a barrel, but look at both sides: Sun is selling processors as processors, and Oracle is treating them as dual processors. Both have their points, but look at things from different angles.
Does Oracle provide a way to limit how many CPUs it runs on? Can you put it on an 8-processor machine and tell it to only use four? If not, then too bad for them, and it's not Sun's fault. If so, then too bad for the DBA that didn't configure it, and it's still not Sun's fault.
If I have a badass database server with 4 dual-core processors and only want to pay for a 4-processor license, then let me pay for that, limit it to four cores, and then I can use the other four processors for database maintenance tasks (cronjobs and so on) if I want to. One dual-core for the kernel and system processes, and one for background processes, cronjobs, etc.
I don't think it's fair to blame Sun when companies get screwed by Oracle's licensing. Besides, if you buy hardware, you should know everything that that entails. If you don't do your research, you deserve to get screwed.