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Sun Steps Back from Linux JDS 202

Posted by timothy from the crowded-house dept.
chill writes "ZD Net UK is reporting that Sun is pulling back from their JDS desktop Linux initiative. The big question is what happened to those half-million to million-plus units that were supposed to ship in China in 2004? One hint may be that in April, Novell announced a deal with CSSC to 'cooperate to provide technology, services and marketing to optimise and promote Linux to the Chinese market.' Sun's JDS was based on SUSE Linux, now owned by Novell."
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Sun Steps Back from Linux JDS More

Sun Steps Back from Linux JDS

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  • What happened to those units (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One hour later, they were hungry for Windows again.

  • This was inevitable (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:32PM (#12942711)
    Sun only supports linux because it is forced too. Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.

    • Re:This was inevitable (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara,hudson&barbara-hudson,com> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:34PM (#12942733) Journal
      Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.
      Not necessarily - and actually probably quite the opposite. The whole idea was to get *away* from being *just a hardware vendor*, and sell all sorts of support services.

      Someone should whack them with a cluestick - everyone knows there are severe penalties for early withdrawal (from a new market).

    • Re:This was inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:37PM (#12942757) Homepage Journal
      Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.

      That's not entirely true. Sun's strategy has always been to sell hardware and complete solutions. It really doesn't matter to them if they're selling Linux or Solaris. In fact, long before JDS they provided an option to preload RedHat on many of their systems. Why anyone would chose RedHat over Solaris for a server system is beyond me, but a lot of customers were demanding it.

      All the JDS is lacking is a true follow through. This half-assed release-it-and-then-drop-it strategy is guaranteed failure.

      • Re:This was inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)

        by flithm ( 756019 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:04PM (#12942964) Homepage
        Why anyone would chose RedHat over Solaris for a server system is beyond me

        - iptables
        - proper package management (not that red hat provides that, but compared pkgadd anything seems good)
        - real command line utils (GNU), ie:
        - color ls
        - tar with gzip, bzip support (no need for piping)

        Now I don't want to give the impression I think Solaris is crap. Far from it. Obviously you wouldn't want to run Linux on a massive 64 processor server or anything. But for a small system, and for ease of use and maintenance, Linux is a lot nicer to work with.

        It's amazing how much the small conveniences add up. Seriously, try going without color ls for a while. It's ridiculous, but it can be really frustrating.
        • Real command line utils (GNU), ie:
          - color ls
          - tar with gzip, bzip support (no need for piping)

          I used to get that sort of stuff in Solaris (during the 90's) via. /usr/local/bin + aliases.

          I agree with you on the small conveniences. 10 years ago a personal Linux desktop was almost as useful as a professionally administrated and configured shared Solaris box. Today they aren't in the same ballpark, Linux is so much easier to configure setup use....
        • - iptables

          Fair enough. You do have to go with commercial solutions on Solaris.

          - proper package management (not that red hat provides that, but compared pkgadd anything seems good)

          This has got to be a personal preference. While Sun may send out patches in huge (and annoying) bundles, at least you can always get the right package without any troubles. I can't count the number of times I've been stuck in RedHat RPM HELL. No, no. I need to bury the memory. It's too painful. Too... THE HORROR!

          - real comm

        • Re:This was inevitable (Score:4, Informative)

          by Cally ( 10873 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:24PM (#12943125) Homepage
          Obviously you wouldn't want to run Linux on a massive 64 processor server

          Actually sir... that's not... entirely... true [top500.org].

        • Re:This was inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)

          by AusG4 ( 651867 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:26PM (#12943160) Homepage Journal
          Never used Solaris, I guess?

          In order:

          * ipfilter (which does filtering and in/out NAT including packet level load balancing that is just as good as anything F4 is providing).

          * the solaris package system sucks, yes - but compared to RedHat, by your own admission, is not worse. Download pkg-get from Blastwave and it does all the dependency instlalation and downloading for you anyways, providing a terribly "apt" like system. Who actually downloads Solaris packages manually anymore? Idiots.. that's who.

          * Solaris has come with bash standard, a whole folder of GNU tools (/usr/sfw) and via pkg-get, access to anything and everything that Linux provides in the way of GNU command line tools.

          - color ls isn't ls, per se - it's in the environment. I have color ls on my Solaris boxes. It's trivially easy to configure and is unique to Linux that it's set that way standard. Google is your friend.

          - Solaris tar sucks for many reasons, the biggest of which is it's long standing problems with long filenames. Linux distributions use gtar, and Solaris comes with gtar out of the box in /usr/sfw/bin - so what exactly is the problem here? With Solaris, you get a choice between the two - arguably better for the user.

          Point is - if you just set your environment right (this takes 30 seconds to do when you finish installing your system), most of your arguments disappear and if you get pkg-get the rest of your arguments go with it.

          As for ease of use and maintenance, Solaris 10 with pkg-get and Sun's network management tools reign -hugely- supreme over most Linux distributions. I speak purely from the standpoint of some who has to manage dozens of Solaris boxes (and at one point, dozens of Linux boxes) at the same time. The only Linux dist I've used that really holds up from a management point of view is Red Hat Enterprise - which is every bit as good as the stuff Sun is doing these days.

          Yes, you have to pay for both (I think Sun is actually a little cheaper, IIRC), but it costs me way less to pay Sun/Red Hat for their network manageement services than it costs me in time and labor - one day of my time can cost more than a whole year of RHN.

          As for color ls - haven't been around long, have you? Color ls is a moderate convenience.. but who actually needs it? If you can't be just as efficient without it you probably need to take a UNIX course or something.
          • [RedHat Enterprise] ... and if you're a small shop or can support yourself, you can always install CentOS 4 which is effectively RedHat Enterprise. You get updates, too.

            --
            [winston@perplexed ~]$ uname -a
            OpenBSD perplexed.alwyn.alioth.net 3.6 GENERIC#304 sparc64

            • Re:This was inevitable (Score:3, Informative)

              by AusG4 ( 651867 )
              Yeah, but have you ever used RHN?

              Log into a single web site, see every server in your stable, along with every package installed, every patch that is pending, all your system info about each server, etc.

              It's the -service- that makes RedHat Enterprise the top tier Enterprise Linux, not the software.
          • I have used Solaris yes, but not very much. I was just going on my initial reaction to it.

            Your post was by far the best out of all the replies. Very informative, thank you.
            • As a former Sun employee and a huge linux fan/user/admin, Solaris is a pain IF you learned on Linux. Linux is a pain if you learned on Solaris. The learning curve for some people might be higher in this department and going from windows to a unice because they get flustered about where "it should be" or how "it should work" and have a different level of expectation.

              All that being said ... they are about the same. Redhat doesnt suffer from RPM hell if you stick to the normal packages or repo's. Get kinda
          • Solaris tar sucks for many reasons, the biggest of which is it's long standing problems with long filenames.

            Try the "E" switch with Sun tar, as in: /usr/bin/tar cEf

        • - iptables

          ipfilter comes with Solaris 10

          - proper package management (not that red hat provides that, but compared pkgadd anything seems good)

          Agreed.

          - real command line utils (GNU), ie:
          - color ls
          - tar with gzip, bzip support (no need for piping)

          SUN has been shipping the Software Companion CD (filled with GNU tools, extra window managers, etc.) since Solaris 8 which goes back several years now. The stuff is installed to /opt/sfw (Sun Freeware). Some stuff is now included with the OS under /usr/

        • You can't be serious? color ls? tar with gzip, bzip support? You were doing so well until those points lol...

          I mean, c'mon, my OS is superior because when I ssh in I get ls in color??? There's plenty of performance and security reasons out there to like Solaris.

          Would use chose a Redhat box over a Solaris box to run an Oracle DB?
        • Didn't Solaris use IPF? Or atleast could use it? I really like IPF/PF, so what is the advantage of IPtables? I just think the syntax is weird.

          Package managment? I don't know about Solaris but if their pkg_add is similair to the BSDs it works but not much more, kind of the same situation that RPM is in ;). But they have pkgsrc from NetBSD to, which Sun recently supported with hardware, and I do like pkgsrc. Also I suppose we'll see things like Debian GNU/Solaris and Gentoo on Solaris soon anyway.
          And probabl

        • IPTables...HAHAHAHA Solaris 10 comes with IPF, which is the mainstay of the BSD systems, at least until OpenBSD went to PF.

          Solaris pkgadd works well, it's very mature, and there are awesome front ends for it, like pkg-get from Blastwave.

          Real command line utils? Solaris provides the original Bourne Shell all the way to modern Bash, with ksh, zsh, etc. for good measure. Sun provides both BSD and SYS V variants of commands. Sun also provides a butt load of GNU utils under /usr/sfw and /opt/sfw.

          Color ls

      • Re:This was inevitable (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:11PM (#12943016)
        Depends on the architecture - Solaris on Sparc makes sense, why anyone would choose Solaris over Linux on an x86/amd64 platform is beyond me. (I support both at work, and aim to replace as many Solaris boxes as possible with Linux.)

        RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 has become the distribution of choice at work. It's not my first choice but RHEL is easy to install - and has the support pricetag (and scapegoat) to keeps management happy.

        If you can't beat 'em, find something plausible to fit their preconceptions...
        • Depends on the architecture - Solaris on Sparc makes sense, why anyone would choose Solaris over Linux on an x86/amd64 platform is beyond me. (I support both at work, and aim to replace as many Solaris boxes as possible with Linux.)

          Depends. If it's an actual Sun-built box, then it's just as good as a Sparc box. If it's Solaris/x86 on a random Dell or something, then I agree completely.
          • hmm.. "sun-built boxes", like that sun v20z are suspiciously similar to other boxes, eg. the newisys khepri 2100 (in this case)

            also, solaris 10 runs fine on my non "sun-approved" machines (ie. designs built or reused by sun).
            a cpu is a cpu is a cpu, and support for everything else is catching up fast these days (also thanks to stable interfaces, which make binary drivers less painful)
            • also, solaris 10 runs fine on my non "sun-approved" machines (ie. designs built or reused by sun).

              Solaris/x86 is supposed to. But if you have a Sun Built box, you should be getting the full OpenBoot system, the awesome graphical console, the cross-bar bus, and many other features that are unique to Sun machines. If Sun has stopped building their non-Sparc products that way, then... well... Sun's value proposition would be dropping, wouldn't it?
              • Did they ever build their non-Sparc that way?

                All their current opteron hardware is oem and use an "normal" bios. (They can support windows, so it is just a normal bios, not the open firmware/forth solution).

        • It's not my first choice but RHEL is easy to install - and has the support pricetag (and scapegoat) to keeps management happy.

          Of course, scapegoat is the major deciding factor here.....

        • RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 has become the distribution of choice at work. It's not my first choice but RHEL is easy to install - and has the support pricetag (and scapegoat) to keeps management happy.

          I know this opinion isn't going to be very popular around here, but at my company we found exactly the opposite was true. The Redhat servers are nice, and seem to run well, however the support costs are borderline ridiculous, and we end up paying more for annual support that it would cost us for Sun support.

    • Re:This was inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Decaff ( 42676 )
      Sun only supports linux because it is forced too.

      What is the evidence for this? Linux is a good platform for them to provide software for and sell services for.

      Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.

      Why? They are moving towards being increasingly a software services company.
    • "JDS will continue to exist as a product, but now chiefly as software based on Sun's Solaris"

      That means the Gnome, Java-for-desktop-apps and Open Office efforts will keep on, and they'll switch kernels on the desktop offering.

    • Sun only supports linux because it is forced too. Sun developing for linux is ultimately counterproductive to its own long term future.

      From a business viewpoint, you're probably right, if they want to keep selling what they're selling.

      On the other hand, sometimes you have to transform the firm - just ask Groves about Intel changing from making memory to making CPUs.

    • Re:This was inevitable (Score:3, Interesting)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )
      Yeah, we'll likely see a lot of comments like "sun changing their mind ones again" and complaints. But why would they use Linux to begin with? I guess in the early days of the JDS they didn't had the Solaris x86 (current version), but once they had it why would they keep on using Linux?
      Even less so when they open-source Solaris and try to gain more momentum.

      Right now I think they are doing everything right. x86 Solaris, Open-Solaris, cheap x86 workstations, soon(?) to be open Java.

      I'll probably install Op
      • > But why would they use Linux to begin with?

        Exactly my read of their attitude at the time. That they were doing something they didn't want to be doing, didn't believe in and that they would ax the project at the first opportunity. Which they did, and which is why I'll be even more convinced this is their attitude the next time they float another linux trial balloon.

        Eventually though, the penguin is going to devour the market for Solaris, Their too little, too late attempt at open sourcing it not wit
        • I didn't saw the JAVA Desktop as a final product thought. I got the CD of a demo version and tried it, and sure, it was a Linux LIVE-CD with gnome, staroffice and mozilla, but then what?
          I don't think it was a real try of accepting and using Linux, I think it was more of a test running on Linux first since they didn't had Solaris ready.

          I don't see why people are upset, it's not like Solaris was a major Linux player anyway, and for the people who used/uses/are intresting to use the JAVA Desktop to have it ru

  • Forget China (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:33PM (#12942721) Homepage Journal
    The big question is what happened to those half-million to million-plus units that were supposed to ship in China in 2004?

    What about those of us here in the US who *paid* for JDS and were promised major upgrades every quarter? We saw the JDS 1.0 -> 2.0 upgrade, then it stopped while Sun worked on JDS/Solaris.

    Sun needs to learn that the only way they're going to make inroads into the desktop market is if they follow through. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the popularity of Java or Solaris. If Sun would take the time to listen to their customers and implement the features they are demanding, then they'd have a very good chance at success. *sigh*

    • Re:Forget China (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:59PM (#12942931) Journal
      AKAImBatman (238306) sez: "What about those of us here in the US who *paid* for JDS and were promised major upgrades every quarter?"

      We're disposable. Why should we matter? It's a free OS. We can do anything else we want to.

      As long companies that could make a difference with Linux vs. Microsoft take such a Hokey-Pokey (you put the left foot in, you take the left foot out...) attitude towards the market, there will be no major progress. There will only continue to be piecemeal progress done by users with the occasional company riding on their backs.

      Can't say as I'm surprised about this. I had JDS from the release date, and throught the support has been among the worst I've ever gotten. I don't think they ever seriously expected it to go anywhere.

      Hopefully they'll now let it go for free. It's worth that.

      • As long companies that could make a difference with Linux vs. Microsoft take such a Hokey-Pokey (you put the left foot in, you take the left foot out...) attitude towards the market, there will be no major progress. There will only continue to be piecemeal progress done by users with the occasional company riding on their backs.

        You're exactly right. The problem is that investing in something as relatively unknown as Linux on the desktop is a *huge* risk, and so far, nobody has been willing to take that
      • AKAImBatman said: What about those of us here in the US who *paid* for JDS and were promised major upgrades every quarter?

        I just burned a set of JDS 3 update CDs.

    • I'm taking bets on how long OpenSolaris is going to last before Sun sees clones popping up, eating into their sales, and kills it.

      • Nope. OpenSolaris is here for good. Sun is committed to open sourcing all their software. Their execs have said it several times already. They've made good on Solaris, J2EE, seems a database is on the way, and there've been hints about J2SE.

        After all this is done, imagine Sun being a hardware/services company with a 100% OSS stack. And it's all supported by Sun's engineering processes.

        I actually swiched from Linux to Solaris 9 and 10. Not dicking around with the kernel drivers and actually having do
    • You don't suppose that SUN has caught MSFT's
      "Longhorn disease", do you?

      There are a number of areas that SUN could be
      spending more effort on. I certainly wouldn't
      mind seeing StarOffice released on more platforms,
      like Mac OS X. But SUN is continuing development
      of JDS on Solaris, and may only be delayed in
      support for linux. Their Solaris 10 product is
      currently a bit shy of all SUN's enhancements --
      their virtual file system is one example. If
      SUN's development efforts are slower than you
      like, at least be ha
    • What about those of us here in the US who *paid* for JDS and were promised major upgrades every quarter? We saw the JDS 1.0 -> 2.0 upgrade, then it stopped while Sun worked on JDS/Solaris.

      Your upgrade is ready. It's called "Solaris 10".

  • How is Sun making any money these days? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Could someone clue me in?
  • Sco. They had they Linux and they pulled it off. Although I'm sure that Sun will ever put itself in Sco's position (wrong-doer to the open source movement).

  • Now we know what Microsoft's $2 billion bought. (Score:3, Funny)

    by team99parody ( 880782 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:51PM (#12942876) Homepage
    This is what the highly hyped partnership is all about

  • I don't think Sun's leaving open source desktops. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @01:56PM (#12942911) Journal
    If there's one thing that's a reported definite in Sun, it is that they've decided on GNOME for their desktop environment on Solaris sometime in the near future.... I think JDS was a nice experiment at rebranding of both Suse and GNOME software, but never really a serious product with R&D devoted to improving software upstream from it. To make matters more complex, Suse joining the Novell fold has made a mess of the Suse and Ximian desktop offerings. Novell up top seems to be aiming for a losely defined linux services platform in the mold of IBM, not a strongly defined Linux desktop and distribution product. No reason they should go for the later either, since that market is decently covered by other products from other companies.

    So, Sun had JDS which is derived from a distrtibution (Suse) that is not nice to GNOME (wtg, germans), and are giving up on it. No biggie, IMHO.
  • Why wasn't I told about this? I swear if I lose another grand from this SUN company I am going to sell. O.o

  • Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cpn2000 ( 660758 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:19PM (#12943071)
    It is looking like Sun has finally made up their mind and has decided to ditch Linux once and for all to put their energies into Solaris. For the longest time they were doing a half-hearted job of courting Linux, but I'm glad that they have finally made a decision and moved on.

    It makes sense too. They have a world class Unix based OS and it made little sense for them to just abandon it and move to Linux. If they are able to generate some interest in an open source Solaris, that might be a more sensible path forward for them

    • It is looking like Sun has finally made up their mind and has decided to ditch Linux once and for all to put their energies into Solaris.

      They haven't ditched Linux at all. They have cut back on desktop Linux. They will still be providing server-side Linux.

    • MOD PARENT UP PL.... oh, wait, I forgot I had mod points!
    • Sun was implementing the classic "trojan horse" strategy. Implement something in a half assed way and say - "look how shitty this is" - Come to Solaris!

      Kind of like x86 on Solaris. Look at how shitty this is...come to SPARC. When really, there is no fundamental reason that x86 solaris should be shitty.

      Unfortunately, Linux had and is gaining too much momentum in the marketplace for this strategy to work. Sun is as good as dead. They get more irrelevant with each passing day.
  • Does Sun's pulling back on the JDS initiative have anything to do with the recent Microsoft/Sun lovefest? Could this be the removal of a competitor to desktop Windows in China and elsewhere?
    • No.

      Read the article! Sun is de-emphasizing JDS on Linux. They are not pulling back from JDS or the desktop, they're just more gung-ho about it as an interface for solaris.

      Besides, anyone who thinks that the Microsoft/Sun relationship is a "lovefest" doesn't know which way is up.

  • Big Surprise (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @02:50PM (#12943472) Homepage
    Sun was never and never will be a supporter of Linux.

    Anybody who thought the Java Desktop was a "real" Linux distro is nuts. Sun is a proprietary UNIX shop and never will be anything more.

    They're doomed. Flee from their products (except Java which is being open-sourced whether they like it or not) like the plague.

    "Open" Solaris will never develop the community Linux has, and Linux will match and exceed Solaris' capabilities within five years.

    Sun is the "new" SCO. In five years, they'll be suing Linus for "copyright and patent violations".
  • ...didn't we? It's amazing how some people actually trusted Sun to follow through with this. It was deemed obvious that Sun would pull the Linux version in favor of Solaris version sooner or later, especially as people observeh how they downplayed the significance of kernel.

    It's not like I'm totally neurotic about the choice of kernel now that both are open - but Solaris is open more in principle rather than practice, because it's only developed & supported by one company. Others could join in, but it
  • JDS on Linux was a tactical move to get some people off of Windows and on to an Open platform to run Star Office on the desktop and the Java Enterprise System on the server (preferably SPARC, but now that's so far behind the curve, they'd rather you bought an Opteron V20z or V40z than a box from Dell).

    Solaris x86 got ressurected to reverse declining sales of low-end servers, and when Opteron came along, S10 went 64-bit on x86, and got support for commodity hardware (NICs, graphics cards, laptop chipsets).

  • This is a good reason to keep Sun from putting Java components into OpenOffice. As eWeek puts it [eweek.com], "The Java code in the newest OpenOffice, however, does not compile well with open-source Java compilers like the GCJ". That gives Sun leverage to restrict the free use of OpenOffice in future.

    Now that we're finally out from under Microsoft Office, we don't want to be in a similar position with Sun. Users don't want Sun to be in a position to change the rules at a future time. That's the whole point of open

  • This is becoming amusing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tji ( 74570 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @05:02PM (#12945061)
    How many times is Sun going to start a Linux initiative, then change their mind? There must have been four or five of these in the last few years.

    They can't decide if Linux is an opportunity or a competitive threat.

    The answer: It doesn't matter. You guys are doing a great job of killing your company all by yourself.

    Who's steering that ship anyway?

  • just a bait and switch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by porky_pig_jr ( 129948 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @06:10PM (#12945660)
    Sun has made so much noises how THEIR distribution of Linux is true to the LInux spirit whereas Red Hat isn't - I've never doubt their linux campaign won't last that long. Just another half-backed marketing idea which boils down to bait and switch. Except it smelled fishy for me right from the start, and I guess for many others as well.

  • Hardly surprising.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by ikekrull ( 59661 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @08:57PM (#12946901) Homepage
    We had a presentation from some Sun guys, and they basically spent the entire session apologising for the fact that JDS didnt offer the latest packages e.g. 'if youre looking for the latest and greatest, JDS won't give it to you'.

    I mean, why even bother doing it if youre going to settle for half-assed - and then tell your customers upfront you want them to pay for half-assed...

    Needless to say nobody present left the meeting feeling very excited about where Sun was going with JDS.

    Personally, I think dumping Linux is an understandable move in the larger scheme of things - ultimately Solaris is the OS that Sun wants to see succeed, but signalling a lack of support in the JDS offering is baffling.

    There is absolutely no reason why JDS shouldnt run on OpenSolaris and offer the same experience as Linux - it seems that Sun, having finally come to the realisation that an old version of GNOME (which is hardly flawless in it's latest iteration) is a tough sell, especially when compared side-by-side with highly polished offerings from Microsoft and Apple.

    So, instead of doing something about the obvious flaws in their product - Or god forbid come up with something better - they publically throw in the towel, with a vague suggestion that they might decide to have another half-assed attempt at it in future.

    I mean, GNOME and the rest of the Linux desktop is going to improve and will compete head-on with the best that the rest have to offer, and the day will come when Sun will have to try and re-enter the market with a revised offering and explain away this flip-flopping, which isn't going to be at all easy.

    Does nobody at Sun get that this is a pathetic, embarrassing show of weakness?

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