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Sun's COO Pretends Linux Belongs To Red Hat 391
An anonymous reader writes "Ever mindful of minting phrases likely to spread virally through the Net, reports JDJ, Jonathan Schwartz's blogging gifts were used Friday to assert that "it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux." The article comes up with a new angle on one of the most-talked about members of the tech-exec digerati, saying of Schwartz: "He's the Winston Churchill of technology - he mobilizes the English language at least once a week, and sends it into battle against Sun's rivals." But Churchill would never have tried to pull a fast one by disingenuously describing Linux as "Red Hat's Linux" - the community will upbraid him, for certain. Churchill Schmurchill, Schwartz is a technology mischief-maker not a technology statesmen."
Could be worse... (Score:4, Funny)
SCO's? (Score:5, Funny)
Wazzamatter ? Post 1 is on topic! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Could be worse... (Score:2)
But he did. [slashdot.org]
Re:Could be worse... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, Sun has the ear of lots of the UNIX community in the corporate realm, including the PHBs and admins who still think Linux is a toy. There are, unfortunately, a lot of them with their heads in the sand. That is why I run Linux on my U5 at the office... and remind them of how fast and stable it is fairly often ;)
Re:Could be worse... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, Linux is useful for things but it's still quite young and toyish, especially when compared to the likes of OpenVMS, Tru64 *sigh* and yes, even Solaris.
Re:Could be worse... (Score:2)
All of this screaming about Linux being a toy is just a diversion. Sun doens't want people to realize that company that sold them their "big iron" technology now runs Linux.
Solaris is no VMS. Don't even mention the two in the same sentence if you wish to be taken seriously.
Re:Could be worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is amazing the way that people take a contextually accurate statement, and skew it to blow something out of proportion.
Re:Could be worse... (Score:2)
I really don't know what to make of Sun any more - are they schizoid? Suffering from MPD? I "want" to see them on the side of good, and they are making the right moves (talk of open-sourcing Solaris), and then they open their mouths and ...
Have they been taking cues from Darl's speech-writers?
Division? (Score:2)
They should play pretty until they knock off more of the Microsoft market.
Dumb!
Re:Division? (Score:2)
Sorry, coffee is not kicking in yet.
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't RTFA, but when referring to the various Linux-based operating systems, it's not uncommon to refer to them as "Red Hat's Linux" or "Slackware Linux", etc.
It's just a convenient way of specifying a particular operating system with certain conventions and features. Maybe if you spent a little less time reading blogs and submitting stories to Slashdot and a little more time doing... oh... I don't know... something with Linux... you'd know that.
Re:Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I would make the argument that "Red Hat" is not as well known as "Linux" noawadays, so
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
you might remember also that Linux is not an OS.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Red Hat is the most prominent Linux-based operating system, it is, in fact, perfectly legitimate to compare "Red Hat's Operating System" to "Microsoft's Operating System" and "Sun's Operating System".
Comparing "Linux" to "Windows" would not make sense since "Linux" is a kernel and "Windows" is an operating system. That's like saying "The Chevy 454 Engine is better than the Dodge Charger". It doesn't make
Re:Nit-pick (Score:3, Interesting)
A "kernel" is nothing more than THE fundamental piece of an operating system. Its sole purpose is to provide interaction between other peices of the operating system and the bare metal of the hardware in a secure, standard way.
The operating system, on the other hand, is responsible for not only interfacing with the hardware (via a kernel), it is responsible for loading and managing user level applications such as shells and mouse daemons and whatnot.
In fact, the difference can be highlight
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
Tell that to Red Hat and their stupid "just another day at Red Hat" planes flying over Sun's campuses.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The reference isn't to say that Red Hat is the owner/maker of Linux, but more of a distinction in the plethora of linux options, as Red Hat stands out as the main company who is selling an O/S package, that uses the Linux kernel to Enterprises.
As a result, MS, Sun and RH would be looked at as competiting for the same or similar enterprise markets. That's where I see the reference of "Red Hat's Linux"
Also when someone is talking about enterprises and OSes, distros like Debian, Gentoo, Fedora, and others will not come to mind because of the lack of support the way someone who works for an enterprise would expect. A company would want something like a server contract where they can pick up a phone with the company who makes the product, and not necessarily have to dig through a list of consultants found on a simple listing provided on the OS's website. That's not to say the consultants are no good in anyway, but you have to think they way someone who works for an enterprise would.
If I order a product from Microsoft, Sun, or Red Hat, they offer support with that product. I go to Debian, I don't get that directly from Debian.
As for it being an OS war, it IS. Ultimately, you would have to pick a distro to install, and for many, it will be Red Hat. Remember it's not the company people are only picking, it's the product they sell as well.
As for Apple being an option in this, it has a small market share compared to the others. You won't find "many" setups with Apple being used for enterprise server applications (I know there are few, so don't attack me you Mac zealots). Apple is not competiting in the enterprise areas as much as the other three.
Re:Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think a person named "The Mad Poster" has the right to tell people they spend too much time on slashdot.
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
I vaguely remember reading that Red Hat was the biggest commercial Linux vendor, but that wasn't what rankled with me:
JS is talking about Operating System wars, so by rights he should have specified Linux (generic).
Had he been talking about enterprise-level vendors (or similar), then yes, Microsoft, Sun and Red Hat would all have been viable examples.
This is a pretty pedantic (and perhaps pointless-seeming) point (confusing "Red Hat's distro" with "Linux as a phenomenon"), but as I recall JS does have
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Ducks!
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
He clearly is talking about enterprise-level vendors, not about operating systems per se. If you want to take his statement out of context and nitpick the precise formulation, fine, but "Sun's COO Pretends Linux Belongs To Red Hat" is a far bigger mischaracterization than what Schwartz said.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Arguing about whether an OS is a narrow (referring to, for example, Linux, SunOS and NT) or broad (referring to, for example, Red Hat Linux, Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows) is just a game of semantics, and beside the point: Schwartz was referring to three comparable systems, and was broadly correct, altho
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
If you'd been here for more than 30 seconds, you'd realize that the track record of stories on this site is so poor that it is unlikely that it is an honest mistake and very likely it is either intentionally miswritten to incite the foaming-at-the-mouth slashbots or it's a simple matter of laziness and sloppiness on the part of the submitter and Taco.
Regardless of which it is, however, the point does not change: "Red Hat's Linux" is not an uncommmon way to refe
What's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Similarly they buy Red Hat in the U.S., so he's obviously adressing U.S. businessmen. If he were adressing German businessmen he'd have said "SuSE's Linux".
In neither case would I expect him to say "version of". The listener is expected to get that from context.
--dave
Exactly .... (Score:2)
What next? Complaining that he didn't call it Red-Hat GNU/Linux??
Whatever.
Non-inclusive possessive pronoun.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Non-inclusive possessive pronoun.... (Score:2)
Although I do agree with you that Slashdot might be interpreting his words wrongly, it has also to be pointed out that benign interpretations of many SCO statements could also be made. However, they (the SCO statements) were definitely meant to spread misinformation/misrepresent facts etc.
Sun's schizophrenic[1] relationship with Linux and pretty consistent way in whi
Mac OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
"With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world" [computerworld.com]
More... [google.com]
[1] Please, whether or not Mac OS X is or isn't "UNIX" or "Unix" or "UN*X" or "UNIX-based" or "UNIX-like" or "not UNIX", etc., etc., etc., is the subject of another discussion, and really derails the essential, widely accepted concept (by normal, sane people, anyway) that Mac OS X is "UNIX"-based.
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? Linux distros are compatible enough that only the most old-school care about whether Red Hat or Debian or Novell or whoever have more "market share". The only thing that's interesting is how many people are using Linux vs XYZ platform.
I've not seen any hard statistics on this because there aren't any. You cannot count Lin
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Informative)
My world is also a University. One of the largest public research Universities in the country, the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I don't know where you are, but there are ridiculously far more Mac OS X users here than Linux users. Linux is probably used for server applications more than Mac OS X Server, but on the desktop, it's so laughably not even close. Walk up and down the halls of our life and biomedical sciences buildings, phy
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, though, it's a non-US thing. You have to remember that apple outside of the states is at best a sales and aupport franchise. Jobs and co don't care about europe, and consequently europe doesn't care about apple the way the states seem to.
Phil
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
I have a friend who goes to MIT. I don't think it's true for them either. From all the conversations I've
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
You forgot Poland!
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
So I think Jonathan's statement is probably right.
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this argument is that only a small percentage of Mac systems are used in the "Unix Market" (where Sun and RedHat live). [For the sake of argument, define Unix Market as application servers, financial systems, high-end RDBMS, web hosting, engineering workstations, etc.]
The vast majority of Mac systems are still in Apple's traditional markets of creative and home desktops where the users run Mac prog
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2)
Since seventies?
I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I disagree (Score:2)
Grammatical ambiguity (Score:4, Insightful)
"Red Hat's Linux" could be parsed as:
"Linux, which belongs to Red Hat"
or
"That Linux which belongs to Red Hat"
In this case the latter is accurate and is probably what was meant.
---
Side note -- another way to express the second choice is:
"The Linux that belongs to Red Hat"
By adding the article, you clearly indicate that you refer to one of many linuxes. To me, this control of definite/indefinite and countable/uncountable is one of the strongest and most unusual features of English -- although other European languages have it to some degree.
Market Share (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Market Share (Score:5, Insightful)
What are my choices? Oracle on reliable hardware is a huge market for Sun, so that's obviously one choice. Which Linux would I pick? Probably RedHat to get their support offering. Oh, and yea, I could always go the Microsoft way.
I don't know, Jonathan's comment doesn't seem that bizzare to me.
Re:Market Share (Score:2)
Now, Oracle is a rather peculiar beast because it's in the fairly unique position of commanding a 60K per cpu premium. At this point, you listen to the vendor more than anything else.
If they say Sun, you'll probably buy a Sun.
If they say Redhat, you'll probably buy Redhat.
If they say Suse, you'll probably buy Suse.
The support apparatus of Sun or Redhat are pretty much irrelevant. Y
Umm you may want to reread that (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Umm you may want to reread that (Score:2, Insightful)
So... (Score:2)
Perhaps he meant something else (Score:5, Insightful)
"it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux."
Did it occur to anyone, that perhaps he just believes the Red Hat distro to be the only distro of any real threat to Windows, and Solaris (of course, doesn't mean he's correct). Why is that statement taken as him attributing the Linux kernel to Red Hat?
Re:Perhaps he meant something else (Score:4, Funny)
The only damage solaris is going to do to any other OS is if you snap the CD in half and use the sharp edge to go on a killing spree among the target developers.
Phil
Re:Perhaps he meant something else (Score:5, Insightful)
It amazes me to no end what passes as "news" these days on Slashdot. One person misinterpreting something automatically becomes news, and not just any old news, "OMFG the sky is falling" news.
Of all the distros out there, Redhat easily holds the market share on the corporate end. It makes sense to bundle Red Hat in a corporate statement than Slackware or Debian. Sure, they're fine distros, but when it comes to market share in the corporate world, it's hard to deny that Redhat has the biggest piece of the pie.
At any rate, the sky is not falling, and Sun's COO is NOT implying that Redhat owns linux.
Re:Perhaps he meant something else (Score:2)
Because if that were the case, he would have adopted his usual tack (which I find somewhat insulting) of spelling "Linux" with a lowercase L.
Look at the rest of his blog, and you'll see what I mean.
Semantic niggling (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux
It appears people may be reading too much into this. To my eyes it looks like a listing of commercial OSs along with their vendors: Windows from Microsoft, Solaris from Sun, and Linux from Red Hat. Yes, there are other commercial Linux distros. Yes, there are a lot of other Linux distros, period. The question is this: how many of these are viable contenders in the market[s] shared by Solaris and Windows? And of those, how many are as easily recognized as Red Hat?
The statement above just clarifies that Red Hat's Linux is the particular distro under consideration. I don't believe it is a plot to assign ownership of all things Linux to Red Hat.
Novell? (Score:3, Interesting)
What about Novell? They bought Suse which was a strong distro, and Ximian which holds the track-record for providing cool UI's for Linux.
What are their ambitions? They have a couple of very nice cards to play - why don't they?
On another, but related, note, what made FreeBSD (as OS X) the success it became once Apple added UI? The Apple brand and hardware? What does it take for Novell to get the same level of recognition?
A worried shareholder..
Re:Novell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell is able to use their kickass server software and their existing customer base to launch their linux campaign. They are bundling their top notch support on top of their linux products (desktop for now, server to be released in the near
Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Has everyone forgotten that Sun produces their own Linux distribution, Java Desktop System?
It seems rather clear to me that he is referring to the Linux distribution created by Red Hat.
No it doesn't (Score:2, Insightful)
It could be taken that way...But did anyone for a second stopped and thought that that just means that redhut is considered as the only major player that is worth considering, the biggest most commercial distribution?
That statement doesn't immediately mean that redhut owns linux. They just own hajority of the of the linux market share.
Get off the blog train. (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone says that blogs are the news of the future, the new wave in journalism. However, one idiot who wasn't trained in English usage--unlike trained journalists--makes some mistake like this, and it is taken up by the "blogsphere" and repeated.
Sure, blogs are the news source of the future, but only because the general level of intellegence of North American is falling at an ala
Re:Get off the blog train. (Score:2)
Uhh... (Score:2)
Or we can form a rabble, if you want. I'm always up for a good riot.
Re:Uhh... (Score:2)
At least he's stopped claiming it's "Sun's Linux" (Score:2)
Or maybe we're both misreading things?
Novell/SuSE (Score:2)
You are overanalizing it. (Score:2)
The main mistake is calling it an OS war while it is more of an OE (Operating Environment) War. Microsoft Windows is actually 2 different core OS DOS and NT, Solaris is an OE of Sun OS which is Unix, and Red Hat is an OE of Linux. But putting the OS vs OE aside because OE is not as popular as OS in usage. So Red Hat's Linux the guy was talking about Red Hat's Distribution or OE of Linux n
based on numbers of desktops running them... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is clearly just a Sun bigot wishing they were more successful in the marketplace.
I think that a more interesting comparison is between *nix-derived systems and Windows. That would lump Solaris, Linux (all flavors), BSD (all flavors, including OS X), and AIX into one pool, which is sizeable enough to make a definite presence on Microsoft's radar.
Hmmm, Must Be News to IBM (Score:2)
Me, I switched away from Red Hat when they did away with their RHL9 support some time ago. I have never looked back and see no re
Well...symantics (Score:2)
Spin, marketing, or whatever you call it. Welcome to the world of business. If you haven't noticed, the best product doesn't win--the marketing does. VHS vs Beta. Fight the battles you can win--the ideological battle
Churchill... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Churchill... (Score:2)
Blogs (Score:2, Troll)
Schwartz has simply declared himself to be just another corporate lapdog...this is the sort of garbage that gets churned out on a routine basis by ZDNet in particular...Maybe he should work for them, if he isn't already.
As for his moronic and completely oblivious assertion...I've been telling the sheep here
Scwartz may be eloquent but... (Score:2)
Then he's wrong (Score:2)
So it's down to Microsoft ( Default Choice )
Sun ( Server only )
SuSE ( Best god damn operating system ever put together )
I'm not bias
WTF? Winston Churchill of technology? (Score:2)
Somebody break this one down for me and explain it... this guy is similar to a UK First Lord of the Admiralty and war time prime minister because he a> 'mobilizes the English language at least once a week' and then b>talks about how his company is better than another computer company..
err..
Re:WTF? Winston Churchill of technology? (Score:2)
Now Troll Articles? (Score:2)
2.) Within context, I think he can claim to be correct in referring to "Red Hat's Linux". Not, as anon. reader so reactionarily supposes that he means that Red Hat owns or *is* Linux, but that the "OS wars" are down to those three vendors.
3.) If Schwartz is to be condemned for anything, IMHO, it's for putting Solaris in the mix. Solaris, is relegated to serving
Not exactly (Score:2)
The community will upbrade the dipshit submitter (Score:3, Insightful)
"Red Hat's" Linux simply distinguished it from "Suse's Linux", Mandrake's", etc, etc. The only implication is that Schwartz sees RH as the most important brand/distro or whatever, according to his commercial criteria, which may be debateable, but hardly insulting to "the community".
Why didn't the submitter link to the actual blog, instead of someone else selectively quoting from it? Schwartz's blog is here [sun.com]:
And he followed it up with an explanation [sun.com]How about the fucking submitter, or editor, RTFA before wasting everyone's time with a beatup like this?
Update article with this info (Score:2)
Reading the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)
All that he's asserting is that it's Red Hat's flavor stands the best chance of taking marketshare.
That's actually MORE tech-savvy than just saying the L word like everyone else. When you read the quote, think in terms of the COO and marketshare, not in terms of Richard Stallman.
(puts on fire resistant suit)
The guy is a clown. (Score:2, Interesting)
While SCO stories have some value as entertainment, JS seems to be more boring each time. How can I filter my Slashdot front page to remove stories about Schwartz?
Robert
Churchill Was A Politician (Score:3, Insightful)
> fast one by disingenuously describing Linux as
> "Red Hat's Linux"
Of course he would have had he thought he could get away with it. A statesman is just a dead politician.
Oh come on! (Score:2, Insightful)
He seems to be doing a good job of it too as people keep reporting what's on his blog on various news sites
Schwartz is keeping up the company's marketing blitz on Red hat, as they were (and probably still are) losing sales to RHEL. This is a Solaris Vs RHEL thing not a Solaris Vs Linux thing.
All you need to know... (Score:2)
JDJ is a "SYS-CON Media Publication"
Also, this asshat's earth-shaking statements have generated a grand total of 9 comments in 2 days.
Misunderstanding the english language (Score:3, Interesting)
Hint : these are not posessions
Duchy of Grand Fenwick Linux rises up in revolt (Score:4, Funny)
The Bigger Picture, people, the Bigger Picture.
Re:he's right though (Score:3, Informative)
Re:he's right though (Score:2, Insightful)
if something goes wrong then basically you need support, you need someone take liability and fix the problem. with windows that organisation is MS, with solaris it is sun, and hey at the moment, most of the time, with linux, it's red hat.
Re:he's right though (Score:2)
Sun is also trying to distract from the fact that the biggest "software as a service" vendor on the planet also stands behind Linux.
Schwartz is trying to flimflam everyone into believing that Linux doesn't also include Novell, SGI and IBM. Each of those players is in some way superior (far superior depending on who you ask) than Sun.
He's trying to distract everyone from the giants while screaming about the midget.
Re:he's right though (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, it's just a blog, for cryin' out loud. If Sun officially made such a statement it's another thing.
For all you know, it's just the way he writes - people often use colloquialisms in informal writings, such as Blogs. Doesn't mean a thing.
Remember the time he and HP had a problem [boingboing.net]?
Re:he's right though (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think too many people here have actually in fact read John Schwartz's blog.
Extracted from his blog (his words):
Red Hat does not equal linux, and linux is not evil. But, linux in the enterprise datacenter (that is, not your basement or startup or dorm room or gamebox) does equal Red Hat - and competing against a company is what we do for a living
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/2004072
Re:he's right though (Score:2)
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan [sun.com]
Re:Down to three? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's funny, I was thinking the list should at least contain 4, if not 5.
AIX and HP-UX are here to stay. If you look at RISC Unix sales, you'll realise that the market is still contains 3 significant market segments.
Sun is trying to position its OS in the commodity space, aka equivalent to Linux and Windows. Take
Re:/. article is a troll (Score:2)
Perhaps overall but I'm fairly certain he was addressing the server market.
Re:/. article is a troll (Score:2)
Re:/. article is a troll (Score:2)
Show me the marketshare. Not to say that OSX Server can't be a contender but he's obviously addressing what is current.