Is Sun Turning against Linux and Red Hat?

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?"

Ally or Enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if I like Sun or not. They don't support Linux, and would rather fight it with FUD and Solaris. Yet again, I like them for OpenOffice.org (which is great) and Java.

Decisions, decisions......

Re:turning linux?

[JanneM]

...they are the MS of the linux world.

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"?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:turning linux?

[aussie_a]

I personally can't stand redhat they are the MS of the linux world.

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.

Mod parent down

[csoto]

This is *news*? Geez.

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.

[jellomizer]

You guys are going nuts on trying to figure out if Sun is Pro-Linux or against it. The truth the both and neither. If sun can make money off of Linux then they will support Linux in areas. If other Linux companies are cutting into their market share then they will play the Solaris Card and down the disadvantages of Linux. Suns stance on Linux was always this. Linux is good, but Solaris is better. So if people complain that Sun hardware w. Solaris is to big then hey lets use Linux and see if you want Solaris later. But if they want Solaris then they will go lets see if we can get rid of all those nasty Linux systems. Solaris Does have advantages over Linux and some really good scailing features. But for most companies and people linux does the trick. So Sun is Linux if you want but we rather you go with Solaris.

Everything's there...

[Thaidog]

If SUN really wanted to do this it could happen... But let's first face facts SUN's java desktop is ass. When they finish the 3D desktop enviornment "Looking glass" you'll finally have somthing on the x86 side that looks as good as OS X. then next is their new filesyatem ZFS... which sounds awsome. All this openedsourced and where would you go? I know I'll be downloading it! Solaris's backend is probably the best in the system and then have a desktop that's beautiful too? What more could you possibly want in an OS?

Let MS and Sun believe that Linux == Red Hat

[IGnatius T Foobar]

No problem. Let MS and Sun go right on believing that Linux == Red Hat. Let them even try to kill Red Hat if they can. We'll just keep doing what we've always done: building better software in and for the open source community. To use "their" terminology -- our Value Proposition continues to improve, year after year, relentlessly marching on, happily coexisting with (but not depending on) the corporations who operate within our space.

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.

Some interesting weblog posts

[wahgnube]

A sun engineer's post [sun.com] on the issue of Sun "simply moving" to Linux.

And a good rebuttal [kroah.com] from a linux kernel hacker.

Anybody tried out Solaris 10 on x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

RH has nothing to worry about.

are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Sun turning against Linux and Redhat? Well, based on the article, no. What they are doing is turning against Redhat and all other Linux distro COMPANIES that commercially SELL distros in the business-to-business market.

I don't think they're trying to equate Linux with Redhat either. It sounds like what they're doing is trying to equate all commercial business-to-business Linux distro companies with Redhat. The idea seems to be that, if you are a business buying Linux for your servers, etc., then you're going to buy from Redhat or some other company which is essentially equivalent to Redhat. And after all, they have a point. Is there an x86 Linux vendor that has the kind of experience that Sun (or any other big Unix companies, like IBM) has at engineering and supporting complete systems? In my mind, there really isn't. They're not all exactly the same, and you may have your own preference, but basically they're all fairly similar in terms of experience as a company.

So, it sounds like a better way of putting this is that Sun isn't going to say anything bad about Linux. Instead, the idea is to attack the experience of using Linux that is provided/supported by a new, relatively inexperienced company in a business-to-business situation.

To make an analogy, think about a restaurant making a deal with a vendor to deliver them fresh apples. Sun has been delivering expensive Granny Smiths for years and now a new company is delivering Red Delicious somewhat cheaper, and there's kind of a buzz about Red Delicious apples. So, whereas Sun could say "Red Delicious apples suck; what you really want is Granny Smiths", what they've now (apparently/supposedly) decided to say is, "Yeah, to some extent an apple is an apple, but we think Granny Smiths are one of the best you can get, and furthermore, keep in mind our decades-long history of sending trucks out to your restaurant that always show up on time to deliver apples that are always really fresh and free of blemishes. And then think of how those other companies show up with Red Delicious apples that are usually good but every now and then not very fresh, and how they're sometimes late."

Of course, whether you believe Sun's apple delivery trucks really always show up on time is another question. But the point here is not whether Sun's marketing hype is accurate (whose really is?); the point is whether they're attacking Linux or what.

Re:yeah.

[dmaxwell]

Keep in mind that the first and central mission of the "FOSS community" is to destroy proprietary UNIX, which in this day an age effectively means Solaris.

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:BuhBye

[jellomizer]

The demise of Sun Microsystems would be a big loss to the IT field. Sun does make good stuff, that has a lot of features on the large scale systems, some of their high end stuff IBM doesn't come close in terms of scalability. Solaris as well is a Solid Proven OS with a lot of nice features. From 2001 or so Sun Stock has dropped and so has their business not because of lack of quality in hardware and software or even its "high" prices. It is because a few years earlier during the .COM boom they decided to screw over most of their resellers and take the deals away from them to gain more profit. What this did was piss of the resellers and caused them to drop reselling Sun because after all their work getting a clint they don't want the deal to slip away to their partner without even a finders fee. So all the resellers did dropped out and now all the consultants except for pushing Sun gear started pushing Linux solutions, because they wont get ripped of like with Sun. Most of these companies buying from the resellers didn't care about the gear or the OS as much but more in terms of the quality of service they offered. So when Sun bypassed their resellers to get more profit they also decided to stop a cheap method of marketing their products which was word of mouth from the resellers. The company I work for was once a Sun Reseller we would push the gear left and right. Now we push Linux solutions a lot more (Sometimes we still choose sun because it is the right tool for the right job) because we no longer have the Sun Reseller advantage because we dropped it because for every big deal we start Sun steals it from us. Sun is starting to realize the error in its way but and it is improving their status. And I hope Sun becomes strong again with a more Reseller program with more integeraty. Because it will be a waist to loose the right tool for the right job

read Jonathan Schwartz's blog

[Marc Slemko]

Jonathan Schwartz's blog [sun.com]

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:

IBM is in a real pickle. Red Hat's dominance leaves IBM almost entirely dependent upon SuSe/Novell. Whoever owns Novell controls the OS on which IBM's future depends. Now that's an interesting thought, isn't it? But if IBM preemptively acquires Novell/SuSe, the world changes: linux enters the product portfolio of a patent litigator not known for being a social-movement company. But where else will IBM go? With it's current market cap, Red Hat seems unacquirable - but absent action, IBM's core customers will be eroded by Red Hat's leverage. And Sun's ability to leverage our open Solaris platform (on industry standard AMD, Intel or SPARC), or Java Enterprise System, even on IBM's hardware, gives us a significant - and sustainable - competitive advantage. With the demise of AIX, IBM is once again vulnerable. Me, I'd keep a close eye on the Novell/SuSe conversation. If IBM acquires them, the community outrage and customer disaffection is going to be epic... but where else does IBM go?

Or:

And proving our commitment to building Solaris as the cross platform standard, we're now compensating Sun's hardware salesforce for selling Solaris on non-Sun hardware. So if a sales rep sells Solaris on Dell or IBM, or even HP (Xeon or Nocona), we pay them as if they sold the hardware. This is a huge culture change, obviously. It also focuses everyone on keeping customers happy - and driving hardware choice. (And Fedora upgrades.) I'm not sure we could make the point more clearly that we're committed to making Solaris the volume leader on all systems - and building the most price performant systems a customer can find. How confident are we Solaris customers will choose our new SPARC and Opteron systems? We're comp'ing our reps the same, no matter which systems the customer buys. We're putting money where our mouths are. Want proof? Got a farm of legacy Xeon systems, supplied by someone other than Sun? Talk to your rep to license Solaris - and let me know how it goes.

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.

Re:Not against Linux but Red Hat

[dont_think_twice]

I still don't understand why the common culture at Slashdot is to bash Sun at all costs

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.

The difference is desktop vs. server

[PCM2]

Red Hat's main product is Enterprise Linux, designed for the server market -- Sun's bread and butter. Java Desktop System is targeted (obviously) as a replacement for Windows desktops. This is still a relatively small market, mainly consisting of companies with a need for volume lightweight deskop installs (e.g. call centers and the like). So there's not really a contradiction here. Sun's position is that Red Hat can't support mission-critical enterprise infrastructure to the extent to which Sun's products and its service organization is able. It's not like they're trying to destroy Linux. They're just trying to discredit their competition. They're well aware that Linux will go on as always, supported by the OSS community, no matter what they say -- and the JDS will continue to benefit from that.

It'll be more interesting to see how they go after Novell.

SUN doesn't understand the nature of Linux...

[Eric Damron]

I think it's far too late in the game for what will simply be perceived as more FUD.

I was at the Sybase Tech Wave conference that was held near Orlando Florida in August. The conference was buzzing with Linux talk. A Sybase engineer told me that last year people were just talking about Linux but this year they are switching to it.

I was talking to one employee from Boeing who told me that they had switched a 32 processor box running UNIX with an 8 processor box running Linux. They saved a fortune and the Linux box out performed the older Unix box.

Groklaw's article quotes George Coloney as saying:

"The operating system is not about world peace and the charitable work of the world's great programmers. It's like every other operating system ever created: It's about the foibles, greed, mistakes and engineering prowess (or lack thereof) of one vendor -- in this case, Red Hat."

He clearly does not understand the nature of Linux and off handidy admits that SUN is about "greed."

It's too late for FUD which means we should brace ourselves for more SCO like actions. Let's not forget that the SCO thing got started with the help of Microsoft and now SUN is in the same bed.

A spanner in the works:

[theolein]

I can put Sun's problem with it's Red Hat strategy in one word:
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?"

Re:Anybody tried out Solaris 10 on x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried it out 9/21 on a Dell 2xP3500 512M, and an AMD xp2400 512M, after listening to their web event on friday. Next I want to install it on a 2x2.8 Xeon, 2G.

-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/solaris 10x86.html solaris looks great, if it was 1990s, but I don't think Sun realizes how advanced (at least in terms of eye candy, user-friendliness, and gui tools, but not necessarily system stability) some of the linux distros are.

Re:No surprise here...

[div_2n]

It would help if you checked changelogs on kernel.org who is contributing patches:

HP

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Dell

[e-mail]

Intel

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
v [e-mail]
suresh.b.siddha@inte l.com
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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.

Get a clue!

[stox]

Contrary to popular belief, Sun has done more for FOSS than any other company out there. Integrated over time, Sun's overall contribution has been unmatched. Let's look at a few key points:

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.

Heh. This business plan is funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoo boy. Jonathan Schwartz has struck me as a clueless twit with some of his ramblings on his blog in the past (like his trying to redefine what Open Source is, among other things), but this article proves he just doesn't get it.

Let's start with "out-engineer everybody in the x86 space". Now THAT is funny. Sun has very little talent in the x86 space. Their x86 work comes from SunSoft South, which used to be the old Interactive Systems Corporation. I'm told these guys lost the race to deliver the first ATT UNIX port to the IBM 386 PC back in the 80's to Microport; even though Intel paid ISC to port System V to a similar platform first. And not too long ago they were quoting 9 months to write a device driver for any new hardware. Heck, you could port Linux to a new CPU in less time than that.

Oh yes - and let's not forget how well Solaris NFS works with Linux. There are definite problems there. And NetApp has put Trond on a basic retainer. Hmmm. Where does that leave Sun?

Secondly, the folks at SunSoft South have always been looked down upon from within Sun as second-rate by the Solaris kernel engineers. In good part, with good reason.

Perhaps Schwartz is going to put the Sparc kernel hacks on x86? That will go over real well. But it's kind of irrelevant, as almost all of the best Solaris kernel people are gone.

So where's the talent, Jonathan? Perhaps he's going to hire Linus? Oh - let's not forget that Sun doesn't pay well enough to attract and keep good people anyway.

Let's see, what else? Ah! "Sun's view is that Linux is nothing more than Red Hat". Ahem. Maybe at the IT level he might persuade a few customers with this. But let's not forget that the reason RedHat got where it is is in large part based upon the goodwill of the Linux community.

I guess he doesn't understand the concept of "goodwill", and hasn't learned anything from the SCO fiasco (which Sun has helped finance, as we all know).

No, I'll place my bets on RedHat over Sun anyday. And let's not forget SuSE/Novell. These folks are making some impressive moves. If they do them right, I'll put my money on SuSE in the corporate IT world.

But Sun? They're a zombie, IMHO. They're still walking; they just haven't realized that they are dead yet.

Re:Let MS and Sun believe that Linux == Red Hat

[dasmegabyte]

I think both Microsoft and Sun now realize you can't "beat Linux" the way you can beat Lotus or you can beat Digital. Linux isn't a company. It will never disappear or go chapter 11. It's a technology, like XML or TCP/IP, and like those technologies there's no real money it.

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 upstart Red Hat. There isn't enough room in the services sector as it is, and with Red Hat's name being synonymous in many executive's minds with Linux, it makes sense to attack them.

It isn't an attack on Linux. It's an attack on its symbolic open market leaders. And it's an attack that's not entirely without merit. I'd take a Sun support contract over a Red Hat any day of the week...though I'd prefer it with the overactive Linux community...

Re:Actually, I fing this very surprising . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I fing this very surprising . . . Mostly because I didn't believe Sun to be that incredibly stupid.

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-up emailing the *entire company* that we need to put our vacation time that we might have used but didn't report on our timecards - all in the name of quarter-end profit, well... That's a little extreme.

I've always thought of Sun as being a company dedicated to Quality. Boxes that Just Don't Break(tm). I've watched as those boxes were outsourced. And now most of the building blocks for the high-end stuff is looking like it'll be outsourced, too. All in the name of profit.

Linux is sold by Sun because the boxes that it runs on gains Sun marketshare. That's it. There's a price point that Sun didn't have product for, and now there is one. I shit you not.

I think that Sun has some good product, good ideas, and some good technology. But management is letting ALL of that slide just so that they can make the quick buck and look good to the Board of Directors come quarter-end.

I hate working here as a technician. I used to love it. But it's just no fun anymore when everyone above you is purely dedicated to getting product out the door instead of fixing problems.

Re:No surprise here...

[drinkypoo]

Sun's problem is that their hardware isn't that great. You can get better systems from IBM, cheaper. If the whole world goes Linux, where's Sun? Utterly fucked, because no one is buying their hardware. Sun is making a horrible mistake, however, if they think that they can destroy or even substantially set back Linux, at least not without nuclear weapons. (Bombing IBM would be a good step, for example, or a major developer's picnic)... In other words, there's nothing they can do. I doubt even McNealy is that insane.

Re:What about Novell?

[Jon_E]

Novell is definitely not being ignored .. in fact there were rumors about sun buying them out (heck JDS is SuSE underneath .. not quite as bad as the old "Sun Linux" which was RH6 .. and evolution is one of the star apps to help with office bolstering - the hydrogen connector to the Sun Calender server was done in conjunction w/ Ximian/Novell)

What sun is after is what they see as a gap in IBM and HP .. IBM is pretty much dropping AIX in favor of rolling more into linux, and HP doesn't seem to be doing much w/ HPUX .. so RH IBM merger(?) is the new rumor that sun is probably trying to nip in the bud.

If you compare innovation in AIX and the developers that are putting their effort into linux, and the innovation and developers that are putting their efforts into Solaris .. i think sun might have something there.

Overall, i think sun's got the right approach as they look at linux and the inherent disorganization inherent with the lack of a governing body - sorry we're still not quite polished enough for some environments - and the distributed control model begins to break down when it reaches a certain size .. if it matures - they were there all along, and if it doesn't - they've got solid tech in Solaris 10 .. sun's been missing the boat for years, but they're still out trying to innovate .. just hope enough of those innovators are still with the company.

Sun's got some big guns

[SlashdotOgre]

With the release of Solaris 10, things will really get interesting. Assuming Solaris 10 can live up to the promise of running Linux apps natively without any porting then they have a big OS contender. Couple that with DTrace & a beautiful GUI like Project Looking Glass and Sun has a really nice package on its hands. Right now they're selling Red Hat to compliment their new AMD merger (and might I add the V20z is a sweet machine), but Solaris 10 is also being developed for the x86 (and it's suppose to have decent performance unlike previous x86 Solaris). With regard to their Sun Java Desktop, I don't believe that will have a major affect on Red Hat as it seems to be targeted at coporate desktops as opposed to servers. The permission levels and security changes over the next couple of releases sound interesting, and the lead engineer (nice fellow, met him at LinuxWorld) mentioned he hopes to have it running Looking Glass by version 4. I wouldn't be surprised if Sun cuts ties with Red Hat after the release of Solaris 10, but I don't know how much this will affect RH. They still have strong ties, especially with companies pushing blade technology like HP (who has their own plan to bring people away from Solaris).

Sun Had a Great Idea

[Greyfox]

With their platform-independant language that you could compile anywhere and then run the binaries anywhere else. Unfortunately the world went a different way. Java is all very nice in theory but in practise, "write once run everywhere" doesn't really work out that way.

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.

Re:Get a clue!

[ThousandStars]

I think that it's arguable at best that Sun has done more for FOSS than any other company; but you did forget Open Office (although Sun still sells Star Office).

Also, as other posters have pointed out, people with @sun e-mail addresses have contributed kernel pataches.

Re:Sun is trying to evolve ... leave 'em alone.

[Usagi_yo]

How many commercial linux systems out there scale to above 64 processors (not counting the duct tape and popsicle stick clustering)? Where do they go for their support? When did they start? What RAS features does linux have? When did Linux support domains? Dynamic reconfiguration? High availability? Hot swapability? How many linux systems out there are doing a million transactions a day? 5 million a day? 10 million a day?

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.

A Prediction: SUN Conspiration

[Maljin Jolt]

Their secret plan is to license and/or sell some future version of Java Desktop System on Solaris only, forcing all established customers to migrate away from Linux. Silly idea. Microsoft money, of course. Maybe, two or three years?

My clean solution: make mental note to ignore java now. It's too slow for me, nor open either. Why the hell the j2re1.4.2.05 is missing SSL support in non american downloads, while j2re1.4.2.04 had it?

Re:Not Entirely True

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You don't build 1024-way systems unless you're going to make it run a 1024-way OS.

Not true. Plenty of big n-way boxen are configured as clusters of smaller m-way systems. Benefits include redundancy and easy reconfigurability (moving cpus and memory from one "system" to another requires no physical changes to the hardware and may not even require a reboot) plus the NUMA interconnect can be used as a high-speed message passing bus between the individual instances.

There is even a term for it, "cluster in a box." Although 1024 cpus probably aren't all going to fit in one cabinet.

But, I will agree that if you have an n-way system, the "holy grail" is to be able to run it as an n-way single system image. It just isn't always the most desirable configuration.

Sun the Schizo Giant on the Block

[Zarf]

Not the first time Sun has taken a stance that if not carefully balanced was self-damning. Sun hasn't made one of these work yet. One of these days they'll get a cohesive corporate strategy because they'll either get it right or get left behind in such a small niche there'll be no self-damning stances to take.

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?

Re:Sun vs Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

the performance of code compiled by GCC is usually below the performance of code compiled with commercial compilers

Supporting data?

...and keep reading

[Anonymous Coward]

For ./ers who actually RTFA: This guy looks like he's got his wires crossed.

Per Schwartz [sun.com]: "...Red Hat is not linux, despite what they say, and despite what the media (and IBM's ads) seem to conflate."

I think if Sun was trying to equate Linux with Redhat statements like this would be counter-productive.

On to attacking Redhat:

The *truth* is, from a sysadmin that's used both for actual enterprise applications, is that Redhat AS does suck. Its cludgy, and disordered, like /proc as compared with kstat.

Just because Redhat sucks, tho, doesn't mean that Linux sucks (which on the whole it doesn't). Its just immature-- probably at the same level of maturity as Solaris 2.51 or maybe 2.6. That's not bad, considering the amount of time that its had to grow.

Redhat's enterprise OS (remember ./ers only the kernel is Linux) doesn't stack up to Solaris, and isn't really cost effective anymore. I can get a Sun operteron-based system with Solaris for cheaper than a Dell, if you include the Redhat AS license! Sun is offering a superior product for cheaper.

Re:No surprise here...

[vidarlo]

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.
Well...I could mention many: HP has delivered Linux Bewolf clusters to NOTUR [notur.org] IBM has delivered clusters there... SGI Has delivered supercomputers there. Sun: NFS, and StarOffice/OpenOffice Novell (whihch at least has been very powerful, dunno right now, but seems to be pretty much used) has bought suse, and is making Linux Solutions wich kicks ass on the desktop/workstation side,and also on the server side. Combining Novell's expirence in network business with SuSE's expirence in the Dekstop Linux Market is a extremly powerful coalliation. So, I guess there's plenty of the big ones making Linux solutions.
Don't get me wrong, I don't belive, for a second, that they do it out of kindness, they do it because they hope to earn money. And currently Linux can enable them to earn more money. Simple as that.

Re:No surprise here...

[JonAnderson]

"You can get better systems from IBM, cheaper." "Utterly fucked, because no one is buying their hardware"

Can you substantiate this please.

Re:NFS

[Carewolf]

The NFS implementation on the FreeBSD has hard time talking to the implementation on other systems. At my university we recently tried to upgrade all the old HP-UX file-servers to FreeBSD, but they ended up putting the Solaris and Linux machines into odd locking states because FreeBSD didn't support the defacto standard, but followed their own literal intepretation of the original NFS-standard.

It seems the original standard has a problem with certain types of reboots, and everybody but FreeBSD is using a defacto interpretation to get around the problem; ofcourse FreeBSD has closed the bug as WONTFIX, only the standard counts.

Re:No surprise here...

[owlstead]

We already have another version of Java called J# in .NET. Since Sun and MS have voted not to go against each other this will probably remain so. It seems to be _mostly_ compatible with Java if you look at the language itself though (.net exceptions do not have "Throwable" as base class e.g..)

The Java API's are partially implemented at the 1.4 level (no swing etc, but java.lang, java.util, java.io, java.awt are all there). These have been compiled to the .net platform using their own VM obviously, so once compiled it will be incompatible.

Furthermore, you can access all the .NET api's. These are quite indistinquishable from the true Java API's. It's therefore pretty easy to end up with an application that is incompatible with Java. I haven't looked at advanced stuff like virtualization and the like.

If you check out the recent enhancements in C# you can see why it is easy for MS to support java. New features are more or less the same as those introduced with Java 5. Basically the whole system is Java like (the implementation seems to be okish though).

I don't think so

[p.rican]

Sun's problem is that their hardware isn't that great.

I work as an engineer in the telco business and I have seen firsthand how rock solid their equipment is. Lucent Technologies uses Netra [lucent.com] boxes all over the place for billing applications and 3B21 emulations to handle Class 5 switching functions without a hitch. These boxes have uptimes measured in years. We cannot afford to use hardware that is not carrier grade (five nines reliability). I can't comment on their other hardware as I believe the Netra is the only box specifically designed for carrier grade service in a Central Office

Sun is a becoming a niche player

[walterbyrd]

>>How many commercial linux systems out there scale to above 64 processors

And how many companies really need that? That is nothing but a tiny niche market. Even in that that tiny niche market sunw pust must compete with IBM, HPQ, and SGI. And it won't be long before Linux catches up.

Re:No surprise here...

[JonAnderson]

It has been some time since Sun's technology has been equated as 'best of breed', probably going back to the Sparc III series. Most of their install base at this point is in a renewal cycle, or due to 3rd party support dependencies.

In terms of core performance you are probably right (although power5 has great fp performance when given exclusive access to 36MB level 3 cache it's int performance isn't exactly stellar. Guess whats more important for servers.). However if you look at actual systems performance then things are a lot closer. Sun is innovating, the problem is execution and time to market.

HP is betting the shop on commodity based 64 bit computing in Itanium, Itanium II, etc.

They sure are and with not much success.

IBM has Power5, Power6, etc. A very solid roadmap after years of unix neglect in the 90s. Although Power4 was a bit weak, Power5 looks great and Power6 will definitely be on schedule. What is Sun's latest roadmap schedule? I can't remember, they keep changing the roadmap...

Well, I don't think cancelling two cores equates to not having a roadmap. Sun have a pretty good roadmap actually. USIV speed dump, USIV+ next year, Niagara next year, Rock and Niagara2 in 2007/2008. With APL (Fujitsu) filling in the product line in the mid term. I think Sun should be applauded for their willingness to do something different with the throughput computing ideology.

IBM is "AIX, or Linux, or whatever you want to run on our hardware...we won't stop you."

A long as IGS is getting a fat wad we don't care more like. Your argument is backward. IBM have the most proprietary and locked in offerings on the market. How long do you think they will be developing AIX? Have you seen how much ISV support there is for 5.3L (required to use all the bells and whistles of P5)

Solaris is a good OS, but I wouldn't pick my hardware based on it. And the best thing is that whatever Solaris can do, the Open Source community can mimick (better) 2-4 years down the line. There is no compelling reason to be bleeding edge all the time, especially in corporate environments...

You should pick your hardware based upon which apps you want to run. This has far more dependance on the OS than the hardware. So, to correct your bleeding edge statement, it's more important in the corporate environment to run supported apps on a supported stable os than it is to have the latest 'bleeding edge' hardware. IBM's stuff is always a forklift upgrade, you can still mix and match Sun uniboards (i.e. different proc speeds etc.) in serengeti chassis until Rock based systems are available.

Re:not news

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME was crap, relatively speaking, until Sun invested millions of dollars, dozens of engineers and man-years worth of development time in it. Sun did a heck of a lot of work on GNOME, and put the code back under the GPL. Don't just take my word for it, though. Go and look yourself.