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.
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.
yeah. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:turning linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
Redhat is not linux!
Newsflash: Slashdot geeks aren't the types of people Sun is trying to convince. It's the PHBs that matter, and most of them don't know this.
I personally can't stand redhat they are the MS of the linux world.
In what sense? Last time I checked they were giving away all of their code under the GPL, funding kernel development, GNOME development, GCC development... too many to name.
What about Novell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like they are looking for the competitio (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the innovation? No, not the scientific innovation, the managerial innovation.
What's going on? (Score:2, Insightful)
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: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: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: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.
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.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:2, Insightful)
Furthermore, here's a thought. Dozens of companies have pledged support for Linux, dozens of companies ship it, but how many companies (at least genuinely large, powerful ones) actually contribute to it? Sun? HP? Dell? Intel? AMD?
Only IBM. They don't do it out of kindness, they do it to make money. But truth be told, they are the only company not simply paying lip service.
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.
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:Sounds like they are looking for the competitio (Score:2, Insightful)
care less about sun beating on Red Hat if they have adopted Red Hat over Sun Or Microsoft its
probably because they have weighed the options
and found that Linux, in this case RedHat is the best solution to their needs, and if Sun succeeded in this gambit then a distro change probably is not the hardest fix, but a change of OS/OS,Platform would probably be a bitch to implement. Sun might succeed in hurting or Killing RedHat but then they would need to switch over to attacking SUSE, then Mandrake, then oh dear I hope they have deep pockets, and forgiving investors
Re:turning linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
But, if Sun attacks redhat like this perhaps redhat will join SUSE in supporting MONO.
Re:What about Novell? (Score:1, Insightful)
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?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
This may validate Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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.
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:Wait a minute (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's going on? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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 division of Sony distributes music and anything that makes it more difficult to record, copy or distribute "unauthorized" copies is bad and should be fought. Well, what does Sony do? Sony tries to do both, and if you listen to Sony reps, they can say one thing today and a very different thing tomorrow. They are big and they are conflicted...
Sun is at a really tough juncture and there might be global influences pushing Sun to be anti-Linux (e.g., it will eat them alive), but there are units that are supportive to varying degrees of Linux and free software. This support doesn't come from the Company as a whole but it serves a more limited constituency of that unit of Sun. Upshot? Expect lots of mixed messages but understand that many parts of Sun have been very very good to FOSS and that deserves to be recognized. Now, lets get back to bashing Sun, the company!
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.)
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.
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
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Insightful)
You may also want to look at the applications that run on Linux as supporting Linux too. Wouldn't do much good to have an operating system without applications available for it.
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, with their attitude towards freely redistributable software and open source created a similar trend among Linux distros. This has allowed them to corner a large piece of the market share. Unlike MS, however, they could easily loose it if they betray the policies which have made them successful.
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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Re:What about Novell? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Advocacy != news (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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 where?
Who cares about TCL. Does anyone actually use this? And since when did they contribute it to FOSS?
4) Java came from where?
We have to thank them for that steaming pile of crap?
5) NFS, as we know it, came from where?
The concepts, not the software.
6) RPC's, as we know them, came from where?
Again.. the concepts, not the software.
So.. there you have it ladies and gentlemen, Sun, the saviour or Free Software... NOT!!
GJC
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: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 that Sun has made substantial contributions to FOSS, as we know it. If a commercial interest's contributions are not recognized, they will have little incentive to continue. When integrated over time, IMHO, Sun has made the greatest contributions to FOSS, to date, from a large commercial entity.
Re:No surprise here... (Score:1, Insightful)
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?
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.
Sun vs Debian? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for free tools, the performance of code compiled by GCC is usually below the performance of code compiled with commercial compilers. OTOH, GCC is much more portable than any commercial compiler.
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.
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.
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:yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't really say that the FOSS movement is primarily to destroy proprietary Unix, because RMS does not like nor use the term "Open Source". Free Software focuses *primarily* on freedom, OS focuses *primarily* on technological superiority. They are two different movements, fighting for a common goal in two very different ways.
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: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.
It is pretty simple (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No surprise here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Add in its typical use with no security whatsoever in cross-platform environments and its inability to properly handle subdirectories that require different export permissions from their parent directories, and you have disasters in the making.
I prefer AFS where possible.
Re:Advocacy != news (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Some interesting weblog posts (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd go further than that, I'd say it was the one of the biggest piles of self-righteous wanking I've read for a long time.
There are so many pathetic, useless "arguments" in that rebuttal I don't know where to start. He tries to claim that binary compatibility for drivers is "impossible" and anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't "understand the technology". Say what? Solaris engineers don't understand UNIX kernel technology? Microsoft engineers don't understand backwards compatibility?
He brings up pointless details like gcc alignment (Wine uses gcc and controls struct alignment exactly to be compatible with Win32), config options like CONFIG_SMP as if this is some fundamental unarguably facet of kernel design (it's not), and driver interfaces taking up memory (that's what modularity is for, yo).
He seems to live in a fantasy world where the total lack of backwards compatibility doesn't hurt users, it actually makes them happy, and where it's impossible to have both a good kernel and a backwards compatible one - the NT kernel is a 'good' kernel in many respects, yet it still preserves compatibility. Ditto for the Solaris kernel.
He also makes some incorrect statements. Apps written for Linux 1.0 will not necessarily work correctly on 2.6, not if they were broken by NPTL, or if they were shipped as static binaries (which also were broken at some point). OK, these aren't totally problems with the kernel, but if you ignore userspace entirely then you might as well stop talking about "users" and "apps" and go back to embedded work or whatever.
Basically, if there was ever an issue that'd cause the kernel project to fork, it'd be this one. So-called rebuttals from people more interested in straw men and insults aren't going to make that any less likely.
Re:Some interesting weblog posts (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not hard. Backwards compatibility isn't rocket science, it just requires you to value utility above artistic license.
The kernel, regardless of what some of its developers may think, is not an art project. The most fundamental mission of an operating system is to run the users software and hardware - an OS that refuses to do that on the grounds of API prettyness has got its priorities wrong.
The techniques of maintaining backwards compatibility are well known. You use structure padding, create a new foo_function2() rather than change the prototype of foo_function(), ensure you don't make semantically breaking changes to the behaviour of the APIs, and so on. Most of all you have good testing procedures in place, long beta cycles and such to catch any breaking changes you made that slip through the cracks. It's about management of change.
The arguments about keeping old cruft around are mostly bogus. Backwards compatibility doesn't imply keeping it for ever, even keeping it within stable kernel series would be a big improvements. Likewise, if you take "cruft" out that people are relying on they simply won't upgrade to the newest version and people will be evaluating your software based on buggy, old versions which is no good at all.
The fact that key kernel developers are so far removed from reality is something that should worry us all. Backwards compatibility is viewed as "evil" by far too many people without understanding how essential it is in mass-market software (no, an OS with 1% of the desktop market is not mass-market software, sorry). If you want to make the most academically perfect kernel possible fine, go do it but for heavens sake don't pretend you're writing a production kernel!
Re:Groklaw is a just an IBM viral marketing tool (Score:1, Insightful)
What family connections? Does the B in IBM stand for br3n?
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: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
Re:Death of commercial Unix flavours... (Score:2, Insightful)
You have Linux. Open source, runs on a wide variety of hardware, solid.
Now, you'll have Solaris 10. Open source, runs on a wide variety of hardware, solid. Different strengths and weaknesses, but a great alternative for many applications. Most folks who have used Solaris in a producion environment have been very happy with its performance.
Now, Slashdot, be serious. I'm a fan of Groklaw for legal analysis. I'm a fan of Forrester Research because I love to laugh at them. (If you add up all of the multi-billion dollar markets that Forrester Research predicts for almost all software markets in the next five years, you get to a number higher than the GNP of the entire fucking earth.)
Are you really going to get worked up by an article written by a paralegal about an article written by the CEO of Forrester about Sun's latest marketing FUD? In the end, it's Solaris sometimes and Linux sometimes. Sun would rather have you use Solaris, so expect their marketing machines to spew FUD at Linux. This won't be the last time it happens.
a few things (Score:2, Insightful)