Is Sun Turning against Linux and Red Hat? 542
An Elephant writes "Groklaw is reporting,
based on a ZDNet UK story, that Sun's strategy for survival in the near future is based on trying to equate Linux with Red Hat, and then attack Red Hat as too small to support enterprises. This seems strange -- Sun is selling a Linux distro itself (the Java Desktop System). As I write this, there's no mention of this on Sun's website -- neither confirmation nor denial. What's going on?"
No surprise here... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is definitely true, I'm not sure why this would surprise anyone. The first I saw of it was on News.com.com.com [com.com] on the 20th, two days before the ZDNet UK article. It was based on a telephone conversation with Jonathan Schwartz. Sun wants to find a way to avoid commoditization of software, and to make their HW/SW bundle inseparable. That HW/SW bundle doesn't include Linux, at least any moreso than they have to pay lip service to Linux support.
I'm sorry, did you actually think Sun was an ally? I guess it was their $2 billion deal with Microsoft to try to face IBM head-on (the only company whose Linux support has actually lived up to their promises) that convinced you Sun was completely benign.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Insightful)
And why should they be? Linux installations are killing commercial unix, moreso than MS's server offerings. These are the mechanics of market competition. On top of it, even if Sun is serious about the Java Desktop they can still push it and attack other linux distros at the same time. All they have to claim is that their solution is better than Red Hats (or whoever).
The world of business makes for odd enemies and bedfellows.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely! No Windows, no Sun... we geeks don't need this when we have Slashdot to bathe us in it's nice warm green light.
Yummm. Usss likessses ittt.
Death of commercial Unix flavours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but it's not Linux alone, I believe might be the fact that Linux runs on Intel PC commodity hardware that kills commercial unices more than anything else.
And that they go is actually a shame, because they are very stable and highly standard compliant, exactly what a developer expects from his or her box [there's a HP 715-100XC sitting here under my desk]...
--
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Sun vs. Everybody (Score:5, Informative)
Now Sun is partnered with MS. That alone could kill Sun if it is not very careful. But MS is running scared, and could die before leveraging their partnership to destroy Sun.
Sun wants to equate Linux with Redhat. That might have worked a few years ago. Redhat is American; SuSE was German; Mandrake is French; TurboLinux is Asian; Lindows is playing a different game. Now SuSE is American, owned by Novell, and IBM is investing in it. Does Sun not realize that SuSE moved into the neighborhood? Redhat is attempting to emulate MS, and earning MS-like badwill, but there is an American alternative. Of course, SuSE has the similar problems in putting proprietary programs into its distribution. It is difficult to find a totally-free but commercially-viable American distribution, but that does not affect Sun's market.
IBM and Sun are still focused on powerful hardware. Google has demonstrated that many applications work well with a large server farm of low-power computers. IBM realizes that the only way to keep the hardware prices high is to commoditize software. Sun has great engineers, but their business strategies do not reflect today's market.
I like Sun, and wish them well. Dell is winning on hardware, MS is struggling to stay viable in software, and everybody else is wondering how to stay competitive. Sun does not have a good answer yet.
Warped Perspective? (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian [debian.org]? Of course, there's no such thing as national boundaries in free software. It's commercially viable the same way all free software is. IBM is demonstrating that you don't have to have software secrets to make money. Consulting and hardware sales pay manyfold what you might put into software development.
IBM realizes that the only way to keep the hardware prices high is to commoditize software. Sun has great engineers, but their business strategies do not reflect today's market.
IBM realizes that their hardware has to do useful things if they want to sell it. Bill Gates taught them a big lesson about non free software. When your software has owners, so does your hardware.
Sun, on the other hand, seems to have gone insane. Without community involvement, Solaris will continue to fall behind free tools. No one company can compete against the free software world. If they start spewing M$ FUD, the community will desert them. That will leave them with nothing.
I don't think so (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Informative)
IBM runs "Linux" advertisments on TV though.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is more, a very good chunck of HP printers are supported under linux, please use something like CUPS to do your printing, and you will find that most HP printers will just work, with HP supplied "drivers" (printers don't need drivers, they need definition files).
As for "downloading, compiling and installing alsa drivers", you must be running Gentoo then, or some other source-based distro. Most non-source based distros have full pre-compiled alsa support built in. Given the issues you have with getting even the most basic of tasks worked out in Linux, you should probably stay away from the big-boy distro's for now, and start with something simple. I strongly suggest you try out SUSE or Mandrake. Goes nice with your MCSE.
Finally, as for HP paying lipservice: HP has probably invested a whole lot more into Linux and Linux development then you have.....
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Informative)
NFS, OpenOffice, GNOME?
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Informative)
Sun has had weird relationships with lots of open source projects that cut into their planned markets, ranging from X-windows to gcc, from their embracing of AT&T style UNIX over BSD style UNIX with the release of Solaris, to their on-again/off-again friendliness to open source work with Java that might remove their leadership in its planned development.
It certainly wouldn't shock me if they once again try to push new
Re:No surprise here... (Score:4, Insightful)
The place where I see buggy, unreliable NFS performance is on Linux, not on anything Sun maintains.
So your comment seems laughable. Are we supposed to fall back to SMB??
Re:No surprise here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you have a buggy NFS implementation; if it's from a recent Linux kernel could you report the bug on the nfs sourceforge list please?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "no security", and why it matters whether you're in a "cross-platform environment" or not. Most platforms I know of (including Solaris and Linux) now either implement rpcsec_gss/krb5 or are working on it.
On Linux (at least with recent kernels) you can allow clients to cross mountpoints, and can export the mounted filesystem to different clients than the mounted-on one.
--Bruce Fields
NFS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NFS (Score:3, Informative)
As for security, NFS is built on top of RPC, secure RPC and you have secured NFS. Sun's latest implementation of RPC does include a collection of security features.
I've heard (actually read...) a lot of rude noises about NFS on Linux.
Re:NFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could just check http://docs.sun.com:
(from the Solaris 9 9/04 system administrator collection).
But, hey, flaming is easier.
Re:NFS (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty damned painful. Give Sun credit for buying up OpenOffice and keeping it alive, and give them credit for Java, but NFS should go back to the drawing boards.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Insightful)
You may also want to look at the applications that run on
Re:No surprise here... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't buy it, I grow it.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Intel. Read the 2.6.9-2 changelog. Tony Luck contributes, as does Ken Chen. You didn't mention SGI, but I'll mention them. sgi.com email addresses submit patches. HP? Sure, Bjorn Helgaas submits patches. Dell? Oh yeah, Dell hosts the MegaRaid development mailing list, and a few people from dell.com also submit patches. AMD? Take a look at the 2.4.27 chagelog. An AMD employee submitted a patch for an AMD network driver.
IBM is not the only corporation to submit patches to the Linux kernel.
Not Entirely True (Score:4, Informative)
>
SGI have contributed to numerous projects, and are only narrowly behind IBM in terms of how much they've put in. They'd be contributing more, but their Apache accelerator unit was shut down because the Apache group wouldn't take their patches. Fools that they are. (Apache, that is. Those were some damn good patches.)
SGI also ships the Altix platdorm and contributes to Linux' NUMA development, SMP development and numerous other projects. (You don't build 1024-way systems unless you're going to make it run a 1024-way OS.)
Novell's doing alright by OSS/GPL too... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Novell's doing alright by OSS/GPL too... (Score:4, Informative)
GPLing YaST was an often discussed topic for years at SUSE.
If you want to credit Novell for something then better tell that it's Novell's "fault" that SUSE offers ISO's of the SUSE Linux Personal Edition. Because that likely wouldn't have happened without Novell's influence.
Of course in the end it doesn't matter how the current state was reached as long as everyone is happy now.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Interesting)
HP
bjorn.helgaas@hp.com
davidm@napali.hpl.hp.com
eranian@hpl.hp.com
Dell
Matt_Domsch@dell.com
Intel
tony.luck@intel.com
kenneth.w.chen@intel.com
suresh.b.siddha@int
yanmin.zhang@intel.com
junx.yao@intel.com
arun.sharma@intel.com
gordon.jin@intel.com
AMD
khawar.chaudhry:amd.com
That was with just a quick check of two. These contributors may not be specifically sponsored by their employers. I don't know. But they certainly contribute and do work there.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No surprise here... (Score:5, Informative)
Good god! Sun makes a heel turn! (Score:5, Funny)
What's going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
> As I write this, there's no mention of this on Sun's website -- neither confirmation nor denial. What's going on?
Slashdot is reporting that Groklaw is reporting that the ZD FUD machine is reporting that...
OK, maybe it's true, but I wouldn't take it to the bank yet.
Re:What's going on? (Score:5, Insightful)
They drove me away with poor hardware support and I'm now using RedHat on x86, but they know how to get me back: quality engineering at a fair price.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge free software fan (or is that fanatic), but this FUD is the worse FUD I've seen since Darl shut up.
Re:What's going on? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like they are looking for the competition (Score:5, Informative)
I think they missed the point.
Re:Sounds like they are looking for the competitio (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the innovation? No, not the scientific innovation, the managerial innovation.
Baaahhhh (Score:4, Funny)
What about Novell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about Novell? (Score:3, Interesting)
What sun is after is what they see as a gap in IBM and HP
Re:What about Novell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Netware was designed to add good networking functionallity to operating system(s) with limmited support. Then all of a sudden microsoft came along and started including a lot of the features novell had been offering (admittedly a hell of a lot worse, but that M$ for you) in there standard OS.
Suddenly there was a lot less of a need for netware.
So its not really like novell "killed" netware, netware got killed (although novell probably could have worked a bit better at keeping it alive).
Re:What about Novell? (Score:4, Informative)
Not that Im disagreing with your basic point... Novell was its worst enemy in the 90s. Its stuff worked too well, was ignored and forgotten about. 3.11, NT 3.5, and 95 with their half assed networking abilities appeared better, and in many cases was good enough. But there back. Hopefully
Wait a minute (Score:3, Informative)
They tried to make their own distro of Linux and that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I guess Sun just has to be more competitive and work harder to get support contracts away from redhat.
Mod parent down (Score:3, Interesting)
Sun can't compete against Linux, because it's not a company. They can compete against Red Hat, SuSE, etc. These are companies. They make and sell stuff, including support contracts, etc.
Schwartz also states that he thinks Linux is a good proving ground, but Solaris is better, even at running Linux applications. Sounds like a good strategy, if people buy it. Now that Sun sells AMD boxes, as well as SPARC, it's a lot less of a hassle for their customers to try exactly that.
What is with this duality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is with this duality. (Score:3, Insightful)
The situation with Sun reminds me a bit of the competing units within Sony. In many large corporations, there are divisions that are not always pulling in the same direction. Sony, for example, makes consumer electronics that can, among other things, play, record, or otherwise distribute music. The goal of this division is to make money by making this easier for the consumer. Another divis
what?! (Score:3, Funny)
Are you serious?! Sun isn't posting their future strategies on a publicly accessible website?!?!? THAT'S INSANE!!
Not all bad (Score:3, Insightful)
If those same guys even knew that Red Hat was an alternative operating system, that would be a huge step forward. Heck, even if one of them tries it out, they'd learn soon enough what Linux really was. Until then, let's take all the advertisement we can get. Just get Linux, Red Hat, whatever out there as well-known terms.
Objective question. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we've had Microsoft preaching that linux IS Red Hat, for a while now.
Have the
I know I know, businesses may have. But have YOU?
Apply the same to Sun, and take note of their respective sizes. Assuming that Sun pulls the "merge" off, just what exactly will it affect, compred to microsoft? MS isn't making any big dents (yet, time will tell), so how could Sun? (In a completly closed-mind view.)
I know, I know, in two years, MS might be a thing of the past, and then in 4 years, if it's not a SCO server then it's not worth anything. I won't debate how the future works, as it really is pointless.
If I may remind you all of a quote of Linus, which goes something to the point of, "My goals were never to destroy Microsoft. That will be a completly unintentional side effect." (Yeah, that's probably a horrible 'quote', but live with it, you get the point.)
So, why should you care if Sun does this? Sun can spout all the FUD they want, as can Microsoft, as can 'Red Hat' (read: any linux distro), but that doesn't change the fact that some PR FUD changed actual benchmarks, it doesn't change the prices, and it doesn't change what really works. If Sun does the job better than linux, go for Sun I say. If linux does it better, go with linux.
Just take note: using the 'PR' view, we should ALL be using Microsoft Server, linux it's worth 2 cents, and Sun is some upstart with millions, who's preaching against a 2 cent OS.
Form your own opinions, people. Chill.
Everything's there... (Score:3, Interesting)
Chaos Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm wrong, PLEASE let me know. I'm a Sun user and I like Sun, I really do... I just never know where they're going from one day to the next.
Let MS and Sun believe that Linux == Red Hat (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, if MS and Sun think they can beat Linux by beating Red Hat, let them believe that. It'll keep them off our backs while we build the next generation of superior software.
Re:Let MS and Sun believe that Linux == Red Hat (Score:3, Interesting)
The money is in services: installation, maintenance, outsourcing and customization of this technology. And Red Hat, posing as a software company, snuck right into this market.
If I were Sun, I would definitely try to crush the upsta
Some interesting weblog posts (Score:5, Interesting)
And a good rebuttal [kroah.com] from a linux kernel hacker.
Re:Some interesting weblog posts (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows has binary compatability. Windows runs in both SMP mode and single-processor mode. Windows might not have as glitteringly perfect of a driver model as Linux, but let's be honest here, it gets the job done.
He's given a lot of good reasons Linux doesn't have binary compatibility. Okay. Sure. How about listing the reasons Sun wants binary compatibility and showing how those goals are achievable in other ways, instead of just throwing away Sun's requirements as insignificant?
Good rebuttal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good rebuttal? Uh, he's reading the original blog article like the devil reading bible... and then doing plenty of strawman attacks.
Original article didn't say anything about "Sun not wanting to help with Linux kernel development". It is only saying it wouldn't make sense to (try to) dump Open Sourced Solaris code in Linux, to port Solaris features. Neither does the article claim that Linux developers do not value good engineering principles -- just that highest priorities are different from those of Solaris kernel development team. What's wrong with such a statement? Quite obviously priorities are different; what else would you expect between a "traditional" engineering effort of a big corporation, and a leading-edge open-source development effort?
What a crappy rebuttal. Wonder why the linux kernel hacker even bother with such a knee-jerk writing I have no idea. I'm not sure if he even read the writing he was replying to; and certainly didn't try to understand it even if he did.
Re:Some interesting weblog posts (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement from the rebuttal is the most moronic thing I've ever read. The fact that I couldn't use my hardware properly for nearly 4 months when I upgraded to the 2.6 kernel BUGGED THE HELL OUT OF ME! (nVidia graphics card), further, just this week I could finally use cisco's vpn client again (yes its been "working" for longer, but only officially supported on 2.6 in a release 2 weeks ago). This is a huge issue, that ALL USERS care about.
To say that no users care about driver compatibility is just insane. It would be nice if there was some sort of API that binary device drivers could write against that never changed... but who knows thats probably really hard (I don't know anything about kernel devel) His argument for why the linux kernel can't and won't do binary compatibility is good, not having crap code sitting around just because it was the best we could do in 1982 and someone touched the api with some scsi card driver and now we're stuck thats good.
I'm mostly just pissed that he's decided to write off what "all users" think, and that "no one" cares that they can't use their nvidia card for 4-6 months after every kernel release.
Anybody tried out Solaris 10 on x86? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anybody tried out Solaris 10 on x86? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Installation time: 1hr-2hr
-Drivers: what drivers!
-Gnome 2: Crashed first time on, but stable after.
-Couldn't mount floppy to install 3rd party net driver - need to read docs.
-Docs... what docs... Docs iso does not exist, docs available on line.
-couldn't start scm? (manager tool) because it couldn't find the server - net problem I believe - see above.
I'm not saying most of the problems are Sun's fault, and with Gnome's crash exception, I should be able to fix most problems after browsing the docs, but not having a manageable system (for whatever reason) after a clean install is not good for business.
I really want to give Sun a chance on x86, but history is not in their favor, especially after they almost pulled the rug from under x86 users.
On paper http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/10/ds/solari
Not against Linux but Red Hat (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt Sun hates Linux, but it is clear why they would dislike Red Hat. Red Hat is a true competitor against Solaris and Sun's own Linux distributions. Sun would play along with Red Hat as a reseller only as long as it takes to replace any Red Hat-branded software with Sun-branded software.
I still don't understand why the common culture at Slashdot is to bash Sun at all costs, even if it requires misinformation to do so. It's almost as bad as some of the rants for and against Microsoft, HP, Intel, etc. (not IBM, of course, because IBM paints penguins on sidewalks--that makes them all nice sugar and spice).
Re:Not against Linux but Red Hat (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe this will help:
1) Donated a very large sum of money to a company that committed the legal equivalent of a suicide bombing against linux.
2) Sold their soul to the devil (Microsoft) in return for temporary bankrucpy prevention.
Sun is a company, and they have the right to behave as they want, but I don't have to like the fact that just about every action they have taken recently has been intended to destroy my ability to use gnu/linux, my operating system of choice.
Actually, I fing this very surprising . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, it's not surprising that Sun isn't real happy about Linux. There are only three enterprise Unixes left: Irix, AIX, and Solaris. Only one hasn't been phased out by it's parent company for Linux. Sun's betting on being THE enterprise Unix vendor. Fighting Linux is a reasonable strategy.
But the Redhat == Linux == No Enterprise Power strategy is so dumb even MS figured out it was wrong. Fight Redhat, cool, Redhat is a competitor. But trying to fight Linux by pigeonholing it will never work. Linux is a technology. It's like AOL trying to fight the open Web by saying the Web == Earthlink == None of our wonderful proprietary content. It doesn't make any sense.
Sun will loose because the quality of their products doesn't matter because that quality only means anything in an IT world that is slowing ceasing to exist, and Sun can't figure out how to deal with it. Linus Torvalds is not your competitor! Your competitors are still IBM and SGI for the high end, custom hardware market (with Apple scooting in), and Redhat and Novell for the midrange commodity hardware market, even if they are all running Linux. IBM still has the resources to support Linux richly, so you can't win this battle this way, you'll just loose to IBM with Linux instead of Redhat.
I'd like to see Sun get this right. Linux needs someone to keep it honest, and the BSD's are becoming less and less general purpose, loosing their ability to compete in the exact same area's as the distros. Linux needs a competeing strong Unix kernel, and a competeing strong desktop kernel. We've got OS X and Windows - where is our enterprise server OS?
Re:Actually, I fing this very surprising . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Never underestimate the stupidity of management.
I work at Sun. Posting anon to well, be anon. I probably won't be working here much longer, but that's my own decision - I'm not liking the direction the company is heading. Everything, and I mean *everything*, is pointed towards making money. That's fine, I mean we have to do that in order to survive, right? But when it comes down to a higher-u
This may validate Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see where the problem is, or how this exactly equates to Sun being anti-Linux.
Red Hat sells Linux. Sun sells Linux in the form of JDS. Sun is coming up with a strategy to encourage potential buyers to purchase from them by claiming that Red Hat isn't up to handling large enterprise accounts.
This is what competition is all about, folks. One of the great things about Open Source is that we can have multiple competing distributions. Mandrake and SuSe aren't buddy-buddy with Red Hat -- they compete with them as well. Do you somehow think that when they're competing with Red Hat for an account that they don't go in and try to show the potential buyer how they are better that Red Hat, or where Red Hat's weaknesses (perceived or otherwise) are?
This is the nature of competition. It doesn't mean that Sun is anti-Linux (although I don't believe that Sun is a great friend to Linux either). It's simple competition. This is news to anyone? Would anyone expect anything different between two competing companies? This is a complete non-story if I ever saw one.
Yaz.
Sun ignored Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
A while ago I read a paper by Larry McVoy which essentially detailed the current threats to Sun at the time. One of those threats was NT (well no one who actually knew anything about Unix at the time saw it as a threat but those were geeks not business minded people) and the other was Linux and what he termed Sourceware at the time.
The paper is still available http://www.bitmover.com/lm/papers/srcos.html [bitmover.com] to read.
I had the good fortune of speaking with LM about what happened to the Spring OS which is mentioned in the paper. His response was that nothing happened, it essentially died. Some of the interesting and functional bits made it into Solaris but thats about it.
From the paper A royalty free operating system. Sun wants this so badly that they are currently spending roughly the same amount as the Unix royalty stream to fund development of a royalty free operating system called Spring.
Obviously Sun didn't want it so badly and instead of seeing Linux as a moving target gaining speed many just shrugged it off. This, again, a mistake. I like Sun, they have extremely good hardware, documentation and support. They need to find a viable business plan and it would start by maybe re-reading this paper and compiling a new one assessing their current and future threats.
If Sun genuinely wanted to they could be a dominant player in the linux market, ahead of Redhat and Novell. No one does support like Sun; period. However, they just let the ball drop way too many times. If you read the paper carefully you'll see that Novell even though they are late to the game are pushing through with what they want. I wish them the best of luck.
Sun still has enough money to make a change but sometimes it's hard to let go of certain things. The reality is that Sun doesn't have to let go of it's main babies such as the Sparc or Solaris. If they truly want to keep them they could recommend them for high end usage in certain critical performance server areas. There's a whole host of different configurations they could keep those things specialized for but they just aren't serious.
Still, I wish Sun the best of luck. If this rumor is true, they are going to fumble the ball one last time.
read Jonathan Schwartz's blog (Score:5, Interesting)
Scan through it for a while and you get a bit of an idea of the direction he thinks in, publicly at least.
For example:
Or:
Sun definitely seems to think they have a strong competitor to Linux with Solaris 10, especially with adding support for running Linux applications. Their pricing for Solaris x86 is ballpark with suse or red hat enterprise.
Sun realizes that Linux is making certain layers of the stack a commodity, and is fighting strongly both on the front of bringing Solaris into the market while providing some added value (what a change from when they were killing Solaris x86 just a short while ago...) and moving up the stack (java desktop, application servers, etc.) while at the same time trying to expand their offerings of commodity servers that can run any platform... and using that as an entry point to get Solaris in the door.
I mean, "duh" Sun competes with Red Hat, and makes a big deal about being able to be a vendor that has a full hardware and software stack of their own. I don't, however, see any signs that Sun is betting the farm on Solaris.
Now your failure is complete (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Red Hat,
I bet the decision to abandon the social movement (Bluecurve, Fedora) and become a "clear target" looks a little different from where you stand now, doesn't it?
Actual Competetion (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun is trying to be competitive. They can't say "Linux sucks, go with Solaris" because it impossible to compete with an ideology. And besides, they sell Linux for the desktop. BUT they CAN say "Redhat sucks, go with Sun" which is what they ARE doing. Seems fair, right? I mean, for years, Linux advocates have been saying "Windows/Solaris/'All other OS's' suck, go with Linux"
Bah, who cares. Ill still recommend Linux for 1-4 way, and Solaris for anything heavier.
The difference is desktop vs. server (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll be more interesting to see how they go after Novell.
And so? (Score:5, Insightful)
It does not help Sun's case that they ship Linux, that they've been forced into shipping Solaris as Open Source (or some derivative thereof) and that Java has been pushed from being utterly closed into being semi-open. Customers have already accepted the fact that Sun believes that it cannot compete with Linux.
It is irrelevent as to whether this is true or not. What is important is that it is generally accepted.
Sun can quite easily survive in the mid-to-high end of the market, where Microsoft dare not go. SGI, for all its stupidities of the past, has done very nicely from focussing itself on a market that - by nature - tends to be picky and has very specialised needs. Likewise, IBM has long-since abandoned the low-end market. There's not enough money per seat, there. The market can't handle the costs of heavy R&D, it barely copes with the costs of minimum-wage labor (or sometimes prison gangs) assembling mass-produced junk parts.
By targetting Red Hat, Sun is also missing a far more serious threat - SuSE/Novell. Novell has a very substantial image in the server market, and SuSE has grabbed the attention of a great many European Governments. SuSE is also the only DoD-certified distribution, making it the only (legal) player in the US military markets - and they're the ones with the serious money.
Sun's tactics are about as suicidal as SCO's and I honestly doubt either company will survive the use of scare-tactics in the end. Think about it for a moment. You're a customer. You're scared that the wrong choice will cost you a lot of money. Your existing system - whilst no great - does at least work. What do you do? Probably nothing. Doing nothing is cheap, predictable and doesn't tie your hands. It's also politically safe, as it means you can blame the last guy in charge.
Doing nothing, however, would also put Sun out of business.
For Sun to survive, it has to induce customers to spend more, not dig in for survival. Survivalists are misers. They don't buy big iron. Sun sells big iron. Survivalists don't buy leading-edge technology. Sun sells leading-edge technology. (They were an early adopter of IPv6, for example.)
A spanner in the works: (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell
Ok, two words:
Novell->SuSE
Ok, ok, three words:
Novell->SuSE->IBM
They had better watch their asses or else in some years time you will be able to hear this when discussing Sun: "Wasn't Sun that company that used to make purple servers?"
It's both true and old news (Score:3, Insightful)
I read this, on Johnathan Scwhartz's weblog [sun.com] posted on July 21, 2004. He explicitly talks about Linux == Red Hat.
I then posted on my own weblog about it [reactorweb.net] on July 26th.
This is a true story about sun (Score:5, Informative)
No matter whatever you say they are going down. If they don't go I will put my effort to see that Sun is out of business.
That being said--why I am so pissed ?
There is one thing you can never do and get away in Enterprise computing--lie to your customer.
This is back in 1997/1998 when MSFT was not considered a enterprise level system. So we were happy running the latest E3500 and 4500 systems. Then one day the Memory problem started taking place. If there is any Sun hardware admins there they will probly remember the "J3200" error in the syslog just before the system crash.
Sun did not tell us that was a memory problem and took us through painful route of upgrading/patching/replacing components etc. . We trusted Sun and went with that.
Then I have found out they were going to major customers and signing out some kind of NDA where they will fix their server only at a condition the customer can not tell that to anyone.
So, I guess the 1.5M budget we had for Sun gear was not enough for Sun. After we found out ( BTW the sales guy's name was "Steve Introcaso" -- normally works in North East Division--one smooth talker, just hope that he is not in your account ) what was going on we called Sun and they again denied about it.
My job was on the line since I was the architect of the Stock Market Data Processing System. I have finally convinced our management with proper value proposition to start the migration from Sun to Linux since it was not possible for me to "trust" Sun anymore and IBM/HP was too much effor to port the systems.
It took over 5 years to get rid of Sun--but I am glad I did it.
Whatever you do--don't lie when you are dealing with a company's lifeline systems and who buys >1M worth of gears from you every year.
And not to mention about the Java BS they did ... but that's for another day.
Get a clue! (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Sun workstations were the primary development environment for FOSS from about 1987 till the early 1990's.
2) How many copies of Linux and related software were dowdloaded from a "sunsite"?
3) TCL came from where?
4) Java came from where?
5) NFS, as we know it, came from where?
6) RPC's, as we know them, came from where?
I'm sure I could find many more, if I went digging.
Sun has been a less then perfect partner in FOSS, but they have been there longer than anyone else, and have made many significant contributions.
I truly hope, and expect, this trend to continue. No commercial partner of FOSS will be perfect, but Sun's record, to date, is really quite good.
Re:Get a clue! (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Sun workstations were the primary development environment for FOSS from about 1987 till the early 1990's.
True, but as far as I know.. once I've bought a machine, it is mine to do with as I please. The reason that so many Sun machines were used for this purpose was because that is what most students had to use at college at the time.
2) How many copies of Linux and related software were dowdloaded from a "sunsite"?
Sunsites are independent sites, not run by Sun Microsystems.
3) TCL came from wher
Re:Get a clue! (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Plenty of students had DEC's, IBM's, etc. Why was so much done on Sun's? May I sugggest tha Sun was a much more open system?
2) Sunsite's were never run by Sun, but if I am not mistaken, the machines and the bandwidth were contributed by Sun.
3) TCL is a tool used by many FOSS developers.
4) I am no big fan of Java, but regardless, it is open and used by many FOSS projects.
5) The concept tends to be the hardest part.
6) See #5
I never said Sun was a savior of FOSS, but I did want to point out t
Re:Get a clue! (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, as other posters have pointed out, people with @sun e-mail addresses have contributed kernel pataches.
Another problem: Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
It's all really very simple: (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't want them to disappear - they make great gear - but I know so many ex-Sun people and they all have the same grim view: stick a fork in it.
RS
Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, what are they gonna do, refuse to release the specs for their new CPUs so Linux can't run on them?
I bet the managment at Redhat are losing lots of sleep over that.
Sun is trying to evolve ... leave 'em alone. (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth of the matter is, Enterprise installations of Linux are no more free then any other Intel OS competitor, and I think there is a little fear and FUD because Sun is eyeing that market -- albeit later then what some wanted, and there are people with sufficient monatary interests in Linux who like to spread that FUD about Sun.
I read Groklaw for legal machinations between high tech companies -- not for PJ's opinion on he state of the industry. I've written off PJ's opinion as just somebody who has some sort of financial interest in Linux. PJ has shown nothing but hostility towards Sun. Even in PJ's area of expertise (legal) PJ doesn't report objectively on Sun ... I.E Sun's 2 billion dollar settlement with Microsoft. It's contantly portrayed as something evil, rather then what it was. Expedient, neccessary and a win for Sun.
Sun is driving towards Open source code Solaris, but they still want to (and deserve to be) the gatekeeper and ultimate authority on Solaris.
I repeat again, PJ's and Groklaws opinions on the state of the industry regarding *any* company are just that ... opinions, and not even expert ones at that. They are however the premier source of the legal wranglings that are going on in the industry.
The real enemy is/are software patents and software IP. Fight that, not a company like Sun that helped nourish the industry, and even blazed the trail and created the market (need) for Linux.
I survived 4 layoffs at Sun, I've seen many fine Engineers and innovators leave. Management has never been more open to us and forthright with us on what we have to do to survive and none of it involves cheating or fuddling the Industry. It's all quality, innovation and execution.
Re:Sun is trying to evolve ... leave 'em alone. (Score:5, Interesting)
You may be a genius at what you do and be able to put together a customized system and earn a life time income supporting the few that you could do and maintain ... but Sun has been doing it for years and that's where the Industry expertise came from and in that game, linux is playing catchup.
The fact that IBM is giving that stuff away to linux is IBM's business (and for now SCO, but we think SCO is full of shit)
Redhat is becoming like Sun, like it or not, they have to. How many IT manager techno-jocks you think have the balls to go to their fortune 1000 executives with the idea of cobbling together some servers from Dell, some high priced consultatns from XYZ, some integrators from ABC, and supporters from QRS, and then pay yearly IP insurance/legal retainers just in case?
Linux is great, and I'm all for it -- but it's business model is tending towards SUN while SUN's is tending towards Linux -- and the'll both meet in the middle somewhere and be able to share the market.
Redhat, to survive will have to be able to provide one stop shopping for support and integration, and they do, for tiny to small range platforms. IBM is looking to capture it for the large end -- and will, and when they do, you'll end up with a variation of linux that really can only be satisfactorily serviced and installed by IBM on these high end platforms and its model will be just like Sun's and the little linux consultatancies will have just as much chance at that business as they do with Suns -- meaning Zero.
Sun Had a Great Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
My prediction is that if Bush wins again in November, Microsoft will tell the DOJ to get bent, acquire SCO and Sun and mount a huge legal attack on IBM which, while doomed to eventual failure, will keep the business community out of the UNIX/Linux market until they can get Longhorn on the shelves.
Sun the Schizo Giant on the Block (Score:4, Interesting)
IE:
*) If the goal of Java was to make lots of money, then they failed. If the goal was to be really "cool" and sell books and classes then they succeeded.
*) If the goal of selling Linux was to take the Linux marked... fail. If the goal of selling Linux was to have a cheaper to maintain 'nix to sell... success.
Sabotaging the Linux market may be in the best short-term intrest of Sun because they win more dollars than if the Linux market was thriving. But, it's not a good long-term strategy because they'l have to work against their own press.
It's like demanding a handi-cap for your team because it's your ball and if you don't get it you're going home. Then when you get beat bad enough getting mad and asking for the rules to be changed. It won't make you many friends. But, then you may not care about friends... you may just care about winning.
Now, if you were playing a ball game for you life wouldn't you think about cheating too?
not news (Score:5, Insightful)
All this would just be mildly amusing if it weren't for two things. First, Schwartz has been busy trying to redefine the meaning of "open" (which cleverly starts with "I can't define terms, but here is what the term 'open' should mean"), both in "open standards" and in "open source". In his definition of "open", apparently, proprietary software can be "open").
The second, more dangerous effort is to misrepresent Java as an "open standard", as something that the industry should standardize on. Everybody should carefully read the legal verbiage at the beginning of Sun's Java specifications and search for Sun's patents at the USPTO; Sun's efforts are subtle, but they own and control the Java platform, specification, technology, patents. This is particularly worrisome given that Sun is having increasing problems staying afloat--dying companies can do real damage if they own widely used standards.
Here is another choice comment from Johnathan's Blog: This claim is disingenuous; yes, Sun was started with open source, but Sun made a business out of making open source software proprietary and then adding more proprietary extensions. Sun tried to control window systems with proprietary systems (NeWS) and failed. They generally released software only when it looked like a business failure (Tcl/Tk) and created open standards only when competition forced them to.
Overall, the message is: don't trust Sun. When they release open source software, thank them for it, after checking the license carefully. A open source release like OpenOffice may have been self-serving, but it is still useful. But just because a company releases some open source software doesn't mean that their goals and interests are aligned with open source efforts. Ultimately, Sun is on a collision course with open source, they know it, and sooner or later, there will be a showdown.
A Solaris kernel engineer's perspective (Score:4, Informative)
This guy's blog puts things nicely in perspective. Some excellent points.
Sunw likes Linux, but only on the desktop (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice the name of Sunw's Linux? "Java Desktop" ? It has nothing to do with Java, but sunw thinks Java = Sunw. And notice it's only "desktop" there is no "Java Server".
Re:turning linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could you elaborate on that?
They support community standards, have a better-safe-than-sorry policy on patent-encumbered stuff, fully support a Free, rapid-release cycle distro with no GPL incompatible components at all (unlike some other large distros have done). They have not bought out or killed off other distributions or done anything else that would be unconcionable. So how, exactly, do they become "the MS of the linux world"?
Re:turning linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
But, if Sun attacks redhat like this perhaps redhat will join SUSE in supporting MONO.
Re:turning linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Red Hat is the MS of the Linux world in one very important and strangely positive way. Microsoft unleashed a all-consuming trend of commoditization when they licensed PC DOS to IBM and MS DOS to Compaq. Red Hat has similarly, w
Re:turning linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh I wasn't aware they had a Linux monopoly and were guilty of abusing that monopoly. Oh wait, they're not. This is just a typical Slashdot troll who doesn't like Red Hat, and because he doesn't like Red Hat and he doesn't like Microsoft they must be very similar within their own fields.
Don't blame him for posting this garbage. It's rewarded around here. After all, he has a +3 Insightful.
Re:turning linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
RedHat might be Linux's Microsoft, but you really can't deny they really pushed Linux in the early days. Without RedHat, I seriously doubt our favorite OS would be the same today without them.
I don't like it much as a distribution neither (it's not bad but I've seen better), but I still show some respect for them.
As for Sun, well, I can hardly get a point of view on those guys. As a developper, I really like Java and like the fact that they let everyone use it freely (as in free beer). On the other hand, their marketting strategies on everything that is OS or hardware are quite unacceptable. They seem to be very opportunist, but forget everything about the long run and making friends.
I can't accept the fact that they are totally evil, but they sure have no feather wings.
Re:turning linux? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:turning linux? (Score:3, Informative)
I gotta say I felt the same way, but after quickly checking the size of that file, I decided that having a 256M avalanche of binary data inundate my monitor wouldn't be all that exciting
Re:turning linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft sells snake oil.
Re:yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Companys that begin to struggle and can see their future dying are apt to do all sorts of vile things. Partnering with Microsoft is not a good sign, for we all know how Microsoft view Linux. Now we may have another sign from Sun about how they view it. Thanks to Groklaw, despite all the naysayers, I've seen Sun's schizo "we love Linux / we are going to destroy Linux" behavior for what it is: No real friend to the FOSS community.
As for Groklaw not being objective, I'm so glad. I've had enough of objective news coverage that refuses to call people on their statements. Politician X tells his lie, then Politician Y tells his opposite lie, the story ends right there, and that's considered good journalism?! No thanks. Give me the Groklaw approach every day of the week. You do wrong, you get called out. You do right, you get praised. If you don't like it, start your own advocacy site where you can call it as you see it. But don't put down Groklaw just because it's on the side of FOSS.
Re:yeah. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bollocks. I use FOSS because it is usually the fastest, cheapest, and most effective way to get a job done. I also don't become a vendor's bitch in the process. I could care less about Sun unless their mission is to find a way to make doing my job more expensive. If the destruction of Sun and MS happens it will strictly be a side effect. Now faced with direct attacks you can be indifferent or fight back but "destroying" anything was never the mission.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Advocacy != news (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, the site is about facts still. Check out the court transcripts. Those are facts you can check yourself. How many other news sites give you the direct source material to check for yourself?
Re:Advocacy != news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SUN, yawn (Score:5, Informative)
McNealy is known to keep a "decapitated penguin" on his desk...
Don't be sensationally unfair; it's the head from the penguin costume that he WORE the year before to declare his company's embrace of Linux.
Re:BuhBye (Score:5, Interesting)
ALERT: Karma Whore! (Score:5, Informative)
From May 14, 2004 nonetheless.