It isn't the value from Sun's POV that matters as much as the value from NetBSD's POV. NetBSD would have never have gone out and bought Sun Studio for themselves.
Huh? A 16 core opteron server would probably perform better than a 64-way E10K. That's seven years difference in hardware improvement and Solaris kernel tuning.
If someone determines they need better RAS, then get a UltraSPARC IV uniboard server.
What does a IBM pSeries matter? Sun is less expensive and most people would rather use Solaris than AIX, anyway.
Gates won't be able to leverage his closed standards because NONE of the telecom providers are going to just GIVE HIM CONTROL.
On top of that, I'd bet that Microsoft has zero presence in the telecom infrastructure. Sun and HP don't sell their NEBS/Mil-spec servers at a price premium because the telcos are shopping for Windows!
I personally do not go browsing or searching for things on my phone that I do not implicitly trust.
It doesn't matter. Once networked using TCP/IP, the worms come to you. In my personal firewall logs, pretty much all incoming connection attempts are Microsoft-specific regarding that messaging nonsense or filesharing or whatever. If I had a standard Windows machine in the DMZ, it would be toast in no time flat. It probably wouldn't be long before Magneto phones on wireless networks are just as bad.
Thankfully, my firewall runs BSD...and isn't even x86. The worm bots out there can eat my shorts, for all I care.
All the applications I am using now are 32-bit, in spite of having a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit OS kernel. However, this is Solaris, so who knows if Microsoft will be as successful.
For people who used the first releases of Solaris 7 (my memory is fuzzy), were there many issues back then? I would think there would be more issues in converting a 32-bit program into a 64-bit one, rather than having any issues running a 32-bit program on a 64-bit kernel.
Regarding other FOSS topics, she asked some important questions about the CDDL, when it was announced, but there was too much speculation that tainted the discussion. If she had just asked a series of fair questions without resorting to painting Sun in a bad light, that would have been perfectly okay. The saddest thing is when Slashdot posts link back to Groklaw, as if her opinions about the CDDL are somehow authoritative.
Yeah, I bet that she ends up on Fox News or CNN as a "legal analyst". News doesn't matter anymore. If it isn't inflamatory, biased, speculative, or downright wrong, the major networks won't bother running it.
There's certainly a lot brewing at Sun, and a lot of it is subtle. However, piecing things together, along with hints dropped by McNealy and Schwartz here and there, indicates a whale about to emerge from what seems to be a quiet sea over at Sun.
From what I gather, this is the minimum I am expecting in the next several years (I am _not_ an insider--this is just speculation based on public information):
- a complete open source platform, from the OpenSolaris kernel (buildable with GCC) up through Java continuing up through all of JES, including an SQL database. All this backed by Sun, as a big axe to the head of.NET, primarily, but also as a value added alternative to Linux (although JES runs on Linux, too).
- Subscription-based SunRay desktops delivered to peoples' homes. These would be hosted in a secure Solaris 10 Container, managed within their Grid environment, and delivered over their new SunRay software that can go over broadband. The environment would be GNOME, StarOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, GIMP 2, etc. (all the stuff bundled in JDS). Peripheral support would be through USB, so local printers, etc. should be possible. They would have zero-administration with a 1-800 number to call for support. Buying a computer would finally be like buying a telephone.
- I would expect their Galaxy servers are aiming to crush the benchmarks (anything less would be disappointing, IMO). The leaked specs from a month or so ago put the 8-socket system with 8 or so PCI Express slots. If they are all independent busses, that would make for a 16-core Opteron system in 4U that can push something like 40GB/sec to NICs, direct attached storage, etc. If that wouldn't make for a scary database server, I don't know what would.
- Once all the announced features are shipped for Solaris 10 (ZFS, Janus, e.g.), Sun will probably be the only vendor in the world that can allow sysadmins to really use today's rediculous CPUs in a reliable manner (containers, self healing, ZFS checksums, etc.). If Sun's numbers are right, a single Solaris 10 server could replace several Linux or Windows servers, dividing server rooms by non-trivial factors. It'll be a while before the lightbulb appears above sysadmins' heads everywhere, but the potential savings are too good to ignore. Given that Solaris 10 is free right-to-use, no one else comes close.
- Renting time on the Sun Compute Grid could be huge, once people realize that the cost could easily be put into simple expense reports. In government contracting, it would be a matter of submitting the costs through the appropriate project charge number. This would bypass the rediculous hardware procurement process, which is awful. Of course, for classified work, something else is needed, but imagine a geographically distributed standards development team developing a reference implementation without needing to buy a new server or new storage for the project or having to bother sysadmins with it.
In other news, the first automobile to achieve earth orbit was a Diahatsu Charade, after being rear ended by a semi along I-80 near Mishawaka, Indiana. The driver of the Diahatsu was not available for comment, but the truck driver said it was unlike anything he had seen before. He said he wasn't sure he had hit anything, but the smoke trail leading up into the sky confirmed his suspicion. He didn't know that it was a car until reports of a UFO sighting were investigated by astronomers at the University of Chicago.
An astronomer commented that his jaw dropped upon seeing the telescope data appear on his monitor. "There it was plain as day. A little car with a dented trunk passing right through Orion's belt," he said, "We weren't sure how to classify the object, but eventually decided to add it to the space junk database to ensure it didn't threaten any legitimate satellite activity."
The Guiness Book of World Records is also on hand to document this historic event. "The Highest Altitude Achieved By Automobile" will be a new category in their next edition of their famous book. "This is definitely one of the more fun categories in a while," commented the editor.
The vast majority of markets Microsoft competes in are inevitably going to be dominated by commodity software. Microsoft's revenue is like a sand castle, and the tide is coming in (Linux is free, Solaris is now free, OpenOffice.org is free, GNOME is free...all are "good enough").
Instead of everyone colliding, I'd think that Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris get cozy as the new systems triumverate of the industry.
Once Microsoft is made fully redundant, at least on a pricing basis, people will basically have three choices: the style and elegance of Mac OS, the pragmatic and popular Linux, and the data center prowess and mature kernel of Solaris.
Sun is actually pretty smart in this game. By making Solaris open source this summer, they guarantee it a staying power that all other UNIX systems can't have. Why choose AIX or HPUX, when Solaris competes on their turf but is free and OSS? This summer Solaris will become the de facto winner of the UNIX wars, if there were any doubts before.
In all this, it's important that everyone realize that Darwin, Linux, and SunOS do compete, but they will reinforce eachother. Each one has things the others don't, and this will only drive things forward to our benefit.
From the announcement: "Sun also provided licenses for SunOne Studio 9"
That's plural, and each Studio 9 license retails for $2,995.00.
If there were several licenses, for example, this means the donation could be "worth" up to $10K or more. Sun Studio also comes with good documentation, a good debugger, run-time profiling and memory usage checking, etc. NetBSD could even use this for improving NetBSD itself, depending on their dev tool policies (Studio is not open source).
Numbers of exploits are irrelevant. Microsoft's products are not worth the price paid, and that's the whole point. Look how much GNOME has advanced in the past two years, and consider that it'll be another two years before Longhorn ships. Also, look at how Apple completely took Microsoft by suprise with Mac OS X. It'll be until Longhorn ships (_years_ after Mac OS X) that Microsoft even comes close.
1) The Sun Grid is highly underrated. Most companies could probably cut their server rooms in half by renting time on someone else's grid and avoiding the added power bills, staffing, years-long depreciation, benefits expenses, etc. Private servers are _expensive_. Microsoft's kludges are _expensive_.
2) SunRay is highly underrated. At the most recent quarterly announcement, Sun hinted at a "Display Grid" that involves free SunRays in exchange for services subscriptions. Imagine having just a thin client on your desk at home, using practically no electiricty, with no moving parts to break, no fans, no system administration, and only a power cable and a broadband adapter to set up. It's the ultimate "grandma approved" PC.
3) Solaris 10 is some seriously cool stuff. They've integrated much of Trusted Solaris into the standard system, and it ships with virtualization features that no one else comes close to for the price. Containers+ZFS+SMF=one hell of a tough server. Also, JDS3 is the best desktop on UNIX, ever (CDE is finally #2, OpenWindows is gone).
4) The latest StarOffice/OpenOffice.org plus JDS gives corporate customers with large installed bases something to think about. Microsoft is most definitely the most expensive desktop system, now, which puts Microsoft-only customers at a competitive disadvantage. CFOs looking at their financial statements start to wonder whether those massive licensing and support costs for Microsoft's software are worth it.
5) J2EE middleware is the main competition to.NET middleware. Also, Sun has hinted that their entire JES stack will go open source, including a database, and that they will support the Apache Harmony project to some extent. Comparing a.NET stack to JES should be a no-brainer.
That's a really good point. Add that future consoles will play at HD resolutions, and even the benefits of a high-res computer monitor go away. A modest HDTV, receiver, and good all-around speakers will destroy the PC gaming experience for less cost overall, especially considering that the same HDTV components apply to watching movies and TV, also.
IMO, there is huge potential for appliances like this, because of the zero-admin aspect of them. Just point e-mail clients to the appliance, and there's instant email. E-mail is pretty well understood, now, and there's nothing that would prevent an appliance from providing a web interface that covers all the basics (aliases, attachment blocking, etc.).
This is also where people wondering about Sun's Grid can better understand their pitch. It's a matter of outsourcing _all_ system administration that isn't specifically related to your app. There is also no hardware procurement and depreciation cycles. No additional sysadmin payroll taxes and benefits.
It seems IBM is testing the waters on this front, too, with their rent-a-supercomputer that was in the press recently. Also, offloading their PC division might indicate some foresight into the future of thick clients. Even Sun is hinting at giving away SunRays in the future if people sign up for a "desktop service plan", not unlike cell phones or cable TV.
I wonder how Microsoft could compete in the 'grid' marketplace. They certainly don't have the virtualization technology that IBM and Sun have, unless they plan on running virtual PCs on Windows servers. However, the odds that Microsoft could host multiple companies on the same set of servers securely are slim, while Sun and IBM can basically guarantee security, at least at the OS level.
The biggest problem with Firefox at the moment is that these features aren't well-advertised and you have to do a lot of googling to find documentation on the more esoteric stuff.
I found most of the important customizations in the preferences dialog, such as unchecking all the automatic stuff and crippling javascript, and the bookmarks editor is fairly self-explanitory. The Flash blocker extention is also critical, but was easy to install. Occasionally, I'll dip into about:config to tweak my useragent and a few other things, but those are 100% optional. Probably the hardest thing by far, at least on UNIX, is to put all the appropriate symlinks into the plugins directory.
Perhaps Firefox should direct users to the preferences area on the first use, at least to make it clearer there is more than just a browser window.
GNOME and KDE are to a point where they are basically on par with Windows, in terms of usability. More ISVs need to recognize this and go back to supporting UNIX (and Linux). It's interesting how what's old can become new again.
I imagine Microsoft is like a water baloon being squeezed from below by Linux and from above by Apple and with Solaris sticking needles into the sides. How long until it pops?
Microsoft is an expert at observing the trends set by everyone else, integrating those trends under their brand, and selling them as an innovative product with millions of dollars worth of marketing.
I don't think Microsoft has ever been first to market in any significant market segment.
What's your take on the Libertarians' notion of conservatism? What if it isn't possible to reconcile modern Republicanism with what you think conservatism should be? Are your friends' opinions indicative of a larger dissention within the Republican party, where the Republican party could even split into its capitalist, religious zealot, and political conservatist factions?
Sorry about the questions, but I don't know the answers to all this, either.
Oh, I should add that the Republicans-in-name-only need to be excused from this criticism, because to stay politically viable they found a need to ally with the major parties.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't the value from Sun's POV that matters as much as the value from NetBSD's POV. NetBSD would have never have gone out and bought Sun Studio for themselves.
Huh? A 16 core opteron server would probably perform better than a 64-way E10K. That's seven years difference in hardware improvement and Solaris kernel tuning.
If someone determines they need better RAS, then get a UltraSPARC IV uniboard server.
What does a IBM pSeries matter? Sun is less expensive and most people would rather use Solaris than AIX, anyway.
Gates won't be able to leverage his closed standards because NONE of the telecom providers are going to just GIVE HIM CONTROL.
On top of that, I'd bet that Microsoft has zero presence in the telecom infrastructure. Sun and HP don't sell their NEBS/Mil-spec servers at a price premium because the telcos are shopping for Windows!
I personally do not go browsing or searching for things on my phone that I do not implicitly trust.
It doesn't matter. Once networked using TCP/IP, the worms come to you. In my personal firewall logs, pretty much all incoming connection attempts are Microsoft-specific regarding that messaging nonsense or filesharing or whatever. If I had a standard Windows machine in the DMZ, it would be toast in no time flat. It probably wouldn't be long before Magneto phones on wireless networks are just as bad.
Thankfully, my firewall runs BSD...and isn't even x86. The worm bots out there can eat my shorts, for all I care.
All the applications I am using now are 32-bit, in spite of having a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit OS kernel. However, this is Solaris, so who knows if Microsoft will be as successful.
For people who used the first releases of Solaris 7 (my memory is fuzzy), were there many issues back then? I would think there would be more issues in converting a 32-bit program into a 64-bit one, rather than having any issues running a 32-bit program on a 64-bit kernel.
Regarding other FOSS topics, she asked some important questions about the CDDL, when it was announced, but there was too much speculation that tainted the discussion. If she had just asked a series of fair questions without resorting to painting Sun in a bad light, that would have been perfectly okay. The saddest thing is when Slashdot posts link back to Groklaw, as if her opinions about the CDDL are somehow authoritative.
Yeah, I bet that she ends up on Fox News or CNN as a "legal analyst". News doesn't matter anymore. If it isn't inflamatory, biased, speculative, or downright wrong, the major networks won't bother running it.
Microsoft is likely ramping up production _now_ to have enough in stock for the first few months of sales.
You know it's bad when 14 year olds look like Homer Simpson and are just as articulate.
There's certainly a lot brewing at Sun, and a lot of it is subtle. However, piecing things together, along with hints dropped by McNealy and Schwartz here and there, indicates a whale about to emerge from what seems to be a quiet sea over at Sun.
.NET, primarily, but also as a value added alternative to Linux (although JES runs on Linux, too).
From what I gather, this is the minimum I am expecting in the next several years (I am _not_ an insider--this is just speculation based on public information):
- a complete open source platform, from the OpenSolaris kernel (buildable with GCC) up through Java continuing up through all of JES, including an SQL database. All this backed by Sun, as a big axe to the head of
- Subscription-based SunRay desktops delivered to peoples' homes. These would be hosted in a secure Solaris 10 Container, managed within their Grid environment, and delivered over their new SunRay software that can go over broadband. The environment would be GNOME, StarOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, GIMP 2, etc. (all the stuff bundled in JDS). Peripheral support would be through USB, so local printers, etc. should be possible. They would have zero-administration with a 1-800 number to call for support. Buying a computer would finally be like buying a telephone.
- I would expect their Galaxy servers are aiming to crush the benchmarks (anything less would be disappointing, IMO). The leaked specs from a month or so ago put the 8-socket system with 8 or so PCI Express slots. If they are all independent busses, that would make for a 16-core Opteron system in 4U that can push something like 40GB/sec to NICs, direct attached storage, etc. If that wouldn't make for a scary database server, I don't know what would.
- Once all the announced features are shipped for Solaris 10 (ZFS, Janus, e.g.), Sun will probably be the only vendor in the world that can allow sysadmins to really use today's rediculous CPUs in a reliable manner (containers, self healing, ZFS checksums, etc.). If Sun's numbers are right, a single Solaris 10 server could replace several Linux or Windows servers, dividing server rooms by non-trivial factors. It'll be a while before the lightbulb appears above sysadmins' heads everywhere, but the potential savings are too good to ignore. Given that Solaris 10 is free right-to-use, no one else comes close.
- Renting time on the Sun Compute Grid could be huge, once people realize that the cost could easily be put into simple expense reports. In government contracting, it would be a matter of submitting the costs through the appropriate project charge number. This would bypass the rediculous hardware procurement process, which is awful. Of course, for classified work, something else is needed, but imagine a geographically distributed standards development team developing a reference implementation without needing to buy a new server or new storage for the project or having to bother sysadmins with it.
A Diahatsu Charade weighs 1587 lbs...
In other news, the first automobile to achieve earth orbit was a Diahatsu Charade, after being rear ended by a semi along I-80 near Mishawaka, Indiana. The driver of the Diahatsu was not available for comment, but the truck driver said it was unlike anything he had seen before. He said he wasn't sure he had hit anything, but the smoke trail leading up into the sky confirmed his suspicion. He didn't know that it was a car until reports of a UFO sighting were investigated by astronomers at the University of Chicago.
An astronomer commented that his jaw dropped upon seeing the telescope data appear on his monitor. "There it was plain as day. A little car with a dented trunk passing right through Orion's belt," he said, "We weren't sure how to classify the object, but eventually decided to add it to the space junk database to ensure it didn't threaten any legitimate satellite activity."
The Guiness Book of World Records is also on hand to document this historic event. "The Highest Altitude Achieved By Automobile" will be a new category in their next edition of their famous book. "This is definitely one of the more fun categories in a while," commented the editor.
It isn't technology, it's price. Lets look at recent developments:
Solaris: $0
Linux: $0
OpenOffice.org: $0
Windows: hundred $ at least
Office: hundreds of $
Just like in the 1990s when Windows NT came out of nowhere to dominate UNIX, UNIX/Linux will come full circle and do the same to Windows.
The vast majority of markets Microsoft competes in are inevitably going to be dominated by commodity software. Microsoft's revenue is like a sand castle, and the tide is coming in (Linux is free, Solaris is now free, OpenOffice.org is free, GNOME is free...all are "good enough").
Instead of everyone colliding, I'd think that Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris get cozy as the new systems triumverate of the industry.
Once Microsoft is made fully redundant, at least on a pricing basis, people will basically have three choices: the style and elegance of Mac OS, the pragmatic and popular Linux, and the data center prowess and mature kernel of Solaris.
Sun is actually pretty smart in this game. By making Solaris open source this summer, they guarantee it a staying power that all other UNIX systems can't have. Why choose AIX or HPUX, when Solaris competes on their turf but is free and OSS? This summer Solaris will become the de facto winner of the UNIX wars, if there were any doubts before.
In all this, it's important that everyone realize that Darwin, Linux, and SunOS do compete, but they will reinforce eachother. Each one has things the others don't, and this will only drive things forward to our benefit.
From the announcement: "Sun also provided licenses for SunOne Studio 9"
That's plural, and each Studio 9 license retails for $2,995.00.
If there were several licenses, for example, this means the donation could be "worth" up to $10K or more. Sun Studio also comes with good documentation, a good debugger, run-time profiling and memory usage checking, etc. NetBSD could even use this for improving NetBSD itself, depending on their dev tool policies (Studio is not open source).
Numbers of exploits are irrelevant. Microsoft's products are not worth the price paid, and that's the whole point. Look how much GNOME has advanced in the past two years, and consider that it'll be another two years before Longhorn ships. Also, look at how Apple completely took Microsoft by suprise with Mac OS X. It'll be until Longhorn ships (_years_ after Mac OS X) that Microsoft even comes close.
Microsoft has peaked.
I nominate Sun.
.NET middleware. Also, Sun has hinted that their entire JES stack will go open source, including a database, and that they will support the Apache Harmony project to some extent. Comparing a .NET stack to JES should be a no-brainer.
1) The Sun Grid is highly underrated. Most companies could probably cut their server rooms in half by renting time on someone else's grid and avoiding the added power bills, staffing, years-long depreciation, benefits expenses, etc. Private servers are _expensive_. Microsoft's kludges are _expensive_.
2) SunRay is highly underrated. At the most recent quarterly announcement, Sun hinted at a "Display Grid" that involves free SunRays in exchange for services subscriptions. Imagine having just a thin client on your desk at home, using practically no electiricty, with no moving parts to break, no fans, no system administration, and only a power cable and a broadband adapter to set up. It's the ultimate "grandma approved" PC.
3) Solaris 10 is some seriously cool stuff. They've integrated much of Trusted Solaris into the standard system, and it ships with virtualization features that no one else comes close to for the price. Containers+ZFS+SMF=one hell of a tough server. Also, JDS3 is the best desktop on UNIX, ever (CDE is finally #2, OpenWindows is gone).
4) The latest StarOffice/OpenOffice.org plus JDS gives corporate customers with large installed bases something to think about. Microsoft is most definitely the most expensive desktop system, now, which puts Microsoft-only customers at a competitive disadvantage. CFOs looking at their financial statements start to wonder whether those massive licensing and support costs for Microsoft's software are worth it.
5) J2EE middleware is the main competition to
That's a really good point. Add that future consoles will play at HD resolutions, and even the benefits of a high-res computer monitor go away. A modest HDTV, receiver, and good all-around speakers will destroy the PC gaming experience for less cost overall, especially considering that the same HDTV components apply to watching movies and TV, also.
But what if Google sells a "GMail appliance?"
IMO, there is huge potential for appliances like this, because of the zero-admin aspect of them. Just point e-mail clients to the appliance, and there's instant email. E-mail is pretty well understood, now, and there's nothing that would prevent an appliance from providing a web interface that covers all the basics (aliases, attachment blocking, etc.).
This is also where people wondering about Sun's Grid can better understand their pitch. It's a matter of outsourcing _all_ system administration that isn't specifically related to your app. There is also no hardware procurement and depreciation cycles. No additional sysadmin payroll taxes and benefits.
It seems IBM is testing the waters on this front, too, with their rent-a-supercomputer that was in the press recently. Also, offloading their PC division might indicate some foresight into the future of thick clients. Even Sun is hinting at giving away SunRays in the future if people sign up for a "desktop service plan", not unlike cell phones or cable TV.
I wonder how Microsoft could compete in the 'grid' marketplace. They certainly don't have the virtualization technology that IBM and Sun have, unless they plan on running virtual PCs on Windows servers. However, the odds that Microsoft could host multiple companies on the same set of servers securely are slim, while Sun and IBM can basically guarantee security, at least at the OS level.
The biggest problem with Firefox at the moment is that these features aren't well-advertised and you have to do a lot of googling to find documentation on the more esoteric stuff.
I found most of the important customizations in the preferences dialog, such as unchecking all the automatic stuff and crippling javascript, and the bookmarks editor is fairly self-explanitory. The Flash blocker extention is also critical, but was easy to install. Occasionally, I'll dip into about:config to tweak my useragent and a few other things, but those are 100% optional. Probably the hardest thing by far, at least on UNIX, is to put all the appropriate symlinks into the plugins directory.
Perhaps Firefox should direct users to the preferences area on the first use, at least to make it clearer there is more than just a browser window.
"I believe Linux actually is truly desktop ready"
GNOME and KDE are to a point where they are basically on par with Windows, in terms of usability. More ISVs need to recognize this and go back to supporting UNIX (and Linux). It's interesting how what's old can become new again.
I imagine Microsoft is like a water baloon being squeezed from below by Linux and from above by Apple and with Solaris sticking needles into the sides. How long until it pops?
You can get deadly food poisoning off a head of lettuce, too. Enjoy.
Microsoft is an expert at observing the trends set by everyone else, integrating those trends under their brand, and selling them as an innovative product with millions of dollars worth of marketing.
I don't think Microsoft has ever been first to market in any significant market segment.
What's your take on the Libertarians' notion of conservatism? What if it isn't possible to reconcile modern Republicanism with what you think conservatism should be? Are your friends' opinions indicative of a larger dissention within the Republican party, where the Republican party could even split into its capitalist, religious zealot, and political conservatist factions?
Sorry about the questions, but I don't know the answers to all this, either.
Oh, I should add that the Republicans-in-name-only need to be excused from this criticism, because to stay politically viable they found a need to ally with the major parties.