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Sun Microsystems GUI Linux Business Software

Mad Hatter Preview - Sun Java Desktop System Demo 220

Posted by timothy from the late-entry dept.
bengine writes "According to this article, Sun Java Desktop System is a good product overall, built on the well-established SuSE system with integration from Sun. It delivers what appears to be a very useful desktop OS and it has the chance to make a dent in the Windows monopoly. But Sun will have to differentiate itself on its quality, hardware, services and reputation. That means a lot of hard work, so the key questions will be how well they execute their strategy, how much public acceptance they gain and what message they convey through public venues." This makes a good companion to the earlier story linking to Mad Hatter screenshots.
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Mad Hatter Preview - Sun Java Desktop System Demo More

Mad Hatter Preview - Sun Java Desktop System Demo

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  • It's still GNOME. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:41AM (#7161821)
    Why is there a need to preview so many GNOME Desktops under different name ? GNOME is GNOME no matter what company forks it. As soon as GNOME 2.6 comes out SUN, Ximian or Red Hat gonna fork it again for their Desktop. So if you want to know how each new GNOME looks like then please go and look inside the real GNOME and not some lame forks which changes anyways as soon as the core releases a new version.

    • Re:It's still GNOME. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ah, but those forks by professsional companies will have that clean and polished look and feel to them and not some kludge some by script kiddie.

      not to mention documentation is likely to be improved.
      • Lol, yeah, those GNOME developers sure are a bunch of script kiddies! </sarcasm>

        Whoever modded the parent "Insightful" needs a severe beating...

      • This is pure FUD. The stock GNOME that you download from gnome.org is quite useable on its own. If you want a bit of polish, RedHat's bluecurve is nice but certainly it won't change any functional aspect of the base GNOME.

        I think Sun will find little success with this product specifically because it offers so little over the base freeware.

    • Re:It's still GNOME. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:25AM (#7162061) Journal
      GNOME is GNOME no matter what company forks it.

      Ummm... No...

      Big Businesses want other Big Businesses to back their software. You won't see any announcements from GM stating that they've decided to run Linux From Scratch or Gentoo. With Sun, you've got a reputable brick-and-mortar establishment to go to when it breaks.

      Unfortunately for Sun, they are quickly losing their big-business reputation. This is their last hope, IMHO.

      Off topic - if Apple were to port OSX to X86 commodity hardware, I'm sure that we'd have a lot of businesses jumping on board - especially in the light of the "Homogenous Windows Environments Are Bad" article. It just makes good sense.
      • With Sun, you've got a reputable brick-and-mortar establishment to go to when it breaks.

        Ummm... No...

        I've never seen any good GUI solution from Sun. Open Office, Netbeans - they all are slow and crashy. No need to mention the great fiasco of SWING.

        And the best GNOME I've ever used was 1.4 vanilla (from CVS). Thanks to Sun contributions, GNOME 2 is less usable. Of course, Sun's "proprietary" fork doesn't fix the usability problem either.

        • I don't want to repeat myself so check this [slashdot.org]. It amazingly fast and did not crash (at least during the demo).
          • Cannot see the link to download and try. And have seen any GUI application being big enough AND stable AND fast AND written on java. Therefore I have no facts to believe you.

            Hmm, giving such link (I man for download that thing) you may prove something that can turn upside down the understanding of the whole industry of how to compare the performance (and stability) of Java GUI vs C-written GUI applications. Becase as for now the only people who think that big Java GUI applications can be as reliable and

            • Re:It's still GNOME. (Score:3, Informative)

              by javatips ( 66293 )
              So le me repeat myself. This link [rbn.com] (can you see it) point to a RealOne video of a presentation demoing new stuff from Sun. If you skip to 1:01:00 (approx), the guy gives a demo of Java 3D desktop where you can see many video stream displayed in a 3D desktop. You'll see the guy rotate the window in "3D" without missing a single frame. At the same time the clip is displayed in it's window, you have a 3D icon displaying the same clip at the bottom of the screen (think Aqua zoomable icons on steroids).

              For sure
              • 1. We are talking about Linux and GNOME here. What RealOne? My mozilla doesn't know what is it. Neither Nautilus. And nothing I can do manually on my Linux/PPC box about.

                2. I don't belive any marketing video anyway. Untill I can download the source, build it and run it on my box.

                3. Eclipse is not that big as the biggest part of it (GUI) is on native codes (it's not java).

                4. Both JBuilder and Jboss are slow and crashy.

                5. I don't have money to buy the license to run WebLogic or the hardware capable to

                • Why don't you download the Java Source and use your 3733t h4x0ring skills to recompile and make it faster!

                  Or use the GNU Java clone, it's GPL'd, so it must be faster.

                  Open Source != High performance

                  • Why don't you download the Java Source and use your 3733t h4x0ring skills to recompile and make it faster!

                    I've tried it several times. Each time I've ended-up either with Lisp machine, or with Erlang interpreter.

                    Or use the GNU Java clone, it's GPL'd, so it must be faster.

                    GPL is fast only if it's not Java.

                    Open Source != High performance

                    Here you're trolling.

        • Re:It's still GNOME. (Score:4, Informative)

          by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@g m a i l . c om> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:03AM (#7162394) Homepage Journal
          > Thanks to Sun contributions, GNOME 2 is less usable. Of
          > course, Sun's "proprietary" fork doesn't fix the usability
          > problem either.

          This has *got* to be a troll. Sun's GNOME is the only one I've found that works right out of the box. Just try to make use of a vanilla GNOME 2.x. All kinds of weird problems (like the inability for normal users to edit their own menu items, package incompatibilities, crashes, the forever unchangeable desktop background, etc.) crop up to make your life full of pain and anguish. None of the distro GNOMEs are much better. RedHat 8, for example, looks good, but if you try to install a menu icon for a single user, it wipes out the entire system menu! ARRRGGHHH!!!

          Sun GNOME OTOH, just works (TM). The system that is installed is about as simple as can be, yet feature rich. And ALL features that are included actually work (such as FREAKING MENU ITEMS!). Now if you want to talk vanilla KDE, we can talk about how it just works(TM) out of the box without support from big Unix vendors like Sun.
          • You haven't paid an attention of exactly I've been talking about.

            Perhaps Sun has improved the installation of GNOME comparing to GNOME 2.x vanilla. But I was talking that all 2.x Gnomes are broken in usability comparing to the perfect 1.4.

            • No, I paid attention. Sun GNOME 1.4 was also better than vanilla. However, I didn't mention it because I didn't want to get into an argument about how much I hated 1.4 and that Nautilus was a major improvement even if it did crash half the time. Oh, and BTW. It STILL didn't work right.
      • I doubt that OSX on X86 commodity hardware would be nearly as good as it seems to be on Apple hardware.

        I understand that BSD runs well on i386, but BSD doesn't have all of the nice features of OSX.

        When you get down to things like suporting all firewire devices on all the different x86 firewire controllers and having graphics run as well as graphics do but on ati mach 64s.... that it becomes a little less polished. (if it was sold by a big company on x86 hardware it might be better... then they could pick
      • Big Businesses want other Big Businesses to back their software.

        This myth is repeated so many times that people start to believe it. There is a huge support network in large firms for totally free software, some of which is downright obscure. This notion that corporate departments only use corporate software is bunk, I don't know why people continue to trot it out.

        The company I work at has a $22 billion market cap and survives on freebsd, perl and php. CONVINCED YET???

      • You won't see any announcements from GM stating that they've decided to run Linux From Scratch or Gentoo.

        A company the size of GM will have the capability to do that, if they wanted to. They'd simply say to EDS or Accenture, we'd like you to support this please - when you're talking 100,000 desktops, you can write your own ticket. The question is, would it be cheaper than supporting Windows? Even without retraining, probably not. Win2K is light years ahead of NT4 when it comes to mass management.

        if App

    • Re:It's still GNOME. (Score:4, Informative)

      by sufehmi ( 134793 ) <sufehmi&gmail,com> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:31AM (#7162092) Homepage Journal
      What counts are the extra customizations that's done to it. It may be small things here-and-there, but overall, it may differentiate a distro significantly than others.

      If you aim at Windows desktop, you need to make the transition as painless as possible.
      The list is long - relevant right-click menus, copy/paste that works across all apps, ability to create shortcuts on desktop easily, consistent drag-and-drop, etc, etc.

      Also for corporations, there are other things that counts.

      Some companies may already implemented centralized workstations management - ZENworks, MS-SMS, etc. These software enable IT depts to efficiently manage thousands of desktop with minimum number of staff.
      I've personally used ZENworks and I can say that I haven't found anything similar on Linux - CMIIW.
      You can kinda centrally manage your workstations by implementing LTSP (and others), but this tops out at 150 workstations per server. When you have 15000 desktop, the last thing you need is additional 100 servers to manage.
      Also it may prove too bandwidth-intensive for WAN-wide deployment.

      Another issue is authentication.
      For example, for Novell customers, they'll have problems. There are various Novell client for Linux, but they may only work using IPX (IPX is all trouble on WAN), and/or still in beta version, and/or doesn't provide access to printers, etc.
      Also authenticating to the latest version of ActiveDirectory - I don't know if SAMBA support it, but I don't think so.
      Etc.

      If a company can provide the solution to these kind of issues, especially since Sun is aiming at corporate market (I believe), then they'll have a winner.
    • If sun wants to customise GNOME, why stop them? Its not the end of the world when someone forks a open-source project.

  • I wouldn't worry about making a dent (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tommasz ( 36259 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:45AM (#7161837)
    This is clever, and it's nice to see that it works, but Java? Most people's experience with Java is waiting forever for some applet to load on a web page only to discover it tells them what time it is. I can't see how they're going to convince Joe Average that this is somehow a competitive advantage, no matter how smoothly integrated the entire package is.

    • Re:I wouldn't worry about making a dent (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:56AM (#7161893) Journal
      Most people's experience with Java is waiting forever for some applet to load on a web page only to discover it tells them what time it is.

      Most people probably couldn't match Java's issues with the name. To them, it's just another faceless technology.

      Also, these are the same people who put up with endless crashes and reboots in the Win9x series...
    • Sun Java Desktop System doesn't have much with Java, this is just "branding", Sun is trying to decline the Java brand in as many fields as they can.
      • Microsoft's been there, done that, and backtracked when they realised just how confused it made everyone.

        Looks like Sun's marketing dept have been given the same instructions as MS did with .NET, its only a matter of time before we're all confused as hell, and Sun starts calling it something else.

        why can't they learn from other's mistakes? Oh yes, its the marketing department, sorry...
        • MS's marketing blitz with .NET was purposely confusing so people didn't just assume it was another java.

          Q: What is .NET?
          A: .NET is everything you've always wanted......

          Q: What is .NET?
          A: .NET will empower your front office and integrate your.........
        • There is a difference. Think of these "branding" terms:

          "Windows" Perfected by Xerox, Apple, Amiga and Sun before it was adopted and branded my Microsoft.
          ".Net"Sun was there, Netscape was there, Al Gore may have even involved in the beginnings of the internet. Microsoft was dragged kicking and screaming into "the Net" in the late 1990s, but that didn't stop Microsoft marketeers from trying to brand it when the NET hype-quotient reached a peak.
          "Java"Invented by Sun, branded by Sun. Why shouldn't the

    • Re:I wouldn't worry about making a dent (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Most people's experience with Java is waiting forever for some applet to load on a web page only to discover it tells them what time it is.

      My experience with Java is that it rarely works like it was originally intended. The write-once, run anywhere philosophy is certainly dead with almost all major applications that use it as the language. Version incompatibilities, platform GUI differences, and broken browser plugin capabilities all lead to Java applications being just about the most horrible experienc

      • I beg to differ... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Pac ( 9516 )
        a) Major non-trivial application: Check. (Educational software for text exploration composed of two pieces, an almost full-fledged editor and an "investigator", interface fully graphical, localized for five different languages)

        b) Write once, run anywhere: Check (Covers the three major platforms - Windows, Linux and OSX. Ok, write once, compile and run anywhere - the sole major problem was with text format in OSX)

        The inconsistencies you point are development process, not tool, problems. Testing does not go

    • Re:I wouldn't worry about making a dent (Score:4, Interesting)

      by PhantomBlot ( 714367 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:09AM (#7161968)
      Whether or not Mad Hatter (Java Desktop System) makes a dent in the Windows install base is all a matter of how Sun approaches the who and the how of selling this. For the most part, the target would likely be Enterprise customers and not Joe Average (although Joe Average could buy one if he really wanted to I'm sure). If Sun goes after these customers with an agressive pricing strategy and with sound technical facts to back them up (easy to come by with the recent barrage of attacks on Windows machines), then perhaps they could do fairly well. So far the plan seems good. The platform itself is for the x86 although you can get all of the pieces for SPARC Solaris. Also, it is based on GNOME and all of those nice freebies out there (it is NOT a bunch of Java Apps so performance concerns are minimal). The licensing fees are astronomically low due to the fact that everything is based on an Open Source project. Really, this is why Joe Average is probably not the target audience since he could download all of this stuff for free and install it but the Enterprise customer is compelled to have a service agreement incase something goes wrong (which is largely why StarOffice manages to coexist with OpenOffice). Anyway, could it make a dent? If executed correctly, absolutely. Many of you out there are probably the same as me and have had no problem converting friends and families to apps like Mozilla from IE based on the simple fact that Mozilla is better. This is much the same...Sun just has to work a little harder to convince there audience because Windows is Windows...and that is sure to be a huge sticking point for most customers.
      • For the most part, the target would likely be Enterprise customers and not Joe Average

        In the Sun article [sun.com], there is a mention of CIOs wanting a more cost-effective, lower TCO, and higher security desktop, etc, etc. But, duh thats like saying that a CEO wants higher profits. What does an "Enterprise" customer want out of a desktop OS? I'd say:
        1. It must work, and continue to work even if you patch the system
        2. It has to work with exsisting document/file formats
        3. It of course must be secure, cost-effective,
    • This is clever, and it's nice to see that it works, but Java?

      It's not Java - well most of it isn't. It's almost all written in C and C++. Sun has decided that Java is a brand, not the name of a programming language, and plans to use it for all their software products. The Sun people I've spoken to vary in their happiness about this (the same people who refer to Solaris 8 as "SunOS 5.8" as you can imagine think it's just marketing nonsense).

  • Java? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:47AM (#7161851) Journal
    When I read the article for the first time I thought it was an OS that most of its apps are Java or something, but it turned out to be a Linux distro, with the most common Linux apps (GNOME, Mozilla, Evolution)
    Anyway, it still looks like a good choice for desktops, I think I'll try to test it as soon as it's available.

  • Star Office (Score:3, Insightful)

    by matchlight ( 609707 ) * on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:48AM (#7161852)
    The author states The Open Office Team and the Sun Microsystems developers must be working in Tandem to make their suites more accessible to the public. but from the Open Office website:
    StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation.

    • Re:Star Office (Score:2, Informative)

      by Disevidence ( 576586 )
      Thats not the only mistake in the article. He at one point talks about browsing and such, but yet mentions Thunderbird (a early version Email Program)

      "I did test out some Flash-enabled web pages and found them to work flawlessly as well as any Java applications and web pages (as you would expect from Sun). The choice of Mozilla is good, but I would also like to see them try Thunderbird (it is just a tad lighter than Mozilla and does rock),"

      I have the odd feeling this live demo might have been taken for

  • OS X.... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 )
    I've heard a few comments in the media claiming that this is a threat to Windows, and as "slick as OS X". Ahem! Excuse me?!

    Anyone that's used OS X and understands its architecture is immediately going to know that Sun's pretty-faced SuSE implementation ain't OS X.

    Sure, it's great to see a properly packaged Linux-centric OS, don't get me wrong, but let's all try and remember exactly what this is...it's not

    -psy

    • Re:OS X.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hype7 ( 239530 )
      on the subject, there's a great article over at InternetWeek.com by David Strom, entitled Java On The Desktop: An Idea Whose Time Has Come ... And Gone [internetweek.com].

      Basically: Sun should give up trying to win the desktop wars; if they want a good, non-MS desktop, they should back OS X and focus on the stuff that they've always done well. This is just a diversion for Sun, it's going to sap their resources and when it doesn't work it's just going to be another feather in the cap for the "Sun is dying" camp.

      -- james
      • One little problem with backing OS X is THAT IS DOESN"T RUN ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN PRICY APPLE HARDWARE!

        While the hardware may be worth it, that will not matter to the majority of business users, and you know it.

      • I have only one piece of advice for David Strom. He should read about the product before commenting.

        It's painfully obvious that the Java Desktop System is just Linux with Gnome, and has very little to do with Java. Which sortof makes Mr Stroms article more or less completely beside the point and makes it clear that he doesnt know what he's talking about.

        It's an understandable error to make, as apparently Suns Product Naming Division had some difficulty too. Still, one would think a journalist would read m
    • That's because you did NOT see the Java 3D desktop demo [rbn.com] (RealOne Stream)(it start at arround 1:01:00 in the video stream).

      It's amazing!

      Only bad thing is that they may not include it in the first release of Mad Hatter.

    • I guess it wouldn't be slashdot without some Macintosh bible beater reminding us how much smarter they are than the rest of us.
      Try to stay on topic there, fanboy.

  • I've "Installed a Java Desktop" (Score:3, Funny)

    by BabyDave ( 575083 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:58AM (#7161905)

    Anyone got any paper towels?

  • Premonition (Score:5, Funny)

    by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 ) <xanadu@inor b i t .com> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:58AM (#7161906) Homepage Journal
    /me sees a McBride Press Realese in the near future...
    • Nah, Sun already payed their Linux tax (second largest 'contributer', next to Microsoft). They're maybe not buddy-buddy with SCO, but SCO won't mess with them.

      • Re:Premonition (Score:3, Informative)

        by illumin8 ( 148082 )
        Nah, Sun already payed their Linux tax (second largest 'contributer', next to Microsoft). They're maybe not buddy-buddy with SCO, but SCO won't mess with them.

        Get your facts straight. Sun bought a perpetual Unix license which gives them the right to do whatever they want with the Unix System V code. They are legally the only company that can sell a Linux distro right now, according to SCO.

  • WTF is this SUN Java name? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pirhana ( 577758 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @08:59AM (#7161911)
    I find the name "SUN Java Desktop" really ridiculous. Its as stupid as calling Toyota Land Cruiser "SONY SUV" for the Sony sterio system used in it.
  • The pricing may seem high at first for this product, but remember that the uptime will be better, and the apps that are available are more or less free or packaged with the product -- especially with the enterprise version. I think that for really large customers, the savings could be significant enough to warrant both the switch and the re-training of employees. What's more, once a few large customers switch to this system, there will be a greater demand for JAVA programmers... and that's what Sun really

  • RE: Java naming (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I believe Sun is using the Java naming because so many components are Java already, or will hopefully become Java-based in the future. For example, OpenOffice has a lot of components written in Java with tremendously tight Java integration. The SDK lets you do some really cool things. I used OpenOffice in server mode to automatically convert word, ppt, and excel docs submitted to a MySQL database into PDF. That way, they can be accessed from anywhere, and they are full-text searchable in the MySQL database,
    • Mozilla doesn't have any parts of it written in Java, I think you're thinking of XUL. Apart from that, I like the idea of OpenOffice integrating Java even more tightly. Once thing I'd like to see OO support is Java based macros rather than that basic-like crap that's in there right now.

  • Don't marketers understand brand management? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:37AM (#7162158) Homepage
    When you have a brand name that actually means something to the public, and you try to perform a "line extension" by applying that brand name to more or less unrelated products that do not share the characteristics with which the brand is associated, you don't enhance the value of the brand, you diminish it.

    Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, by all means, but there's a good reason why Coca-Cola Corporation calls their orange juice "Minute Maid" and not "Orange Coke."

    Sun's calling everything "Java" is almost as bad as Microsoft trying to appropriate the top-level-domain .net and apply it to some inchaote mass of technology.

    Calling everything Sun does "Java" may please the ego of whatever manager is empowered to stick the name "Java" on stuff, but it won't do Sun, or Sun's customers, or the Java "brand" any good.
    • It's just a beginning. Now they have a Java desktops, because they used a tiny Java class in the process of installation of GNOME. Next itme they will use a tiny java class just to configure /etc/hosts and we'll all see "Java Linux".
    • They're offering two big packages with the Java name,the enterprise and desktop bundles. As the enterprise stuff has been worked on more, it has way more actual java code in it than the desktop.

      I suspect we'll see more and more Java code in both.

      I also suspect that software other than the two places they're puting their efforts won't get tagged Java, for exactly the reason that dpbsmith pointed out.

      --dave (who is biased, you understand) c-b

  • NEW Desktop?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by redragon ( 161901 ) <codonnell@maCOUGARc.com minus cat> on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:48AM (#7162271) Homepage
    Is there any reason people keep mimicing the same old desktop? The same old office applications? Is anyone out there trying to break the mold (I give Apple credit for doing this to a greater degree than others)? I mean, I still see Win98 and above emulation here (not emulation like that...emulation as in, "the child emulates his parents actions"), why not work on something a bit more revolutionary?

    Of course here I am nit-picking, and don't really have anything helpful to add...

    Carry On.
    • That may be all well and good. But given the market they are shooting for you cannot expect people who have used Windows to embrace a radically different desktop. I for one actually LIKE the CDE desktop, sure it's old but I think if it were polished up more it could actually compete with OSX.

      When I went to Frys last week I looked at the new G5 with the cinema display. The first thing to come to mind was "gee.. kind of reminds me of CDE."

      Go SUN !

    • Is there any reason people keep mimicing the same old desktop? [...] Is anyone out there trying to break the mold

      Come on now, there are lots of alternative desktops out there, it's just that none of them reach the mainstream.

      Besides Mac OS and Windows environments, there are OpenStep-based environments (AfterStep, GnuSTEP). There are (loosly) twm-based environments like everything from fvwm to blackbox-based WMs. There are even less conventional WMs like found in Plan9, or perhaps even RatPoison. The

      • > What more can YOU think of that hasn't already been done?

        Hence my statement, "Of course here I am nit-picking, and don't really have anything helpful to add..."

        But...

        How about a better analogy to how people work than a "desktop" with some files and folders? Honestly, stuff gets lost this way more than it gets organized. How about something more useful, like being able to organize things, and create cross referencing capabilities...For example...

        While I read I like to take a lot of notes, so I do
        • How about a better analogy to how people work than a "desktop" with some files and folders?

          Then your complaint is with filesystems, and not desktops at all.

          And BTW, there are filesystems being worked on that have database capabilities. You could even search /. to find a few.
          • Not really...

            I'm talking about:
            http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_ 1 /nichols /index.html

            Go to the section:
            Usability and Open Source Software Development
            |- Commercial Software Establishes State of the Art so that OSS can Only Play Catch-Up

            First paragraph...Last Sentence:
            "As a result it had to follow the interface design ideas of Excel regardless of whether or not they could have been improved upon."

            I want the ability to work with my stuff like files and folders, but in other ways all at once. I'm

            • http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_1/nicho ls /index.html

              That article is a whopping load of crap. They are absolutely incorrect about every single point made. My guess, is that they were paid by Microsoft.

              I'm not talking just file-systems

              Yu definately aren't talking about Window managers, or "Desktops" as you put it.

              The point is WHY JUST MIMIC?

              The question is, what gives you the impression that only mimicing is going on? There are loads and loads of software projects doing incredibly innov

  • Didn't Sun say that they would sell you Linux, if you want but, but you must get Solaris if you want a real, stable and secure OS (or something along those lines, It was on Slashdot)?

    How does this fit into this MadHatter?

    Were they talking about the Server only? Is it okay for the Desktop then?

    On a related note, wouldn't selling Solaris generate more revenue than selling */Linux? So, is this a move to contrast their 'superior' Solaris product with the 'hype-only' */Linux, an attempt to show why people sho

  • Wait! (Score:2, Funny)

    by SirTwitchALot ( 576315 )
    It's Wednesday, isn't sun Bad on Wed? Or maybe that was Amazon.... or Verisign? I'm so confused.

  • Hopefully we'll see this on Solaris (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @09:59AM (#7162361)
    As well as having a full Linux distribution for Intel based kit. Buhbye CDE.

    Architected correctly, the TCO for this Solaris or Linux will be low. Architected incorrectly you might as well not bother.

  • Why GNOME? (Score:3, Informative)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @10:09AM (#7162440) Homepage Journal
    Not to start a flame war, as both desktops have merits, but I still think that in a business KDE Is more interface consistent and 'business looking'. Plus its got a useable integrated office suite.. not a 3rd party add-on..
    • My guess is licensing.

      The GNOME core libraries are all licensed under the LGPL - I can write a GNOME application that is closed source without paying a cent to anyone. Qt, obviously one of the most important parts of KDE, is dual licensed under either the GPL or QPL. This means that if I were to write a closed source application for KDE, I would have to pay a large sum of money to Trolltech. (I don't know about the licensing status of the rest of KDE - is it GPL or LGPL? It doesn't really matter, thou

  • Making a dent?!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dogfud ( 702750 )
    See sun package linux.
    See sun sell package + support.
    See thousands of IT managers now say "oh yeah, _NOW_ I'll make the switch!"

    Riiiight.

    Linux still has the same issues...one of the biggest is...it's not windows! (oh, and the mouse movement is still not quite right..) All those MS Office licences that were negotiated, all those Seiko label printers the secretaries love and probably won't work (and if they do it'll be a pain), all the pirated copies of X-Treme Beach Volleyball that won't run, all the tec
    • 1. Pirated versions of some silly software like games is not something the enterprise managers care about. They are the target for this.

      2. Most enterprise customers use only a very limited amount of software very extensively. If that exact piece of software is available for Linux, then it is an alternative. Many such packages ARE available for Linux.

      3. SUN has a decent brand name, and some very cool technology that can be combined with this, for instance SunRay thin-clients.

      4. If the enterprise starts to
  • Giving up servitude to Microsoft for servitude to Sun makes no sense at all.

  • ...might cause a lot of confusion.

    I can't imagine why Sun is commiting the classic error of brand extension by calling this a "Java" desktop. It dilutes the value of the best thing Sun has going for them and doesn't clearly describe their new product. How numbingly short-sighted. Surely Sun can afford some proper marketing direction.

    Unless there's some legal reason to the contrary, this product should have been released as "SunLinux." No need to use buzzphrases like "desktop" in the packaging, either.

  • I don't think so (Score:2, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 )
    Sun Java Desktop System is a good product overall, built on the well-established SuSE system with integration from Sun. It delivers what appears to be a very useful desktop OS and it has the chance to make a dent in the Windows monopoly.

    Whoever thinks that Sun has it in them to make a high-quality desktop must never have used a Sun GUI. Try OpenWindows to get an idea of what Sun thinks is a good GUI. To the degree that MadHatter is a great desktop, it's a great desktop because of Gnome, not because of wh

  • I don't want to specifically attack Sun with this comment, but...

    Watching competition between different desktops is about as exciting as watching competition between the Democans and the Republicrats.

    Most desktops copy each other and have no serious differences. They're all competing for the middle ground, either because their developers don't want to innovate any more (due to time constraints or other reasons) or because they're hoping that people might switch as the new isn't really revolutionar

  • I prefer my desktop to be written in C.
    I know that Java is good for basically everything according to Sun, but a desktop???

    Yeah I know. It's just a name.

    A stoooopid name. Microsoft can get away with calling everything '.NET' because their market is the mindless masses. Most people have no idea what .NET is, and the more Microsoft put .NET in different sentences, the more people will warm to the idea and buy something with .NET in it.

    But Sun is supposedly marketing to those who know better. So they have a

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