Sun's Schwartz Speaks Out on Linux, SCO 448
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with eWeek Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's executive vice president for software, states: "We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price.". Also: "IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers?""
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news?
News: IBM Crushing Sun at the High End of Market (Score:5, Informative)
According to "IBM steals server sales from Sun [com.com]", IBM has been handily defeating Sun in its bread-and-butter market. As Sun's share of the UNIX server market shrinks, Sun itself shrinks. The worst is yet to come.
what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Informative)
is, for all intents FREE, but it does NOT compete with Linux, it requires much more effort to set up correctly, has far fewer applications available and because it is the domain of a single monolithic corporation it does not have the rapid pace of development of either Linux or the BSD's.
Personally I use Solaris, I also use Linux and FreeBSD, God help me I even use Wingoze, let's not speak ill of any *nix no matter how ridiculous the statements their corporate brass might issue.
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what do you expect (Score:2)
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Informative)
One more thing to add, you can use the downloaded versions of Linux distros for commerical purposes but you can't with the cheap download version of Sol. for Intel.
Re:what do you expect (Score:3, Informative)
With a linux distro anyone can download and burn it for you, either as a friend or for a small fee.
The import part was the second paragraph which you ignored, however.
And what he did not say, you can't modify it.
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you figure? Is $20 free [sun.com]? Is $95 free? Having paid $20, which is strictly the cost of the media (huh? downloading software is cost of media what??) can I give my copy of Solaris to a friend?
My last version of RedHat cost me $0.12 in media thanks to a 200 pack of CD-Rs I got with a fat mail-in rebate came out to 4 cents a piece (I'm willing to pay 4 cents a CD to get copies of Knoppix into the hands of windows users). Oh, 12 cents plus whatever the electricity cost was (probably another 12 cents).
From where I sit, a "free" version of Solaris is two orders of magnitude more expensive than the "free" versions of RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo or several others I'm sure I could find.
Re:what do you expect (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Interesting)
While there's still quite some way to go, sun has taken a good step in the direction of very creative public relation management [welovethei...nister.com].
Really, read the following quote if you don't believe me:
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how he says that Red Hat can't compete with Sun's $100/person/year price. I also like how he completely ignores Apple as a competitor. What a tool!
Purchase price.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cost of ownership maybe cheaper, sure. And warranties/support options as well. But what is cheaper up-front than free?
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:2)
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Informative)
If you went into a VP's office with CD-Rs of Slackware (or your favorite distro) and tried to sell those as being better than Solaris, you probably wouldn't get very far based upon name recognition and perception of stability.
However, if you went in there and compared Solaris against Red Hat Enterprise, you'd have a better shot at selling the Linux angle, because Red Hat has taken the Enterprise line and given it the perception of being superior to 'normal' Linux and packaged it with all the support.
Perception is reality with management, so in most corporate environments, smaller Linux distros won't even enter the equation. Though I disagree somewhat with Schwartz's comments, I can't say I fault his logic or his analogy.
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"...dramatically less expensive in purchase price. How much is the nearest competitor's cheapest enterprise offering? And it doesn't come with a portal server, application server, Web server messaging, calendaring, clustering, high availability services and directory services provisioning. Give me a break."
Of course he is probably discounting open source versions of all of those things. But if he does that, what is he going to say about Sun's database strategy? I can only assume that all of these things run (by default) on an open source database because I don't think that Sun has the right to re-license Oracle at $100.00/head. Any real enterprise is going to want to run these things on a commercial database which makes it hard for Sun to compete with Oracle's application suite.
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:2)
"...dramatically less expensive in purchase price. How much is the nearest competitor's cheapest enterprise offering? And it doesn't come with a portal server, application server, Web server messaging, calendaring, clustering, high availability services and directory services provisioning."
Proper response: Yeah, but at least it comes with a C compiler so when I download that stuff I can actually build it...
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Informative)
Beyond other compilers available post-initial-build, there is a CD that comes with the system called the "solaris software companion." On it is the gnu c compiler suites versions 2.95 and 3.2. Since you don't have any solaris administration experience obviously, I'll throw out a web site that anyone who has done a week of solaris administration would know. Then a few years from now, you'll know it when you need it.
the main solaris freeware site [sun.com]
Oh, I could toss out a few others, but really - that software companion CD comes with the solaris OS set anyway.
A little pkgadd, and bam - you're there. No worries - you can gui the install too.
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember the hubbub when Sun originally announced that they weren't going to ship with a C compiler as part of the base package anymore. It was a big deal, but just part of McFeely's ongoing "this is an appliance" routine.
I know all about the Sun "freeware" site, but giving me gcc is a really bad booby prize compared to their own compiler.
Say what you want, Sun does not like Free software any better than Microsoft.
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh so GCC, one of the best compilers out there isn't good enough? Hell kid, I'm a Sun lover and I still think GCC is the best.
gcc is best in cross-platform support. The code that it generates sucks ass on all platforms where I've used it. Intel's own compiler produces code that is at least 10% faster on x86, for instance. I'd imagine the difference on Sparc, where instruction sequence and timing has a far larger impact, would be dramatically different.
If gcc produced such great code, Sun would use it themselves.
Does IBM give away their compiler? How about HP, or Microsoft?
Sun was the first Unix vendor to announce that they were going to not ship a C compiler with Unix. At the time (early 90's), it was expected that if you bought a Unix system, it came with a C compiler, at the time a 20 year tradition.
It's not a matter of "giving it away". If I buy a system, there's an expectation of what the basic system will have. I don't know if IBM and HP put the compiler in their base OS package, nor do I care. It's not relevant to the topic.
Besides their Linux contributions what does IBM give away?
Besides beaches, what else does Florida have?
Holy shit, do you understand what a stupid question that is? IBM employs numerous kernel developers, they've given us JFS, RCU, hell, read the SCO complaint. In addition to the great code, they provide a world-wide marketing campaign, something that helps bring a level of credibility that Linux simply didn't have before.
The real question for you Sun apologists is this: What has Sun contributed to Linux? Let's see, they jumped on the initial SCO announcement to offer Solaris from people who would be running from Linux. They've continued the indemnification FUD. They are helping to fund SCO's ongoing legal assault. They've tried to hurt Linux every step of the way. What did they do to the Blackdown team? I doubt that they employ anybody who is actually writing code for Linux, but they do employ many marketing people whose job is to discredit Linux at every turn.
At what point are you Sun apologists going to pull your heads out of your asses? I suppose the answer is "never" if you haven't done so already. Sun is no less an enemy than Microsoft, quit letting the fox into the henhouse.
Michael
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:3, Insightful)
He forgets that Sun's calendar system is iplanet based, one of the less manageable webservers on the planet, you can't patch the source code to it, it's not well documented, and their SMB and messaging systems suffer from the same proprietary cores and lack of cross-compatibility.
Hell, the NIS service that Sun *invented* is implemented *far* more securely, flexibly, and with better documentation and conf
Re:Purchase price.... (Score:3, Informative)
Just like gcc.
can't deal with cross-platform compatible code,
Meaning it can't deal with GCC-isms that no other compiler supports, including older versions of gcc.
And they still use "compress" instead of "gzip",
No, they use gzip now, and have been doing so for over four years. Guess that shows how little you've been paying attention to Solaris.
And have you ever tried to *use* pkginfo to manage packages?
Ye
Well,well (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Ford recommends Ford cars, Dell have a high cosideration of Dell products and McD suggests we all eat a hamburger.
What's wrong with people today?
Re:Well,well (Score:2)
Re:Well,well (Score:3, Funny)
So basically, we hold to our convictions unless we can make some dough!
dramatically less expensive ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:dramatically less expensive ? (Score:5, Interesting)
They want a corporate network with thousands of pc's networked off sun "big iron".
To point out something. This month NEC released the first TRUELY "hot swappable" linux server. Its an OLD Quad P3 800mhz for nearly $26,000 that runs a hacked version of linux on a hacked kernel to support the features NEC needed.
On the other hand i can get a Quad CPU Sun V880 with 8 gigs of memory, redundant everything and run solaris 8, solaris 9 and every solaris app off the shelf for about 6 grand more. Were talking a 900 to 1000mhz Ultra Sparc 64bit CPU with 8 megs e-cache vs a pentium 3. With solaris 9 i can swap out CPU boards on a live system, i have all the big apps i need and not locked into a particular vendor. Should i'm locked into SUN, but i'm not locked into only running sun software. If you buy an HA linux solution today you most likely have to work with that vendor to get the software certified.
Do the math. For corporations that NEED mission critical use of UNIX servers, linux is NOT the cheapest solution when you figure in your total costs.
I pay 99.00 for solaris, and thats just the media. i can download the sparc iso's for free, but i like have media locked in cabinets for boot disks if necessary.
Re:dramatically less expensive ? (Score:3, Informative)
There have also been custom very-high-availability redundant i386 Linux boxes for a few years now.
Hot-swap support [rustcorp.com.au] went into the st
Linux Cola (Score:2, Insightful)
New Coke (Score:2)
Yanno (Score:5, Interesting)
Sun is now in quite the pickle. Sparcstations arent a contender for the desktop. Their server sales are being trashed by Linux on Intel, and Linux on mainframe.
Their latest play MadHatter looks nice but so does lindows,suse, and redhat. The latter 3 have one great thing going for them, they are one time licenses not perpetual service contracts like mad hatter.
Its no wonder that they paid SCO a licenses fee and are now dissing Linux. Its also no wonder that Bill Joy left the company.
Re:Yanno (Score:2, Interesting)
Perpetual Licenses... (Score:3, Interesting)
This doesn't change whether it's Linux, Windows, or Solaris - only the METHOD changes and only you can decide whether you can live with the terms.
Proves my point. Sun is against OSS (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again they show their true colors. They see linux as something stupid that the people want but they know better. They are out of their league. They keep harping on IBM not indemnifying their customers from the SCO debacle. Why should IBM a primarily hardware & services company indemnify their customers for using Linux? They don't do it with MS, they don't do it with zOS, AIX, or OS/400.
MS got sued and LOST with the plugin thing, hell MS got sent up in front of the justice department. Should a hardware vendor such as IBM or Dell have to protect their customers from that? No, they don't.
Sun is the dinosaur in this market. They make second rate hardware that is over priced and underperformed. Why else would they never want to run a TPC benchmark and keep ballyhooing 'real world' tests when they come in and try to convince you to buy their hardware? They stopped making benchmarks the day they stopped winning them and got behind. Ultrasparc 4 was to save the world yet we still haven't seen it. Now little Intel machines that cost less than the yearly maintenance of the 'inexpensive' Sun boxes can run circles around them on Linux.
Re:Proves my point. Sun is against OSS (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone that has used Sun hardware would not say this. Tell us about your experience with Sun.
Why else would they never want to run a TPC benchmark and keep ballyhooing 'real world' tests when they come in and try to convince you to buy their hardware.
Because even the other vendors and TPC themselves admit it's outdated. Do you make your server purchasing decisions based on a single benchmark?
Ultrasparc 4 was to save the world yet
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Proves my point. Sun is against OSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah Right (Score:5, Interesting)
Ten percent in the first year? What is he kidding? I think reporters should really ask for some sort of substantiation for claims like this. 10 percent would be a seismic shift in the computing industry. This is not a realistic prediction.
eWEEK: So, does the uncertainty around Linux benefit Sun and Solaris?
Schwartz: We have an interesting migration opportunity now because we can go back with Unix that is familiar, we can deliver the Java Enterprise System pricing at $100 per employee, which allows them to run Solaris at infinite scale.
His playbook is obviously to avoid mentioning "linux" and just substitute "Java Desktop System" at every opportunity. He is disguising the fact that they have in fact adopted a third-party linux distribution for desktops. This is the kind of corporate bs that gets slashdotters on Sun's case.
Bad PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Suns Niche Market (Score:5, Insightful)
Schwartz: "I have licenses" (Score:3, Insightful)
So do I buddy. It's right here [fsf.org].
I think we have our fortune 500 company (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun will be the next SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
a question for Jonathan (Score:3, Insightful)
First implying that they will indemify a cusotmer against frivouls lawsuits on copyright infringment..remeber users are never sued in a copyright matter becasue there is no legal basis to do so..
Two, saying linxu on servers is a non issue when in fact Unix software OS dying such as Solaris is a reality..take a look at Sun's last quarter statement on rpofit and loss to see why..
Indemnity (Score:3, Insightful)
We will also indemnify you for Solaris, and if IBM says you don't need it, then why do they have so many lawyers suing people over patent and copy violations.
But he must know that users do not need indemnifying against such violations.
Then:
If you use Linux on the server, even if we sold the distribution to you, you are on your own.
He continues on and on about it. Sun are obsessed with this at the moment because they think they can worry PHBs. However the danger for them is that people purchasing Linux servers (an increasing market) will avoid Sun because they are really only interested in selling Solaris.
- Brian.
Sun service contract rates are very costly (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, Sun's post-sales services are pretty good, but nobody ever said they were cheap. Or not too expensive. Or not even just very expensive. The only word that comes to mind for decent cover is exhorbitant.
A top-end Sun service contract costs many many times the total cost of a Linux server system, including all its hardware, software, and permanent supply of Jolt cola, so clearly the man is engaged in baseless PR.
You do know there's a reason for the cost (Score:2)
The reason is that the levels of support are incomparable.
Sun will debug down to the driver level and on to the hardware if needed in order to support their customers.
The Intel based vendors will tell you to reboot and then that sorry, X isn't supported with Y.
Of course, you needn't buy a top end support contract if you don't want it.
Re:Sun service contract rates are very costly (Score:5, Informative)
I have and I can tell you they are worth every penny.
When our main DB Server died a couple of very very horrible deaths Sun flew one of their engineers in from the States and they took the thing apart, spare parts where there within the hour (try that in Toronto Rush hour traffic) and General the moment I opened a call I had someone on site without as much as a flinch.
Was it "expensive"? Not if you consider the amount of money the company was loosing while the server was down (and yes, it should have been clustered, but they didn't see a need for it until it went away, now it's on a 6800 and clustered).
M.
Fuzzy math (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I misunderstanding something about his math?
expect to take 10 percent of the market in the first year. Ten percent of a $30 billion a year desktop market is huge. So, is it going to be more than 10 percent? I hope so, but in the next year I'd like to get a million users. There's a hundred million computers sold every year, I want to be in front of a million of those and two-million the next year.
How is 1 or 2 million out of 100 million "10 percent of the market?" Anyhow, 1% of the desktop market in one year is an aggressive goal. 10% is ludicrous. Enterprises are not going to switch desktop operating systems that quickly.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:2)
1. Of the 100 million computers sold each year, 10 million (10%) are for the desktop.
2. The average price for each desktop OS is $3000. Sun intends (apparently) to price the same functionality at $100.
See? It all makes perfect sense.
Not indemnified? (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you want to believe today? (Score:2)
Rhetoric... (Score:2, Funny)
"IBM is being so hypocritical. If the issue is a non-issue, why don't they indemnify their customers? And if you don't need to indemnity, why do you have the world's largest patent litigation team inside IBM suing the bejesus out of the entire industry, holding them up for ransom on IP that you claim is yours that they have purloined. Well, go look in the mirror guys. This will tear that company asunder."
It would seem to be yet another example of a bunc
Crack La La Land (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy is seriously reaching. He's also wrong about his customers. At one time, if truly necessary, I would have considered Solaris for high IO applications. Not now. He all but came right out and said that SCO is a business partner. I also would have considered purchasing StarOffice at work. Not now.
Sun you're known by the company you keep. Publically distance yourself from them before you really hurt yourselves.
Re:Crack La La Land (Score:2)
"We do not believe that Linux plays a role..." (Score:2)
Linux plays a role in the server market whether you want to "believe" in it or not. His elliptical method of writing is pure corporatese, and serves as a classic example of why Sun is in a pretty scary position right now. Rather than address reality, they're avoiding it with sneaky turns of phrase.
How To Deal With Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How To Deal With Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Ignore.
2. Embrace.
And of course the SCO option (insanity).
On the Ignore side: MS, Sun.
On the Embrace side: IBM, Apple.
Guess which companies will still be around in 5 years' time?
Explain this to me: (Score:2)
Personal Opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately, IBM is doing just that. We will do business with IBM. HP isn't.
Sun? Who cares? (Score:2)
Hearing Scott McNealy is like hearing Steve Jobs or Ralph Nader. Your time is over; give it up.
Sun is NOT for mission critical services! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does Sun's license agreement explicitly state that Sun can not be held liable for loses caused by Sun software?
It sounds like Sun doesn't have faith in their own product line. Should I use Sun products for mission-critical applications? Well, I know that Sun won't stand behind me if I do!
No software supplier is liable (Score:3, Informative)
Try to find a software supplier who will accept liability for losses caused by the use of their systems.
I've seen it real world (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is cheap, robust, powerful.
But when your talking about mission critical, high performance, no-limit systems... your talking about solaris.
Solaris on one of Sun's boxes is really something. Combined with Netscape Enterprise, and Tomcat.. they are robust. These things really can take a ton of traffic, and not sweat it.
Not to mention their stability, and security.
For 90% of websites out there... Linux is the better alternative. They don't need the performance, power, stability of Solaris on Sun hardware. Will 5 minutes of downtime on Flashyourrack.com really kill you? Of course not.
But when it's a mission critical website, that needs to run... it's Solaris.
Solaris on Sun hardware hurts the wallet, but it's powerful. They can really take a beating and continue on.
Re:I've seen it real world (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course there are businesses who use their Servers for something else than hosting a website....
I find the Linux comments always funny when it comes to Linux vs. Sun, it seems all people do here is run Websites, does anybody here actually handle a couple of TB worth of Databases?
Re:I've seen it real world (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, on dual Xeons running RedHat. Works great, the only problems we've had have been physical drive failures.
from someone with actual experience... (Score:4, Informative)
In my experience, if you have something that needs to be bulletproof - if you have something that, on the ultra-rare occassion there is a major problem that is beyond an admin's scope to fix, you can toss cores to a group and demand a quick response (if something dies with a linux box, there's really no one you can get lvl3+ support from) - then you put it on a solaris box. Solaris has a wide range of very useful functions and features that have yet to be mimiced in linux yet. It also has FAR better stability.
On the other hand...if you want to be able to run obscure things, if you want a very versatile and powerful development platform, if you want a cheap but powerful system to do something an enterprise sun box doesn't make sense for, then linux is definately your way to go. If you want to do computational clustering, still linux (though sun's grid engine can still be used, if you want...).
I've been a linux nut since 95. I have loved seeing it go from a hobby OS to something serious. Score a huge one for the underdog! On a high-end server though, it still has a long way to go to compare to solaris. For an easy dividing-line, I find anything from Sun that isn't a v880 or better to be pointless. Solaris for x86 sucks terribly, and once you're below the v880 line you should just be using an intel or amd (depending, again, on function) system, and running linux as its OS.
At least, that's my opinion...as someone with actual experiencerunning both.
Re:from someone with actual experience... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is Linux as of today (2.4.x kernel, 2.6 isn't ready yet!) missing for higher end servers?
Re:from someone with actual experience... (Score:3, Interesting)
yup, Linux has an LVM, but I've had it puke on me before in test lab; we'd have never used it in production. I know LInux will soon have all the data center features I listed plus more. Two more years, I think.
The swap limit is with 2.4 kernel on Intel 32 bit processors [it's hard-coded in memory/paging ]. Other architectures might go higher - if you are on 32 bit intel with 2.4 kernel I think you might not really
CPUs (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the most number of CPUs that you can run in one box under Solaris? Some question for Linux. Can someone answer that for me?
One of the things that bugged me about Linux when I was paying closer attention to the kernel was that Linus seemed to be completely against finely-grained semaphores in the kernel and basically opted for huge chunks semaphored code instead. In order to be able to take advantage of a high number of CPUs in a system, the Linux kernel is going to have to go to that route, or you'll end up with a lot of CPUs spinning cycles while they wait for other CPUs to finish up whatever they're doing. (That's assuming of course that Linux allows multiple processes in kernel context at the same time, vs. the traditional Unix model).
Unless Linux can solve this sort of problem, Solaris will have an advantage because they can throw more hardware into one box, and have the kernel take advantage of it.
Re:CPUs (Score:4, Interesting)
You can read about 2.4 and 2.6 SMP scalability here [ibm.com] Though Linux can run on 64-way, it is currently best on 8-way or less, with 16 and 32-way improvements still in the works
Both FreeBSD and Linux started SMP with very coarse mutex methods because it's very HARD to write that stuff. They will get better over time. In Linux, IBM is helping to tune and improve that stuff (and SCO hates it and wants to claim it)
Sun is digging its own grave (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux will prevail because of it's availability (Score:3, Insightful)
For many years, Windows is what most people have used on the desktop. Young programmers have it at home, and start tinkering around, developing for the platform that's sitting in front of them. Naturally, when you need an application on a server, you go with the platform that you're used to.
This is where Linux will pull ahead of the likes of Sun. A lot of the new young developers are using Linux. It's highly available and free for download and modification, with no strings attached. You have access to a large variety of development tools. You get the chance to work on development teams, to make a difference in the community. You build your skill-set on this very attractive development platform that is Linux.
So when the time comes for these new developers to help decide what platform to use in their companies, what will it be? Linux.
Sun *used* to be a hardware company... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only operating systems that have credibility on Intel are
Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Linux. Which one of them does IBM
do? They don't own their own operating system that runs on the
volume platform. So they will continue supporting other people's
platforms. So will HP. While they have done a superb job of telling
the world that Linux is the future, but sadly it may be true for
them because they don't own an OS
It's sad that the former great Unix hardware companies (Sun, SGI,
Next, Apollo) had to live through times where their product was
commodotized to a point where they either had to compete with as a
softare company or die. SGI and NeXT didn't make it, and sun is now
having to sell their soul to make it as a software company.
I think IBM (and to a lesser extent, HP) see the big picture here -
the commoditization of software and re-emergence of premium hardware.
And if you think about it, isn't that how it should be? You can't
develop hardware in your basement, and if you could, you certainly
couldn't afford to mass produce it. It's a good thing: great
hardware running great open source software.
P.S. I'm astonished to see the number of Sun apologists on Slashdot.
They are on a slippery slope right now, the way they are conducting
themselves. I think Bill Joy saw it and got the hell out. I can sympathize - my first Unix experience was on a Sun, but I'm not about to let nostalgia rule over common sense.
Sun has a serious reality problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun is all about hardware actually. Ranting about Linux this way is silly and unprofessional.
Solaris may rock on Sun hardware and may be more consitent than Linux. But the case is that in a market that is - believe it or not - dominated by an OS called Windows it's pointless to haggle over details.
It's x86 that sucks and if Sun would manage to get Sparc architecture more widely used, accepeted and payable they'd actually stand a chance. Sparc is to x86 what Linux is to Dos5/Win3.1. Honestly, think about *anything* that *really* is a pain on PC Linux and you'll find it to be an x86 problem.
The way Sun plays now, it's going more and more comoditiy hardware as usuall. We'll 'compensate' for Linux' 'unreliability' by clustering with boxen off the shelf of Wallmart and loadbalancing with software that you can get for free of the 'net in 5 minutes flat. And AMD and Intel will just keep churning the Ghz crank - and even make good money while doing so too.
And in the end we're gonna all rember those times when there once was an architecture that you could hotswap CPUs with but had a management so full of it they died even before all the rest.
It's a shame, 'cause I really would like to give Sparc a try one time. And believe me, if it's mainly Gnome/Solaris/JBoss or KDE/Linux/Zope or any other way - I really don't give a damn, as long as it is 'nix and I can get the stuff I use compiled. Coming to think of it, Sun actually could open source Solaris... But I guess the moon will crash into the pacific before that happens.
Axis Of Evil - no doubt now who they are... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sun & Schwartz - playing the role of the Emperor, egotistical and proud. (He was intially scheduled to play nilatS, Stalin in reverse, because Sun seemed allied with the forces of freedom in the beginning but now is working with Hitler. Besides, Stalin was never considered part of the Axis Powers.) Believing the Sun rises and sets on him and his empire, he makes alliances with Mussolini and knows full well that sooner or later he'll have to deal with Hitler. Like Hitler, he believes that "There can be only one."
MS & Gates - playing Hitler and out to own the entire world, including those territories of Mussolini and the Emporer, no matter what laws are broken or who gets burned. His Panzer Cash units, having done their work in America, are burning trails of greed and deception throughout Europe, Asia and Down Under, but legions of resistance fighters around the world, under the symbol of the Penquin, are beginning to reverse the fortunes his Panzers have brought him. Will he be able to subvert all governments and politicians, using his DMCA and Patent Rockets, into making freedom illegal? His intial success with the DOJ, snatching Victory out of the Jaws of Defeat, seem to indicate so, but losses in China and some cities around the world indicate another outcome.
Will Hitler succeed in emerging as the Lone World Dictator, errecting Iron Curtains around the Internet and PC hardware, with all access points guarded by DRM chips?
It's a true Cliff-Hanger! Only time will tell.
Strange logic... (Score:4, Insightful)
Backwards. If the issue is a non-issue, why would IBM indemnify their customers? It's like asking IBM to indemnify a customer against tripping and falling because they fail to tie their shoe. It has nothing to do with IBM or the software/services the customer is being sold, so why would IBM indemnify their customers against it? IBM is not an insurance company.
It's all just FUD by Sun, but it always amazes me how these guys around the industry can spew this nonsense that's not only wrong, but completely irrelevant and, well, nonsensical. There's just no logic behind it at all; you look at it and go "huh?" Really makes you wonder what it takes to succeed in business. Seems to be more luck than anything; it's obviously not brains. And luck only lasts so long.
They are scared... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where I work we are looking into using Linux on the Desktops with vmware installed to run different OS:es. Windows and Linux mostly. This is to Lower costs.
The users running Unix cad-stations are also looking into replacing HP-UX/Solaris and AIX with
On the servers were looking into replacing our database machines that runs on AIX/Solaris and HP-UX with
Now, why? Because it is a customer demand/wish. I work with outsourcing and the customers are getting more and more cost-aware. What are they doing to lower the cost? They look at alternatives for example Linux. They ask us if we can set this up, what should we answer? Well
Then they will fall all the harder (Score:3, Insightful)
Does Sun really believe that they can, in so far as they may now, maintain any technical superiority at all? They can not, not with big money funding the development and deployment of free open source solutions.
In a few short years, either Sun will change its tune, or Sun will join SCO in the gutter.
Re:Odd strategy (Score:2)
It's quite an interesting reversal of the usual take on all this: that Linux just cannot make it on the desktop but is crushing all before it in the server market.
Re:Odd strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
The last hope for Sun is their software business, not Solaris, but Java. But time over time, they have shown they cannot execute on any sort of plan for themselves in this sector. They haven't turned a profit on software in ages, and IBM and BEA make better Java app servers than Sun does.
They remind me very much of Sega. They cannot compete in hardware anymore, at least not to any degree that will support their whole company. The sooner they realize this, and shift their focus into a pure software company the better chances they have of surviving.
Re:Odd strategy (Score:2)
Re:Poor Sun (Score:2, Interesting)
are already financing the anti-Linux, anti-GPL campaign.
If Sun thought that linux is irrelevant on
the server they would have ignored us, and
Schwartz would not arrive to repeat the same
insanities like McBride.
This it is SCO fud again. This time via Sun,
and for the same reasons. The difference is
that SCO knows how their enemies are, Sun does not!
Re:Sun is partially right (Score:4, Interesting)
We're speaking of Intel, yes? If we're talking SPARC, I don't know how much Linux factors in. (Of course, if you're buy SPARC, you pretty much have Solaris in the box.)
That said, our organization is giving the Ultra IIIi line a miss. We're going straight from Ultra II to POWER4 in an IBM pseries box. (AIX 5L, though.)
Re:Sun is partially right (Score:2, Informative)
Sun have switched OS's once (Score:2)
So, no. Linux is no threat to Sun. It's simply a transition challenge.
Re:Sun have switched OS's once (Score:2)
So, no. Linux is no threat to Sun. It's simply a transition challenge.
I don't think so. Sun switching to linux would mean making their product comparable and interchangable with every other hardware linux runs on. This is nearly the same as as apple not releasing OS X for intel (solaris on intel is no competitor to solaris on sparc, so that doesn't count).
Sun adopting linux on big iron could mean the end of the company, that's
Nope (Score:2)
Unlike Apple, you do not buy Sun systems for the operating system, you buy Sun systems and HP systems for the system as a whole particularly the performance and scalability of the hardware and in the HP case, you just have to live with the OS.
If Sun decide that Linux will do the job and is
Re:Linux is SUNs greatest threat (Score:2)
Mine's a scotch, thanks.
Re:SCO is so wrong. (Score:2, Funny)
Absolutely right! (Score:2)
SCO would be equally wrong if Linux was a closed-source piece of code being sold by a company. In fact Microsoft was sued for exactly this. What was the result? 1. Microsoft removed the code. 2. Microsoft (the infringing party) paid a fine. 3. NOTHING happened to Microsoft's customers they were not even forced to upgrade to non-infringing versions.
If SCO was actually doing anythin
Cult of Pathaygoras (Score:2)
Re:1600 SAT Jerk (Score:2)
indemnify ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-dmn-f) tr.v. indemnified, indemnifying, indemnifies
1. To protect against damage, loss, or injury; insure. 2. To make compensation to for damage, loss, or injury suffered.
Only when Sun copies Steve Ballmer's AntiLinux FUD (Score:2)
Only when Sun copies Steve Ballmer's Anti-Linux FUD [microsoft.com]
Does Microsoft ( or any other proprietary software vendor ) truly indemnifies it's own customers? Not if Microsoft's current license agreements are any thing to go by.
In repect to SCO's claims, the GPL does protect. (Score:2)
NZheretic Aka David Mohring.
Re:He has a point (Score:2)
Re:He has a point (Score:2)