Co-founder Joy to leave Sun 362
TheLinuxWarrior writes "An article
at CNET says Bill Joy, Sun Micro co-founder and chief scientist, is leaving the company." You'd think after two decades of working at Sun, they could've found a better picture!
So I guess... (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you, I'll be here all evening.
Re:So I guess... (Score:5, Funny)
:::sound of slashdot crickets:::
Re:So I guess... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I started working with SunOS in 1992, I thought that working at the pioneering company would be a great career path. After several years, I finally got there, and was immensely distressed at the culture of "not invented here" and "zero career growth" as unspoken rules. They build lovely campuses to work in, but boy did it suck to be a minion there.
Re:So I guess... (Score:5, Interesting)
Same with nearly all companies. There are two philosophies of running companies.
Method #1: "Core Technology Group" - Form your core technology group with experienced staff. Then recruit project managers to manage software engineers. Any strangers will only get offered the dead-end jobs while nieces/nephews and trusted staff get the good software engineering jobs. This is great if you're an senior engineer/architect. The advantage of this method is you keep your senior staff. The disadvantage is that you keep losing your junior staff.
Method #2: "Everyone gets pushed up into management". In this method, the philosophy is to get the new graduates to bring in new ideas. Whenever somebody comes along and has experience (from another company or an university project) an existing member of staff is promoted to team leader. After several pushes they get pushed into a project manager (and promptly leave to set up their own company). In some states/countries management will slap on a Non-Compete-Agreement if they can get off with it. This usually ends up with the brightest entry-level graduates not applying to the company. The disadvantage is that even if you are loyal to the company you'll more often than not get bogged down in some tedious but critical part of a project, only to see new graduates get to work on the latest technology.
This is great when you're an entry level graduate. The disadvantage to the company is that they keep losing their senior staff. Smaller companies seem to be run this way.
Be lucky you haven't applied to a company which uses grad-fighting as an interview technique: Invite 10-12 graduates to an interview session and sit them around a table for a debate. Tell them that there are several positions available and that these will go to the individuals who make the most contribution to the debate. Then sit back and watch the fight take place.
Re:So I guess... (Score:3, Interesting)
Same with nearly all companies...
Yes, sad but true. I'm sure everyone has their own dead end career stories, but here's mine: A few years ago I was hired as a UNIX systems administrator. I came into the company as a senior UNIX systems administrator. With the typical corporate downsizing, most of the middle management was cut and we're more a flat manangement style with only a few higher ups and alot of peers. Anyway, during my raise review this year I was informed that I was being overpaid and hen
Re:So I guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
a) you will learn something new at a new job
b) you will feel better for having found work where you are appreciated
c) you will allow your former boss the opportunity to determine for himself just how important your contribution really was
By the very fact you read this web site, you are more informed than many and your desire to stay abreast of current developments in tech means you most likely have retained (or even added to) your senior admin skills during your time at Kodak.
Consider non-standard jobs, or start contributing to existing free/open source projects in your spare time now, and that may help you connect with people in a position to hire.
Good luck, and don't let bozos make you feel bad!
Re:So I guess... (Score:4, Funny)
There is no Joy in Sunville,
Mighty McNealy has struck out...
I'll Try My Hand Too (Score:3, Funny)
A: A start, at least.
I knew it.. (Score:5, Funny)
It's a conspiracy, hear me out before you think I'm off my rocker.
"Sun" has 3 letters, so does "SCO" and "Joy". "Bill" is also the name of some guy at Microsoft.
SCO claims it is making no money (0), there are eight letters in "MICROS~1" (8) and SCO thinks they are the sole owner of UNIX and Linux (1). Apply those numbers to SUN:
rot0 S == S
rot8 U == C
rot1 N == O
That's not all; note how SCO and Sun both start with "S" which looks a lot like a dollar sign? What is the 3rd letter from the right in "MICROS~1"? An "S". 3 companies with "S" in their names, third letter from the right is an "S". S looks like a dollar sign.. you know the inevitable conclusion..
The above facts speak for themselves: Bill Joy is in the pockets of SCO and Microsoft. He's leaving Sun to enjoy his millions of ill-gotten gain.
Don't even think of getting me going on SGI in the equation.
now where is my tin foil hat..
Re:I knew it.. (Score:2)
Re:I knew it.. (Score:2, Funny)
file not found. (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, The man is a scientist, give him a break. Asking for a good picture of a scientist is like asking for a serious shot of Alf.
Re:file not found. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:file not found. (Score:2)
Re:file not found. (Score:2)
Position filled (Score:5, Funny)
Adios, Mr. Joy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Adios, Mr. Joy... (Score:2, Funny)
So, what's he doing next? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder, though, what this means for the future of Sun...
Re:So, what's he doing next? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So, what's he doing next? (Score:2)
OTOH, Bill Joy actually wrote csh, vi, and parts of the BSD kernel (along with many other people).
So, there's no comparison at all between Gates and Joy.
Re:So, what's he doing next? (Score:2)
Re:So, what's he doing next? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if he might be going to Apple. They are using BSD, after all, in a desktop environment--and also have some favor among Java developers. Would a Joy be interested in drinking the cool-aid?
Re:So, what's he doing next? (Score:2, Insightful)
By your logic Marc Andreson's (spelling?) company formerly known as LoudMOUTH^H^H^H^HCloud would be a big hit.
Just do us both a favour - give all your money to me and I'll give you half of it back in two years. This way we'll both be better off - we'll both have enough money to eat at Arby's.
he is going to build SkyNet :-) (Score:2)
Re:$100,000,000 has a way of changing people (Score:2)
Re:$100,000,000 has a way of changing people (Score:2)
A better picture? (Score:4, Funny)
That is the better picture.
Those in glass houses.... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see a good picture of you, Taco.
This guy looks like a GQ model compared to any given slashdot editor.
Re:Those in glass houses.... (Score:2)
Yeah, he looks like Alfred E. Newman
[OT] Re:Those in glass houses.... (Score:2)
What a great name (Score:2)
Reminds me of the delivery guy in Big Daddy, trying to say Hippopotamus.
Re:What a great name (Score:2, Funny)
Remember the one where Webster got sued by the RIAA? What a tearjerker.
Be careful where you place your jokes! (Score:2)
TheLinuxWarrior writes "An article at CNET says Rob Malda, Slashdot co-founder and editor, is leaving the company." You'd think after two decades of working at Slashdot, they coulda changed the graphics and page layout a bit!
But, if you can take that joke, taco, I guess you are free to joke at Sun all you'd like
geek picture (Score:3, Redundant)
Cmon, we bad looking geeks take pride in our bad pictures. Its something like having a lot of cables under the table, messy desktop etc. That picture must make Joy proud.
Re:geek picture (Score:2)
It's all about the weight of your PC, dude, the weight ! The amount of cable is sooooo yesterday !
Re:geek picture (Score:2)
Re:geek picture (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.english.uga.edu/hc/unixrichiejoy.JPG [uga.edu]
pic (Score:3, Funny)
How about this one [nanoquest.com]?
I prefer this one (Score:3, Funny)
Rats leaving a sinking ship? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I can think of at least 1 company where there is large reductions but the people in the top still live in the ivory tower.
Rus
The other Sun folks probably checked... (Score:5, Funny)
BSD, SUN, etc... (Score:5, Insightful)
He wrote the BSD IP stack while at Berkeley (BSD, duh).
Let's hope he works on his terms somewhere and stays away from the business/corporate world.
and vi (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~kirkenda/joy84.html
Re:and vi (Score:4, Funny)
one word: edlin
Re:and vi (Score:5, Funny)
Just when I was beginning to forget. It's all coming back!
Re:and vi (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a pro-vi (vim, actually) bigot, but I don't want to start a religious war. At least not today.
Remember to place vi exactly in its context. Vi placed a useful set of extensions on ed/ex, and so enhanced an established tool. Enhancing an established tool has advantages and brings baggage.
Pro-vi points...
Re:and vi (Score:3, Informative)
daniel@moonunit:~$ sudo apt-get remove vim
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
vim
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 151 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 15.3MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Re:and vi (Score:2)
KFG
Re:and vi (Score:2)
Praise for both. vi is an excellent editor allowing full control from the QUERTY keyboard home position. After 26 years or so, it is still the standard UNIX editor (no ed jokes, please). It is fast and small yet has few annoying limitations (line length is annoying but rarely a real issue). It doesn't second-guess the programmer yet is smart
Re:and vi (Score:3, Funny)
You must have a really mutant left hand.
Re:and vi (Score:2)
No, I just have a proper UNIX keyboard with the Control key between the Shift and Tab keys. PC keyboards suck.
Ctrl key (Score:2)
It can be a real bitch to get used to the configuration of the machine you happen to log into.
Re:and vi (Score:3, Funny)
Re:and vi (Score:2)
After 26 years or so, it is still the standard UNIX editor (no ed jokes, please)
Well, ex was the reliable fallback.
My first few years on UNIX I used vi until emacs(Gosling, then Stallman's flavo[u]rs), but one of the big hassles back then was all the different terminal types documented in /etc/termcap, with the vt100 only a fuzzy standard.
I remember dropping into ex instead of either vi or emacs because I couldn't stand the wait for a full 24x80 character screen refresh over a 1200 baud modem.
Re:and vi (Score:2)
The internals of Bill Joy's vi code, however, were butt-ugly at the time. The input loop was a giant switch statement with all kinds of flags and special cases. Mor
Re:How can you love Linux/Unix and hate vi (Score:2, Insightful)
he is headed for Apple? (Score:2)
Re:he is headed for Apple? (Score:2)
By George, that is a 'fro in the photo ...
Re:he is headed for Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Its time to go. He may actually be a professor at a college and work on grants. They are more liberal and he does not have to worry about researching topics that profitable.
anybody else? (Score:2)
Thanks Bill (Score:2)
Picture.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Picture.... (Score:2, Funny)
At least, he should have, those songs needed more cow bell.
Picture? (Score:5, Funny)
HE HAS NO BEARD!!!
Bill's fountain of youth (Score:2)
Chris
Like fiction? Try espresso stories
Re:Bill's fountain of youth (Score:3, Funny)
THAT Microsoft photo (from 1979 I believe) is at this link [neowind.com].
================
Like fiction? Try espresso stories [espressostories.com]
When will it end? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When will it end? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:When will it end? (Score:2)
The article is slightly incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Bill Joy can easily take a lot of credit for Java though
Sun was Vinod Khosla's idea. (Score:2, Informative)
A 20 year old interview with Bill Joy (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~kirkenda/joy84.html
Re:A 20 year old interview with Bill Joy (Score:2)
A favorite quote: "EMACS is a nice editor too, but because it costs hundreds of dollars, there will always be people who won't buy it."
Another one: "Real programmers use cat as their editor."
Lost source code... (Score:2)
I wonde
Re:A 20 year old interview with Bill Joy (Score:2)
Bill Jpy's resignation letter (Score:5, Funny)
bad news for Sun (Score:5, Interesting)
Joy is such a luddite that there really is no threat of him starting another technology company. It's likely he will pursue more writing and pontificating, while Sun will flounder aimlessly as they seek a niche in this new technology market.
Re:bad news for Sun (Score:2, Informative)
The author claims that Joy is such a visionary that Sun's entire R&D strategy will have to change. Then in the next line he says that Joy is such a luddite that he'll never get involved with another tech company. Which is it? Visionary or luddite?
This is so plainly just somebody looking for a way to bitch about Sun that I can't believe anybody bothered to mod it up.
No Joy for Sun (Score:4, Insightful)
This is probably over a major senior management disagreement. A dispute about the best way for Sun to haul it's ass out of the fire. What other subject would they have time to talk about at Sun HQ? McNealy is schitzophrenic, one day he's wearing a penguin suit the next day he's funding SCO's fud campaign against Linux to slow down SUN's haemorraging bottom line.
I guess Bill was on the losing side. The last few things I have read in the trade press (mostly from some ponytailed hippie VP named Johnathan Schwartz) sounded like Sun still hasn't got that they need to take bold risks to stay relevent in today's computing world.
So by virtue of having stayed silent I think Bill Joy has more of a clue about company direction then these other clowns.
Sun (like the town of Gotham) needs an enema. If I was in McNealy's shoes I would hire somebody like Tim O'Reilly to come in and give the company a wake up call on corporate strategy.
Re:No Joy for Sun (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, BS. It's enormously unusual for a tech company to last 21 years, let alone have half of the founders still involved.
This is probably over a major senior management disagreement...What other subject would they have time to talk about at Sun HQ?
And more BS. Joy was a founder, but he's not involved in the day-to-day "management" of the company. Regardless of what Sun management talks about at "HQ", Joy has been in his Aspen lab churning out cool st
Seperated at Birth? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Seperated at Birth? (Score:2)
Two Bills dow; another to go? (Score:2)
Bill C.
Bill J.
Bill G.
Why would anyone choose sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun's traditional products have been Unix workstations, and because there necessary for unix workstations, unix servers. And of course software to run on them.
In the grand scheme of things, only recently has Sun started producing realy big boxes. And simotaniously, the need for big boxes has decreased: its clusterd micros as far as the eye can see.
For a general purpose unix workstation, a PC with Linux is cheeper, and more powerfull.. I daresay that the likes of Redhat is easier to manage then Solaris. For high end deskops for visualization, get a (Intel based) SGI with its fancy software. For entry level server, linux rocks. For mid range stuff, a cluster of linux boxen on Intel based SMP boxes is better then a single, or a smaller cluster of Suns. And for realy high end stuff, IBM is the only game in town: whatever else you can say about them they have made rock solid mainframes for 50 years, that work all the time, period. If you need such a machine, why would you risk getting one from a company that has been in that market for what? 2 years.
I priced a Sun PCI SCSI card last week. $500. No RAID, no cache, just a vanila SCSI card with a Sun sticker (and solaris support). Thats just insane.
So why? Why would anyone ever go to Sun for anything?
Re:Why would anyone choose sun? (Score:5, Informative)
One thing you do get is peace of mind in an environment where time == money. It is very likely that Sun-branded card was integration tested with their machines and Solaris, so the odds are very very good that it will serve you well. Contrast this with the PC world, where the odds are simply good. The difference is not trivial, IMO.
If I had a business, where revenue was good enough that I didn't have to survive on peanut butter and scrapped-together computers, I would seriously consider Sun equipment. It can be refreshing to simply plug in a card, do a boot -r, and have it ready to go. Along with SunSolve and docs.sun.com, Sun doesn't often leave people wanting for documentation, either. It seems they generally treat their customers pretty well. With PC companies, things are less predictable, and a big brand name doesn't really imply any amount of quality (often they are worse than the white-box suppliers).
Re:Why would anyone choose sun? (Score:2)
So why? Why would anyone ever go to Sun for anything?
Because the only alternative in many cases is an IBM AIX Server, just try to keep one running without very expensive IBM tech on site every week or so. Sun is like the Macintosh of servers, it just works. Of course, you try to use Linux/BSD whenever possible so you don't ever have to see a $995 pricetag f
The should of used this picture.. (Score:2)
Does anybody remember the article where (Score:2)
he talks about music industry officials doing what they are doing in order to support their crack habits?? He spoke of it when he gave a lecture somewhere, and it was very interesting. A URL would be much appreciated. I have been looking for this article for a long time.
Poor Teletubbies... (Score:2, Funny)
Thank you Mr. Joy (Score:2)
Trouble... (Score:2)
Another interpretation could be "there are no more opporunities for me at sun".
this seems pretty topical/relevant: (Score:4, Interesting)
Michael Dell, who built an empire selling computers based on other companies' innovations, argued Monday that the future in the technology market belongs to players who embrace industry standards, not proprietary systems.
The 38-year-old chief executive of Dell Inc. also strongly suggested that one of his company's top Silicon Valley rivals, Sun Microsystems, may never get back on its feet because it's stuck in a business model that no longer works.
"I think there are parts of the industry that will never recover, and the reason is that their business is fundamentally based on things that people aren't going to buy very much of anymore," Dell told The Chronicle after his keynote speech at OracleWorld, Oracle's annual user conference in San Francisco.
"They're waiting for (demand for proprietary systems) to come back," he added. "Sorry, it ain't going to happen."
Larry Singer, Sun's senior vice president for global market strategies, disputed Dell's view of the Santa Clara company and the trends in the technology industry.
"When Michael Dell gets up there and says those who don't follow industry standards won't make it, it's a bit disingenuous," he said in a phone interview.
"Innovation still matters. Market standards come from new innovations and new technologies."
Like other major companies such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM, the Texas firm sells computers, servers and other hardware based on widely used technologies developed by such companies as Intel and Microsoft.
On the other hand, Sun, which was once recognized as the top provider of corporate computing, has been a major industry player by offering products based mainly on its proprietary systems.
Asked if he believed that the struggling Sun would never recover, Dell, who typically shies away from comments on competitors, answered: "I sort of said that, but I didn't say that.
"But if you look at their peak revenues and where they are now, it's a pretty big difference, right?" he added. "And if you look at what people are buying now and what they were buying then, it's a big difference."
Singer defended Sun's strategy and performance.
"For Michael Dell, his definition of a market standard is the company that's selling the most today, and that's a pretty easy standard to pick," Singer said. Citing the rapid expansion of Sun's Java technology, particularly in mobile computing, he added, "The definition of what a standard is is beginning to change."
Dell's remarks underscored the debate over the role of innovation and research and development in the tech industry as top players, such as Dell, Sun and HP, maneuver for advantage in the anticipated rise in corporate spending on technology.
Dell Inc. became a tech behemoth by selling directly to consumers and keeping its spending on research and development down.
But rivals like HP and Sun have portrayed the Texas firm as a technological lightweight that grew on the backs of other companies' hard work in research and development.
Dell Inc. has made inroads in the low-end server market, defined as systems under $100,000 each.
But its critics scoff at the company's bid to move up the corporate technology market, arguing that only companies that invest in innovation can afford to compete in the mid-range and higher-end corporate markets.
Sun lost $2.38 billion in its fiscal year that ended in June, compared with a loss of $587 million the previous year. But the company has remained a respected technology innovator, particularly in the high-end market.
"The companies that will survive will be those that innovate technologies," and that means spending on research and development, Singer said.
But Dell has been unfazed by such criticism. In the interview, he reaffirmed his belief that hefty R&D budgets can be overrated and don't necessarily lead to hi
No Joy at Sun (Score:2, Interesting)
he quit for human reasons (Score:3, Interesting)
One down, one to go. (Score:3, Interesting)
Lately, Sun has has two really big problems holding it back. Those problems are named Scott McNealy and Bill Joy. Stuck in unixland. They were the only "minicomputer" company that didn't jump to Windows NT back in the early 1990's, and they won big time on that bet. Unisys, Data General, etc. where are they now?
Sun stuck with Unix and it turned out to be a good play for them. Now the big man on campus is Linux, and the Sun top brass think they can make the same play again. But this time it's different:
I would also hate to see OpenOffice orphaned. We need this package.
Re:Shame shame (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Shame shame (Score:2)
Ballmer leaving would be *bad* for Microsoft?
Re:Why did someome mod this Offtopic (Score:3, Informative)
Lots of Indians have done great things in IT, and so have lots of americans, russians, french, chinese, irish so on so forth. So what was the point the grand-parent trying to make ?
I am an indian too, but this kind of stupid superiority complex, that we indians rule the IT is very reprehensible.
You jest, but..... (Score:2)