Android is not Linux, and OS-X/iOS is not BSD. I'm talking USER EXPERIENCE, not kernels

Sorry, OS-X may be UNIX in terms of certification, but that doesn't make it BSD in the sense that we normally discuss it. The real competition within the FOSS segment is b/w the Linuxes (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian, et al) and the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, et al). And while I am a PC-BSD user, the BSDs do have a lot of catching up to do even for Linux.

A good start would be if the BSDs could develop a group of jails to run OS-X and iOS binaries. PC-BSD would certainly do well in doing that, and also being ported to ARM, so that ARM based 2-in-1s can be an inexpensive alternative to i3 based 2-in-1s

Risk a whoosh moment, but BSD != Linux

EFF may back these prisoners using FaceBook. But if RMS, who is a major backer of EFF, had his way, then the prisoners are being made to do exactly what he wants everybody to do - avoid FaceBook. Had EFF checked w/ RMS, he'd have told them that this is a good thing.

The proper solution to this would be to sentence SC prisoners to deal only w/ GNU Social. Which is GNU's AGPL3 licensed social networking site. Prison officials should provide them computers that can only access that, and maybe eliminate browsers from the computers being used. Heck, let's provide all prisoners w/ Libre-Linux computers running only GPL3 software, and then tell them that that's all they're allowed to use.

After all, they are prisoners for a reason. };-)

The bean countress was right, maybe for the wrong reasons. Reason HP/UX is a bad idea on x86 is that if a customer was gonna move to x86, they already have plenty of options - Linux, *BSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana, et al. And I didn't even count Windows Server.

If one does an ROI, it would be a tall order to recoup the costs of an x86 port. If a customer has to replace their PA-RISC/Itanic towers w/ x86, they'll probably try to go all the way, and replace HP/UX w/ Linux. Since HP apparently already supports Linux on x86 w/ their customers, it's not a cost that they've not already sunk. The HP/UX engineers still remaining could either be put on EOL service contracts, or migrated to Linux support at HP.

But IBM has done what Oracle hasn't - port RHEL to Power, and re-brand it the p-Series. It maintains that distro as its own, since it's a different (non-x64) platform. Oracle could have done the same - port OEL to SPARC, and they'd have had the advantage of RHEL doing the development, and themselves just having to recompile and then finetune it to SPARC

It was a beautiful and imaginative logo. Certainly miss that sometimes, and even more so, the original Silicon Graphics logo.

Actually, at this point, is it Intel, or HP, that insists on not killing the Itanium? IIRC, Intel wanted to let go of it, but HP didn't, and kept paying Intel for it. However, last I read, HP was working on porting OpenVMS and HP/UX to the x64 platform, and once that's done, expect an EOL notification from Intel on that line.

From a general standpoint, very little - which is why their numbers have dropped from 66k to 7k in 11 years. They are apparently used to build systems still compatible w/ legacy Solaris systems, which is what enables their high margins. Otherwise, more than 64-bit, Intel's multi-core architecture, and the fact that it is several process nodes ahead of the SPARC, gives it a big advantage at the same price point, not to mention its support for several more modern OSs, such as Linux, BSDs, Windows Server 2012, and more. If you don't have a legacy SPARC establishment, there's no reason to go that route.

As Intel found out w/ Itanium, the traditional disadvantages of CISC - wrt not only VLIW, but RISC as well - are obliterated: Merced originally resulted in only a 10% savings in die size - certainly not worth the complexity in the compilers and other costs incurred in building that platform. And once Intel tossed more cores into a CPU to scale up its performance, overtaking any other RISC CPU at the same price was no longer an issue. Especially since every OS for it - Windows, Linux, *BSD - support it

I fully agree w/ this. Oracle can have a whole range of SPARC based systems. High end can be based on Solaris, and mid to low end sytems can be based either on Linux or on the BSDs. That would enable Sun to segment the market, and prevent any one segment from cannibalizing the other.

For a company that supposedly hated Microsoft, IBM had a funny way of showing it - doing such a shoddy job in supporting OS/2, and dumping the OS/2-PPC, which could well have gone on to be their flagship product

I believe the GP may have been talking about the Power/POWER based line of servers & workstations, as well as their other iron. But you're right about Oracle - their homegrown systems are Lintel hardware (their own distro).

Only thing I've wondered - if they're that committed to SPARC, why don't they have it populate more of their line, instead of Xeons/Opterons? They could port OEL to it, in addition to Solaris, and customers would be locked on that - couldn't move those to HP/UX or RHEL or Centos or Debian. And GP is right - for the computation that they do, SPARC is more appropriate (although I can imagine them wanting to run their Xeon based iron in a big way just so that they are familiar w/ the systems their customers are actually buying.

That doesn't look like oranges to oranges. Comparing say, Gingerbread to Kitkat would be like comparing RHEL 5 to RHEL 6. We don't count RHEL 5 and RHEL 6 separately, and it's likely that all organizations that went w/ RHEL 5 didn't migrate to RHEL 6. So do we then call RHEL 5 and 6 a case of fragmentation, in the same way that we might consider Centos or OEL or Mandriva?

You used the term 'open source' instead of 'libre' (pronounced w/ the best European accent) throughout your post. Nobody who's read RMS would mistake you for him.

Mandrake used to offer KDE - it was Red Hat that offered GNOME.