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Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux? 720

Posted by CmdrTaco from the will-diet-coke-kill-guinness dept.
Scott_Blayney writes "This guy contends that now that Sun is releasing Solaris 10 under an open source license, Linux will begin to wane in popularity. To quote, "Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem." "
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Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux? More

Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?

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  • Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by danielrm26 ( 567852 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:20PM (#10891670) Homepage
    "Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?"

    No.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DerFeuervogel ( 136891 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:23PM (#10891720)
      Agreed. It's more than just OS capabilities. It is also an emotional thing. And I believe on that issue Linux has the mind-share.

      • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Informative)

        by plover ( 150551 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891787) Homepage Journal
        Mindshare that extends to Yeald himself. Apparently, he's willing to invest your money where his mouth isn't.

        This is what Netcraft has to say about his site:

        OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.yeald.com
        http://www.yeald.com was running Apache on Linux when last queried at 17-Nov-2004 18:00:38 GMT - refresh now FAQ
        OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
        Linux Apache/1.3.27 (Linux/SuSE) mod_jk/1.2.2-dev mod_ssl/2.8.12 OpenSSL/0.9.6i mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a 17-Nov-2004 213.95.11.10 YEALD AG

        • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Informative)

          by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) * <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:35PM (#10891887) Homepage Journal
          % whois yeald.com
          Domain Name: YEALD.COM
          Registrar: COMPUTER SERVICES LANGENBACH GMBH DBA JOKER.COM
          Whois Server: whois.joker.com
          Referral URL: http://www.joker.com
          Name Server: DNS1.NORIS.NET
          Name Server: DNS2.NORIS.NET
          Name Server: DNS3.NORIS.NET
          Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
          Updated Date: 11-nov-2004
          Creation Date: 01-jun-2001
          Expiration Date: 01-jun-2005

          It's probably shared hosting, chill out.

          • Yeah. This is a guy who's linked sh to ksh, and doesn't mind that /lib is linked to /usr/lib!

      • Mind share mythology - The Holy Wars part 2 (Score:4, Interesting)

        by infonography ( 566403 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:22PM (#10894867) Homepage
        There is no mind share to keep. What will happen is what has always happened. UNIX religious wars, which became *NIX religious wars. Solaris will start to look like a very advanced stable and robust Linux distro to big business users and developers. SuSE will become Solaris's kid sister and fast tract to merge with Solaris x86.
        Eventually Novell and SUN will merge and make an honest woman out of SuSE. 64 bit development will flood the market and AMD 64 and Ultrasparc cpus will start flooding the market. Intel and Redhat will start flooding the market with Intel 64 related stuff. And poor microserf will have to kick XP into the 64 bit world alot sooner the Ballmer's timetable plans for.

        Suddenly all those over 35 years old coders will admit they used Solaris and can now still claim they are always Linux programmers. Solaris will at last get a decent user interface and CDE will be dropkicked back to what ever icy part of hell it came from.

        Second Bubble here we come.

    • Finially (Score:5, Funny)

      by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:24PM (#10891738) Homepage Journal
      Finially, a Linux is going to die story... in a couple years it'll be a linux is dead story... and it will be just like BSD.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Informative)

      by TPS Report ( 632684 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:32PM (#10891860) Homepage
      Their server is slow as all hell right now (big suprise), so here's the text of the article:


      Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view.

      Until today, the discussion around Linux pushed by Red Hat and recently by Novell after it took over Suse has been around the risks and opportunitites of the open source model versus the costs and slow adaptation of the proprietary model.

      Opponents of open source software always argued that due to its nature there is a risk that version control, compatibility, future development and support is not guaranteed and could leave companies who use it at some point with a free but outdated system that is difficult to maintain.

      Companies like Red Hat and Novell and on occasion other big players have tried to take away these arguments by committing to the open source model and vowed to make it work. Despite their efforts and some success, there still is a lot of skepticism within corporate IT departments and as a result Linux is not taking the market by storm.

      With the decision by Sun to give away their latest version of their software, Solaris 10 for free all of these concerns have evaporated in one blow in favor of the now open source and compatible Solaris 10 supported by Sun.

      Looking at the advantage of going the Sun route versus the Linux route it is hard to see why any IT executive would chose to switch to Linux.

      - The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.

      - By making it work with competing hardware platforms, there is no reason anymore to switch software to facilitate lower hardware costs.

      - Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux.

      - Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.

      - Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.

      Again as a non technical person, the decision for me would be simple, I would go with Solaris unless I was already using Linux; Why take risks when I can choose a proven, high quality solution at comparable costs?

      As a result Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem

      Of course I might very well be overlooking something here, if so, please let me and other readers know by posting your opinion in a reaction (see below).

      • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saintp ( 595331 ) <{stpierre} {at} {nebrwesleyan.edu}> on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:07PM (#10892278) Homepage
        Blow-by-blow:

        The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.

        I'll grant everything before the "and." We don't know what Sun's OSS model will look like. It certainly won't be the GPL, and I'll be amazingly surprised if it's even as liberal as the BSD licence. People aren't fond of giving away their code so that a corporation can make money off of it, so if Sun's model is anything like Microsoft's Shared Source initiative, it will stifle development by the community, not encourage it.

        By making it work with competing hardware platforms, there is no reason anymore to switch software to facilitate lower hardware costs.

        Granted. Solaris on x86 was a very wise move. However, one big reason to run Solaris is the tight integration with hardware, which can't be said about Solaris on x86. Also, as much as Schwartz talks about running Solaris on Dell (HP, whatever) commodity boxes, it has a very short hardware compatibility list -- much shorter than that of Linux.

        Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux. Circular. He's arguing why people should stay with Solaris; "there's no reason to switch" is not a reason at all, but a question-begging.

        Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters. The help ticket I have currently open with Solaris will turn five months old on Wednesday. It was three weeks before any action was taken on it. It also had a four-hour response time. The issue has still not been resolved. Sun's support is far from stellar, despite what they'd have you believe. In fact, their support (or lack thereof) has been the trump card in my quest to get my boss to accept Linux.

        Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.

        This may be nice to the PHB, but the ability to fork is something developers like. Plus, as was mentioned on /. just today [slashdot.org], Linus is the final arbiter of the Linux kernel and, as long as he keeps doing a good job, will remain so. Multiple vendors (as opposed to multiple versions) ensures healthy competition, which is why Linux has gone from a nifty experiment and useful OS for unimportant things like web servers to OS of choice for everything from Wall Street to government desktops in just a few years.

        I see no danger to Linux. And frankly, Solaris was already dirt cheap, but the support still costs big bucks, which means that Solaris still costs about as much as RHEL. Or, if you don't want support, it costs just as much as RHEL without support. That's the only front they gained on, and I don't see it as very critical.

        • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by niiler ( 716140 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:19PM (#10892410) Journal
          Thank you. I've used Solaris for a number of years. And while it's not bad, these days, Linux is honestly a much more robust system in terms of software and hardware support. Additionally, (I have no figures to support this), but considering the previous cost of Solaris, I'd be willing to bet that there are many more Linux users. This doesn't necessarily make it better. I just interpret this as yet another premature prediction of Linux's demise.

          Let me add, it's not hard to secure Linux especially since the Bastille scripts work with more and more distros and many distros I've encountered already have some hardening done (in addition to firewalls, etc...) right out of the box.

          Much of the original poster's citation of benefits seem to be largely from his inexperience with Linux and acceptance of the usual corporate FUD.

          • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Pieroxy ( 222434 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:32PM (#10892541) Homepage
            Much of the original poster's citation of benefits seem to be largely from his inexperience with Linux and acceptance of the usual corporate FUD

            That is probably what makes his point valid, as much of the decision makers are corporate ignorants (at least technically ignorants)

        • Re:Uh... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.

          I am, sadly, going to have to agree with this statement. My group is currently going through a very large problem becuase our default distro (SuSE Enterprise) and the distro of one of our primary software providers (RHEL) are not binary compatible. This has led to quite a lot of frustration since our software provider cannot be convinced to

        • Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by superpulpsicle ( 533373 )
          Sun will never kill off linux. There are too many linux distros. Christ, they spawn over night any second. Linux is also UNIX-WITH-NO-POLITICS. Ever been to a Sun facility? There are so many employees have you wondering how the hell did they get a job in high tech.

          Still Solaris is anything BUT dirt cheap. Sun hardware is expensive, if not a rip off. If you want a pc-equivalent hardware in mhz from Sun, you are paying thru the roof. Some will say it has better bandwidth. Seriously, if I need anythi

    • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jekewa ( 751500 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:33PM (#10891871) Homepage Journal
      No.

      Exactly.

      Never forget that there will be differences between Solaris code and LINUX code (well, we hope). Even if every bit of software were successfully ported, there are enough people that know LINUX inside out that don't have time to learn the Solaris code to the same level.

      The hardcore purists on either side will argue until they're blue in the face about how theirs is better (hey, isn't that why we're all here?). That fight alone will be enough for some people to keep it alive.

      Let's not forget that even Sun has and supports LINUX. Their Java Desktop is a bunch of Java tools with a Sun setup on SUSE. I'm sure someday they'd drop that support, but for now, even they don't think that Solaris is enough of a LINUX killer to release the product on Solaris.

      Additionally, even if Solaris were ported hard enough to get the same or more hardware compatibility of LINUX, they dropped all LINUX support in favor of Solaris, a guy from Sun came out to your place to install it for free, and made sure you were comfortable before he left, some people love the penguin too much...

      Now, before you start the flaming, let me state I'm not an idiot. I'm not particularly partial to Solaris or LINUX. I use Solaris on my Sun Blade Sparc workstation and an x86 as a server. I have SUSE and RedHat running, and a lab machine on which I've also installed Fedora, Debian, Slacker and a few others. And I have an old machine I use as a thin client to both Solaris and LINUX using Knoppix and DSL. Yes, I have some Windows machines, too.

      My wife does think it's too much, but what does she know? (Really, honey, I meant it as a rib, not a slam...)

    • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nova20 ( 524082 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:44PM (#10892006) Homepage Journal
      No.

      Well put. Just making an OS open source doesn't make it any better. I find that solaris just isn't as "friendly" as linux, and I think coders that would do anything useful for solaris will prefer to spend their time (more wisely) trying to improve linux -- after all, it's what they've been doing for years.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:44PM (#10892660)

      "Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux?"

      No.

      First off, I'd like to state that this isn't exactly a convincing argument.

      Secondly, I'd like to point out that Solaris is one helluvagood operating system. I used to work at a place where we moved our production database from an Ultra 1/170 to an Ultra 2/2200 with no glitches. We didn't recompile anything, we didn't have to reconfigure anything. We moved the boot drive and RAM from one chassis to another, moved the SCSI cable for the external RAID chassis to the new box, and powered up.

      Needless to say, it was easier than moving a Windows installation by a huge margin. It was easier than any machine migration I've ever witnessed. Everything automatically recognized the fact that we'd gone from a single processor box to a multiprocessor box.

      Now I realize that Solaris on SPARC had the advantage of going from one Sun-engineered box to another, making it likely that the underlying chipsets and such were identical or at least compatible, but the point is that the OS was rock-solid on a single-processor box and it was rock-solid after being migrated to a dual-processor box with no configuration changes.

      That said, in spite of all of Solaris's goodness (and there's plenty of it), I seriously doubt even an open source Solaris will kill off Linux. Why? Freedom (as in speech).

      Let's face it: Linux isn't the only open source-licensed Unix or Unix-like OS available. So why the hell is it so popular? Obviously, Linus is a huge reason why Linux is popular, but the GPL sure doesn't hurt. Contributors to Linux know that their contributions are being used by others who are required by the terms of the license to contribute any improvements they make back to the kernel. Nobody can take the source and close it off from the rest of us. Nobody can build proprietary extensions to the kernel.

      There's no way in Hell that Sun's license will be anywhere near as free as the GPL. This is why open source Solaris can't kill Linux.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zemran ( 3101 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @09:20PM (#10894501) Homepage Journal
      The contention that Solaris can kill Linux comes from the mono-os culture and that is what is wrong with the current M$ dominated situation. The contenion seems to be 'how can Linux achieve market dominance if there is another good player in town?'. It is not the Windows OS that is the problem (although I do not like it), it is the fact that it has such a dominant market share that causes problems. If Linux could get 20% of the market, Solaris 20%, Apple 20%, M$ 20% and the variety of others taking the other 20% we would have a good, healthy market. Try writing a virus that works in that market. I think if Linux had 90% of the market we would be back at square one. I welcome more choice and think that more choice and competition will lead to more innovation and even more choice in the future. The reason I hate M$ is because they think they know better than me what I want to do, I use Linux because it lets me do what I want. Some people want M$ to make those decisions for them and that is their choice. It is not wrong for someone to make a different choice, it is wrong to try and remove those choices (as I believe M$ tries to do). Solaris will give another choice which will suit a lot of people. I do not think this is as much of a threat to Linux but more of a threat to M$.

  • I don't buy this at all. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by michael path ( 94586 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:21PM (#10891685) Homepage Journal
    Frankly, an Open Source Solaris stands a better chance at killing Solaris than it does Linux.

    The author starts the article by declaring "Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view." He's basically lost most of his credibility there, because a good decision maker needs to bring in technical people to explain this.

    Though I understand the PHB philosophy of needing a brand name on their *nix product, I don't understand what's wrong with Red Hat or Novell now?

    Moreover, it's setting itself up for patent lawsuits once the usual suspects start going through the newly open sourced code. Not that it's an agreeable method, but it's a fact of life.

    The points the author makes are weak:

    o The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.

    An open source model assures it of nothing, unless they get good contributors....but:

    o Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.

    No risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions? Does this individual not recall that this is the company who had put out Java 2 (1.2) and Java 5 (1.5) before a real version 2?

    o Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.

    Sun's support isn't bad no, but IBM's been an awesome proponent of Linux - including Red Hat's 3.0 offering. Big names do know Linux, and work with you on it. Not to mention that Google is an awesome knowledge base for Linux users. And how much does it cost to search google vs. a support incident with Sun?

    I don't buy that this will affect Linux's growth in the server market any more than the stray bullet SCO lawsuits. Open Source Solaris will definitely invite more hobbyist interest, but I don't understand why any of this makes it a more viable server product.

    • Re:I don't buy this at all. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ian.Waring ( 591380 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:24PM (#10891752) Homepage
      Nor me. If Solaris really did go open source the way most people understand it, the useful bits of code would find it's way into all the various Linux distributions in pretty short order.

    • Re:I don't buy this at all. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:46PM (#10892017)
      "He's basically lost most of his credibility there, because a good decision maker needs to bring in technical people to explain this."

      To me he lost his credibility by talking about an open source solaris before such a thing even exists. Why don't we wait till sun actually open sources solaris, examine the license, examine what had to be taken out due to licensing, examine what sun says about suing people who may be reading patented code and THEN start speculating about how it will all effect linux.

      For example if SUN releases solaris under GPL no problem. Linux will take from it and improve itself. If it's under the BSD-like the same thing will occur. If it's released under something like the Java license I don't expect them to build a decent community or to present any real competition to linux.

      • Re:I don't buy this at all. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by michael path ( 94586 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:19PM (#10892412) Homepage Journal
        I remember a similar problem with Microsoft CRM. The idea of Microsoft making a CRM product rocked hardcore to those in a Microsoft Office environment with Great Plains products abound. The execution was terrible, and now it's an embarassment.

        People LOVED the idea of Microsoft CRM. Solaris people are going to LOVE the idea of Open Source Solaris. But does anyone really believe Sun is going to do this right? Moreover, what would be the right way to take an existing commercial server product, open it up, and find a way to make more money off of it?

        Perhaps if this move is successful, Sun would start abandoning hardware, and move towards a more services-based company - like the transition IBM started 2 years ago?

    • Re:I don't buy this at all. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The author starts the article by declaring "Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view." He's basically lost most of his credibility there, because a good decision maker needs to bring in technical people to explain this.

      I'd say all, because if he isn't a technical person he frankly doesn't understand what Solaris and Linux

  • It all depends on the size of the group support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eltoyoboyo ( 750015 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:22PM (#10891706) Journal
    If Sun continues to support it with their engineers, and IBM continues to support Linux with Their engineers, it will still be a battle. I do not look for either side to gain much ground, (netcraft aside.)

  • Erm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Punboy ( 737239 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:22PM (#10891709) Homepage
    Doesn't Linux support a vastly large collection of hardware than Solaris? Also, Linux isn't just popular because of its open-source nature, but also the philosophy behind its design and development, as well as the number of professionals behind it. I don't see the NSA donating to Solaris, now do I see most of europe backing Linux.

    I haven't RTFA yet so please correct me if I'm wrong.

    • Re:Erm... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by peragrin ( 659227 )
      Yep Solaris only runs well on Sparc and Opteron processors, with very limited other hardware.

      Linux runs on anything to one degree or another. One can force linux to even run Windows Drivers to load hardware that Linux drivers don't exsit. it's standard at Nvidia. Nvidia uses a closed Binary driver, and a source code wrapper. It's how they get around the little details of GPL.

      Solaris, well is there even a nvidia/ 3D hardware driver for it?

    • Re:Erm... (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:58PM (#10892173)
      Sun's main strength is that many commercial users (Ford, Boeing, ...) want a single vendor to support all the hardware and software used by projects that are scheduled to last three years or more.

      As commercial CAD users, they will only consider hardware that is officially certified by the 3D CAD application developers. That usually requires a strict combination of memory chips, CPU's, motherboard, and graphics accelerator. They're not concerned about legacy hardware being supported, so long as E-mail, video conferencing and the required applications run on competitively priced systems with 24/7 support.

  • Not Quite. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dana P'Simer ( 530866 ) * <dana...psimer@@@dhptech...com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:22PM (#10891714) Journal
    I think this will only be true for shops that would have choosen Solaris anyway. The draw of open source is more than just cheap software. It has to do with familiarity and the availability of expert administratiors, developers, etc. Solaris will still have the same number of developers and, especially, administrators for awhile.

  • Bad assumptions, bad thinking, bad conclusion. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:23PM (#10891729) Homepage
    Will the new open source Solaris unseat Linux? The short answer: No.

    This article is a pointless exercise, but since my alternative to commenting on it is to go do actual work, let's consider:

    In terms of Sun's conversion to open source: Too little, way too late. If Sun had pulled this seven or eight years ago they might have had a chance at stopping Linux before it got rolling, but frankly I don't see any way a system developed as proprietary in-house software is going to be able to come out and defeat the reigning champion of the OSS movement. Everything else aside, consider the simple fact that you can't go open source overnight. Look at how long it took to turn Mozilla into something useful -- by the time the open source version finally hit the mainstream it was hugely reorganized and largely rewritten. This process took years to complete, and that was just for a web browser. So unless Sun's programmers had a *lot* more discipline than Netscape's (doubtful) and a lot fewer tangled licenses (impossible), forget about it right there.

    Aside from the huge initial development issue, consider the business side: What possible reason is there to think that Solaris is going to be able to come out and impact Linux's market share? The author himself uses language that doesn't support the idea that more people are going to switch to Solaris as a result of this. In fact, the most logical outcome of the points made in the article is that Sun *may* slow the erosion of their install base over to Linux. Not exactly killing Linux there.

    Then we get some more of the same 'ol. The reasons he states in the article for the impending demise of Linux could have been (and were repeatedly) written ten years a go and are just as wrong now as they were then -- sure, any of the fears he listed *could* happen, but they haven't.

    To sum up, this article makes incorrect assumptions, starts from a place of poor understanding and leaps to unsupported conclusions. The greatest revelation is creates is probably that YEALD needs to find themselves a new COO.

  • Will Open Source Solaris Kill Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:24PM (#10891736)
    Short answer: No.

    Long answer: No.

    If you're Sun: Yes.

  • A little reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) * <jmorris@[ ]u.org ['bea' in gap]> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:24PM (#10891751)
    Couple of false assumptions in the guys story. Typical when suits try to make tech decisions, especially when they are fool enough to believe their LACK of knowledge makes them more qualified, as this guy does.

    A few of the obvious clues missed are:

    1) Linux is already ahead of Solaris on Intel hardware, not behind as this guy believes from reading Sun press releases.

    2) Solaris is not known to be portable beyond Sparc, Sparc64 and ia32. ia64 and AMD64/x86-64 might happen but as far as I know don't yet exist.

    3) Sun has yet to announce a license for Solaris, it is very doubtful it will be actual Open Source and almost certainly not Free Software in the FSF sense of the term.

    4) Sun is almost certain to keep parts totally closed due to licensing terms with third party suppliers.

    5) Sun will rig things to retain ALL creative control from the Java experience. This will preclude any sort of community involvement on the scale needed to compete with Linux.

    • Re:A little reality check (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:40PM (#10891966)
      Sun has yet to announce a license for Solaris, it is very doubtful it will be actual Open Source and almost certainly not Free Software in the FSF sense of the term.

      Actually, with respect to this point, yes it will 100% definitely be an Open Source license, as in one of "approved" ones that is generally accepted as one. Probably it won't be "free", as that would mean BSD (and relatives, MIT, other laissez-faire ones) or (L)GPL.

      Why on earth would Sun announce Open Sourcing Solaris, and then, ummn, not do it? They haven't tried Microsoft way of "shared source", and have actually released a few products earlier using Open (and Free, OpenOffice is (L)GPL) licenses. So why wouldn't they manage to do the same with Solaris.

      I agree with other points, though (with maybe exception of (5)... but I think it's too early to comment on that, everything's possible).

    • Re:A little reality check (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Waldmeister ( 14499 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:15PM (#10892360)

      1) Linux is already ahead of Solaris on Intel hardware, not behind as this guy believes from reading Sun press releases.

      Is it? My first filesystem tests showed almost par. ext3 is much slower on some tests than UFS, Reiser is a little bit faster.
      The GUI (JDS3) feels much more responsive than a Gnome desktop on Linux. Maybe the reason for that is the "interactive" process class of solaris, which Linux lacks. BTW: Windows has such a class, too.

      2) Solaris is not known to be portable beyond Sparc, Sparc64 and ia32. ia64 and AMD64/x86-64 might happen but as far as I know don't yet exist.

      Solaris 10 does include support for AMD64. And there have been ports of Solaris to Power (which got killed by IBM) and Itanium (which suffered from several reasons).
      And how much do other platforms that x86 matter today? If there should be really demand in the OpenSolaris community, they can hack support for PowerPC, ARM or whatever they want.

      3) Sun has yet to announce a license for Solaris, it is very doubtful it will be actual Open Source and almost certainly not Free Software in the FSF sense of the term.

      OpenSolaris is not the same as Solaris. Yes, there are still the gory details left. But there is already a closed "beta test", and the license will be OSI compliant.

      4) Sun is almost certain to keep parts totally closed due to licensing terms with third party suppliers.

      We'll see. From what I've heard from people which already have access to OpenSolaris, it looks pretty complete.

      5) Sun will rig things to retain ALL creative control from the Java experience. This will preclude any sort of community involvement on the scale needed to compete with Linux.

      We will see, how much community interest Sun will get. Interest in OpenOffice seems to be quite good. At least much better than other community efforts like Koffice. ;-)
    • "Linux is already ahead of Solaris on Intel hardware..."

      Depends on what you mean. Others have already commented on hardware support, so I'll talk about speed. While developing Solaris 10, Sun's standard was, "If it's faster on Linux, it's a bug." They explicitly set themselves the goal of beating Linux in terms of performance.

      Now, I haven't seen a head-to-head performance shootout on identical hardware, but I wouldn't automatically assume that Linux is ahead...

  • Of course not (Score:5, Informative)

    by sjvn ( 11568 ) <sjvn@@@vna1...com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:25PM (#10891763) Homepage
    And, you know Sun still hasn't open-sourced the thing. And, Sun still don't have said what license they'll use or explained how they'll get around SCO /Novell's IP claims on the Unix core of Solaris.

    I, for one, have gotten as tired of hearing about wonderful open source Solaris will be as I have about how wonderful Longhorn will be.

    Until, I've got the open-source code in my hands, I really don't want to hear more about open source Solaris.

    For more of my ranting on the subject, see:

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1645508,00. as p

    Steven

  • Is this guy a paid Sun troll or something? (Score:3)

    by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:25PM (#10891770)

    Linux's long-term future has always been a bit of a question mark. Who's to say that 10 years from now something new in the open-source world might not emerge and overtake it, taking many things from it? It's always possible, and it seems that _eventually_ it would inevitably happen as the mood of the open-source community will eventually shift to feeling that linux is crufty and a fresh start is needed.

    But all of that being said, I think I can say two things with a fair amount of certainty:

    1) That time is not now. Linux is really just getting into it's game. It has lots of growth and evolution left in the commercial world. The time may come, but not in the next 4-5 years for damn sure. Even then, while the industry may begin to swing away from Linux to something new, Linux will remain a strong force for many many years to come during the transition.

    2) Whatever that New Thing is that comes along to supplant Linux as the new Open Source Darling Operating System, it damn sure won't be Solaris.

  • I sense a disturbance in the force (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891780)
    Its as if a million gnu/linux geeks suddenly cried out at once.

  • For a second there, I didn't know how to ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06.email@com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891781)
    respond to this. Then I found out it was this guy who was making these statements. Once I realized that, I sold all my Linux stock, wiped off all my installs, sold the house and have moved my family to the secret shack in the hills. After all, this guy has never steered me wrong before.

  • excellent! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kevin lyda ( 4803 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891789) Homepage
    i'll go install it on my sharp zaurus. what's the url for the arm solaris distro?

    right.

  • It Can't Be Done. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Snags ( 18929 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891791) Journal
    Solaris can't be "open-sourced" because of the confidentiality parts of the Unix license agreements. They'd be in trouble for the same things that got IBM a lawsuit and started Groklaw, leaking trade secrets.

  • Seems unlikley (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:26PM (#10891792)
    For one thing, Linux is now as much a "brand" as Solaris. And there are too many people making difefrent distros for Linux to really wane for some time.

    But also, consider what "Open Source" really means. I'm not familiar with what OS licence Sun is using, but if it's really "Open" then Linux can make use of the best bits to keep going. If it's not really that "Open" then the current forces that move Linux will continue the course unchanged.

    In a world that already has BSD and Linux living together in harmony (well, as much harmony as a VI and Emacs user sharing the same house) there is also room, and a place, for Solaris.

  • Competition (Score:5, Insightful)

    by barcodez ( 580516 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:27PM (#10891800)
    Why does one have to 'kill' the other? Why can't they stay in a state of equilibrium goading each other to improve?

    Why do people always assume one product has to erradicate all the competition and become the only product of it's type.

  • FUD Dumping (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:27PM (#10891802) Homepage Journal
    I doubt that open-sourcing Solaris will hurt SUN's business... It could definitely help stop some of their bleeding off to Linux. On the other hand, they have a long way to go to catch up with Linux in terms of developer mindshare and hardware support.

    That having been said, Sun has some relly nice hardware at the high end of the scale. I don't expect that to change in the near future.

    Sun is just roadkill on Linux's crusade to take out Microsoft.

  • Open Source Solaris = Linux with a direction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:27PM (#10891803) Journal
    Solaris couldn't kick linux out of every possible niche (embedded wagoo 3sx-12 cpus or whatnot), it could cream it on the desktop.

    Sun will throw all its muscle behind it's Java Desktop to deliver a polished, cohisive system. Linux will continue to be pulled in 100 directions at once.

    Distros need to stop offering Gnome, KDE, fluxbox, and 9000 other window managers, and pick a path and stick to it.

    There really isn't that much of a market for people who like to dick around with 10000 different ways to close a window, each with it's own myriad of quirks and bugs. They like to plug it in, turn it on, and have it work pretty much the same way as the one in the next cubicle, or the next building.

    Linux' strength (versatility) is it's achilles heel when it comes to the desktop market.

    • There really isn't that much of a market for people who like to dick around with 10000 different ways to close a window, each with it's own myriad of quirks and bugs.

      No, there isn't -- and that's why most people don't. Most people will learn one window manager and stick with it. If I'm using KDE, the fact that Gnome is also loaded onto my box is entierely immaterial -- unless my friend who likes Gnome comes to visit, at which point he's free to use his favorite desktop.

      The 'do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt' attitude is why many people hate microsoft. Sometimes (OK: Often) what works for MS's business plan doesn't turn my crank.. The ability to do it my way rather than your way is what makes Linux such a good choice for so many people. We're not at the mercy of somebody elses business plans and/or persnal quirks.

    • Re:Open Source Solaris = Linux with a direction (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:07PM (#10892276)
      Linux' strength (versatility) is it's achilles heel when it comes to the desktop market.

      Yup...that's what still has a lot of IT people turned off of a Linux desktop. Luckily, in a corporate environment you can force your users to do things one way. However, who's to say that the "one way" will be available to you 4 years down the road? A commercial software company (like Sun) can provide direction, and a sane migration path from the old way to the new way. The old argument against Linux was that you couldn't get support from a bunch of hackers. Now the argument is that there are thousands of ways to do things. How many Linux programs are named "Yet Another..."?

      Red Hat and SuSE have gotten better at this lately, but they still include way too many things out of the box. If I were building a desktop distribution, I would pick ONE window manager, bundle in enough hardware support to make things as plug-and-play as possible, put in ONE office suite, and a few other useful apps. Then I'd make the system easy enough to tweak later on, so anyone who wants to can grab components and install them as needed.

      Linux would really benefit by having a few vendors back one set of standards. It would be easier to train sysadmins as well as end-users.

      • Use xandros at work, use linspire at home. Or ubuntu if you want to be a little different.

        RH and SuSE are trying to be many things to many people. If you want a distro is to do one thing well, then pick one that is trying to do that.

        Others of us quite like the flexability that the general-purpose distros offer, but hey, if that's not your then that's cool.
      • The "one way" will be available in 4, 14 or 40 years, of course - and you can still legally install/use it.

        The problem we've had with certain proprietary vendors - let's see - Access "applications" that people have developed in house - it is now an enormous effort to port old Access based things (or VB for that matter), and it's not possible to legally license extra machines to develop some of these things.

        At least with the OSS equivalents, you can still legally install extra copies of old versions of sof

  • Too Late (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:28PM (#10891816)
    If Solaris had done this TEN YEARS AGO, then maybe. As things stand today, no. It comes down to a matter of trust. Do most Linux users trust Solaris enough to let go of Linux? No.

    Take a choice between A and B. A is commonly considered a better product than B. Most will choose A. But B offers something that A has never dreamed of. In fact, A hates the idea of offering what B offers. B gains a lot of support. Time ticks by, and after seeing how much B has benefitted A changes it's mind and offers something similar to what B offers - but only because it has to.

    Do all those people who would have originally chosen A, but chose B go back to A? NO. Because B is of a similar mindset to the choosers. B WANTS to offer things to the chooser. A offers because it has to remain competitive. That is HUGE. And that is why Solaris will not kill Linux.


    P.S. A is not necessarily better than B.

  • Pundits suck (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kendoka ( 473386 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:29PM (#10891828)
    Since when has a programmer enthusiastically dropped their own code to pick up someone elses? Not a technical person, yeah, obviously. =)

  • Arches? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by giantsfan89 ( 536448 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {yugbewxunil}> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:30PM (#10891843) Homepage Journal
    How many architechures does Solaris support? Sparc and x86? Is that all?

    How many does Linux support?

  • Here is the text (Score:3, Informative)

    by AxelTorvalds ( 544851 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:31PM (#10891857)
    Let me start by saying that I'm not a technical expert. Although this might be a handicap it could very well be a positive in looking at the issue of Sun versus Linux in the server business from a decision maker's point of view.

    Until today, the discussion around Linux pushed by Red Hat and recently by Novell after it took over Suse has been around the risks and opportunitites of the open source model versus the costs and slow adaptation of the proprietary model.

    Opponents of open source software always argued that due to its nature there is a risk that version control, compatibility, future development and support is not guaranteed and could leave companies who use it at some point with a free but outdated system that is difficult to maintain.

    Companies like Red Hat and Novell and on occasion other big players have tried to take away these arguments by committing to the open source model and vowed to make it work. Despite their efforts and some success, there still is a lot of skepticism within corporate IT departments and as a result Linux is not taking the market by storm.

    With the decision by Sun to give away their latest version of their software, Solaris 10 for free all of these concerns have evaporated in one blow in favor of the now open source and compatible Solaris 10 supported by Sun.

    Looking at the advantage of going the Sun route versus the Linux route it is hard to see why any IT executive would chose to switch to Linux.

    - The Solaris software is of proven quality and at least equal or better then Linux and the open source model will assure that it stays up there.

    - By making it work with competing hardware platforms, there is no reason anymore to switch software to facilitate lower hardware costs.

    - Sun with Solaris has already a large installed base and by becoming free and open source there is no reason for existing Solaris users to switch to Linux.

    - Sun has a proven reputation in terms of quality of support. This should be at least as good or better then that of the Linux supporters.

    - Because Sun by default is the only designated party managing the open source software, there will be no risk of a version bonanza with multiple incompatible versions.

    Again as a non technical person, the decision for me would be simple, I would go with Solaris unless I was already using Linux; Why take risks when I can choose a proven, high quality solution at comparable costs?

    As a result Linux will probably not grow much beyond its current market share of about 10 % leaving Red Hat and especially Novell with a big problem

    Of course I might very well be overlooking something here, if so, please let me and other readers know by posting your opinion in a reaction (see below).

  • Stupid question (Score:3, Informative)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:34PM (#10891879) Homepage
    That's a really stupid question. It's like asking if proprietary software will kill Microsoft. Of course open source won't kill Linux. Linux is part of the open source movement. Plus Solaris is still controlled by Sun Microsystems, so it really won't be open in the sense that Linux is. Until there is a distrobution of Solaris that isn't from Sun, there's very little reason to make silly statements like "will Solaris kill Linux", or "will open source kill Linux".

  • Linux R.I.P. (Score:3, Funny)

    by jspectre ( 102549 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:35PM (#10891891) Journal
    I for one welcome our Solaris Wielding Overlords.

  • As a Solaris Admin (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chitlenz ( 184283 ) <chitlenz.chitlenz@com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:36PM (#10891901) Homepage
    We've been using the beta of 10 for about 3 months now in testing with Oracle at our site. It's pretty, that's for sure, with it's nice Gnome facelift and all, but I think essentially that Linux and Solaris fill different roles, at least for us.

    Linux feels a lot more like a general purpose OS than Solaris, and 10 while friendlier is still very much rooted in the proprietary Solaris tradition.

    To sum it up, this is good for Solaris users who can throw away the whole CDE/Openwin experience and replace it with something refreshingly cleaner, however we were going to adopt 10 anyway. It seems to me that Sun is going to have to really dig and build new things rather than merely say 'hey we're OSS now too!' and expect Linux users to suddenly flock their way.

    Looking Glass is an excellent example of software people could see as a reason to change platforms, and IMHO Sun should focus on this type of admittedly risky innovation instead of attempting to lure existing Linux users into a Solaris world. Someday, all these marketing guys are going to realize that there's more to an OS than just a name, and that actually creating something new is the best approach to picking up market share (OSX == good example).

    All that said, ZFS is a really cool thing if it works as spec'd, however ZFS is NOT in open beta AFAIK, and it has not been released to us little guy partners as of yet (though I'm betting they've started testing at the larger shops), so all we have here to go on so far is a marketing claim of improved i/o that could be true, false, or in that grey area salespeople like to use where the whole thing ran great! .... once .... in a lab... and it isn't reproducable to the average joe...

    I'm guessing we'll all know in about 2 months.

    -chitlenz

  • Pfft! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:37PM (#10891920) Homepage
    As anyone who's tried out x86 Solaris is aware; it's no match for Linux on the platform - or any other platform other than Sun's own hardware for that matter. The hardware support is pretty dire. Sure, it's supposedly a superior kernel, but if it's unable to take advantage of the metal underneath it, then it's not going to win market share.

    (yes I have tried it out, and it lasted a full week before I threw up my hands in disappointment and went back to the penguin ;-)

  • What kind of response will this get on slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:37PM (#10891923) Journal
    Moderate this story : -1 Flamebait

    Seriously... although it may well be plausable that a good number of places which once would have installed a free Linux will now instead install a free Solaris x86, everyone knows good and well that even that scenario wouldn't "kill" Linux.

    Depending on how "open" Solaris code turns out to be, it's success may indeed make all of Open Source stronger, prompting more companies to follow suit, releasing their core products under some sort of Open Source license and placing more engineers on open-source-based projects.

    In any event, it's going to take a lot more than a free and open Solaris to "kill" Linux. Seriously, show me the Solaris fanatics... I haven't seen them. The Linux fanatics, on the other hand, are everywhere... and as long as they are alive, Linux will be alive as well. Which is a good thing.

  • Sun's FUD has made another victim (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IntergalacticWalrus ( 720648 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:47PM (#10892037)
    That's just dumb. Open sourcing Solaris won't automagically make it more popular than Linux.

    Besides, this is Sun we're talking about. I bet it won't be an OSI-approved license and therefore will only be considered open source "because Sun tells you it is" (familiar?).

    Linux is strong because it's a worldwide community effort where both individuals and companies are welcome to participate.

    Meanwhile, the open source Solaris will remain tightly controlled by Sun, and therefore will only go in the direction Sun wants it to (forks may happen, but their chances of survival are very low). Sun never really cared about the "community" and you can bet open sourcing Solaris won't change that.

  • Developers and momentum (Score:3, Insightful)

    by arevos ( 659374 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @04:50PM (#10892064) Homepage
    I really doubt Solaris represents much of a threat to Linux. Linux has been going for over ten years, and has built up a great amount of momentum; developers aren't just going to switch from coding for their operating system of choice to work on an unfamiliar Solaris. There isn't enough incentive.

    Whilst I'm sure Solaris will attract some attention, I'd guess that the majority of developers will stick with the operating system they know. Whilst Sun can throw a lot of weight behind this project, it's easier to keep an open source project moving along at speed, than it is to start a new one. I'm skeptical as to whether open-source Solaris can attract the developer attention that Linux has.

    Whilst businesses are pretty much free to choose what they want, the writer seems to be suggesting that because Solaris is open source, that will somehow make it magically better. Businesses are not usually known for choosing software simply because it is open source. Unfortunately, just making a product open source is not an automatic recipe for success, otherwise Hurd would garner just as much attention as Linux.

  • Make it easier to talk management into switching (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ToasterTester ( 95180 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:02PM (#10892224)
    It will make it easier to get management to switch from Windows to Solaris than Linux. You bring up Linux to managers in an enterprise and they instantly start pointing out lack support contracts. Management wants someone whose feet they can hold to the fire when something goes wrong. Sun is a well known name so it will be an easy sell.

    Also Solaris is more of a real enterprise class operating system. Linux is working on it, but not there yet. Solaris has decades of use and refinement, it is a solid OS that scales great as the load increases.

  • Alternate Reality dream... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by burns210 ( 572621 ) <maburns@gmail.com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:06PM (#10892264) Homepage Journal
    OK, imagine with me...

    Sun has, in Solaris 10, arguably the most powerful core OS of any on the market for general/server/production use(not counting embedded, rt, or mainframe systems and I know not enough about them). They have some killer stats, powerful new features, and amazing development coming out. This all sits under xorg+gnome for a gui...

    ok, transition time... please don't kill me, just hear me out...

    Apple(*ducks*) has arguably, the most powerful gui on the market. Feature wise, simplicity, elegance and consistant... Very powerful, though not perfect, ofcourse. Darwin is a nice enough system but doesn't have much more the 'average' features. Nothing makes it have a selling point other than it exists and it is freebsd-like.

    What both companies have is an amazing half OS that by all accounts is /atleast/ on par if not far ahead feature-for-feature with their competition. Yet, they arn't adopted more than their niche(but rabid) markets.

    I propose a merger. Sun is marginally(25-50%, i think) larger than Apple income wise and whanot. Merging the two systems, the Aqua and solid gui on top of Solaris 10 core system. This would take time and would coincide with the System 11 release(ironically) for both companies.

    To make this really work though, they need to migrate. Procide highend workstations and servers(as Sun and Apple always have) but offer a lowend as well... Sun offers x86 systems for lowend servers, and has talked about a ppc port of solaris. Personally, I think ppc is superior, with IBM's work they have made it very powerful. But an AMD64 system would be fine as well.

    The companies need to flood the markets with their OS, even if it is on amd64, only, at a less-supported(community support for the free version)... I mean, send free boxed copies of their software to every university with a cs department, free of charge. They need to literally hand this software out to everyone they can. Free download for personal or non-profit use (minimum) and have a good resource/community site for support.

    The more open the system the better, but both companies use open source where it makes sense in their systems, not because they are sucking up, but because it is the best choice for the product.

    PS. yes, I know Apple is a hardware company. I wrote this on my 12" pbook. Sun is a hardware company too, which makes demand for an operating system that(for full use/support like sparc or ppc's cooler features) require a more highend(expensive) machine.

    IBM does this with Linux, they are a hardware company using a generic operating system on highend machines.
    • Nothing makes [darwin] have a selling point other than it exists and it is freebsd-like.

      OS/X is full of Mach dependencies, which means that Solaris would need to go through the same process as FreeBSD did. The result would be Solaris-like, but porting the high-end capabilities of Solaris to the result would probably not be a whole lot easier than keeping the existing Darwin kernel and porting Solaris components to it.

      And THAT would be like giving Solaris a big old dose of Metamucil. Clear out the System

  • Maybe, depending on how you define kill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by starseeker ( 141897 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:10PM (#10892312) Homepage
    Most of the comments I've see so far are essentially "No." I disagree, but before I do so I'll make the following assumptions:

    a) Sun uses a real open source license - meaning GPL compatible. This is unlikely, and if they don't Linux isn't going anywhere.

    b) Sun doesn't reserve major high end components of the system. If they do, they are essentially another Linux with different and unfamiliar source code. Solaris can do some things well that Linux isn't good at, but if Sun cuts it down, game over. Open source Solaris is a non-starter.

    NOW, let's assume they do it the Right Way. Several things immediately happen. Solaris has a good track record in high end servers that has been earned through experience. That gives it a lot of interest right there. Now, with real open source, drivers from Linux start arriving in droves. Intel performance is improved. GNU tools become standard parts of the system at almost all levels. Solaris becomes a more robust Linux, with a proven commercial track record.

    Now, remember - to everyone above kernel level, KDE on Linux vs. KDE on Open Solaris is going to look VERY similar. Ditto for any other user (and even most developer) tools. Parts of Solaris that annoy users suddenly are fixable, and get fixed. Open Solaris can now go head to head with Linux, as a tier one platform for virtually all open source applications.

    The parts of Linux that are not available in Solaris will be adsorbed in. Things like Dtrace are already available on Solaris, and not available on Linux. As people rapidly add in the goodies, Solaris adsorbs Linux's strengths (drivers, file systems, etc.) while leveraging Solaris's robust, tested, industry strength core. As far as I know, there is very little about Linux to fundamentally recommend it over Solaris, except for it's ability to function well on many platforms. If Solaris proves able to do this (impossible to say right now, but I'm assuming well done code will be able to do this, given enough eyes and hours) Linux will essentially dissolve into Solaris, and the end product will be Open Solaris with the best parts of Linux preserved. Does that constitute killing Linux? I wouldn't say so. If you mean will Linus stop being the prime mover, maybe, but the effort put into Linux will survive.

    So I, for one, would welcome our GPL Solaris overlords, because the only thing that will happen is net gains all around, regardless of whether the end product is called Solaris or Linux.

    Now, do I believe Sun will Do It Right? Nope. But I sure hope they do.

  • -1 Troll (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:24PM (#10892462) Homepage Journal
    Now the editors are just trolling.

  • games? (Score:4, Funny)

    by BigChigger ( 551094 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:25PM (#10892466)
    What games will be available for Solaris?

    BC

    • Re:games? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      Text mode Mille Bourne (Which you can get on debian with apt-get install bsdgames) Ogre (Which came standard with SCO Xenix 286 and was proably violating Steve Jackson's copyright) and Ski (Popular on DG/UX.)

      You might be able to get Xtrek to compile on it, too.

  • Linux Wins (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rlandrum ( 714497 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:31PM (#10892524)
    As an employee for a very large ISP (the one that's dispised), I can say that Linux is going to win this one. Sun has been the primary platform for the last 5 years, and now many of those old 400mhz Sun boxes are coming off lease. Their replacments are all Linux. Why? Simple - It's disposable. The hardware, the software, everything. Once we use it up, we throw it away like a bent paperclip. Sun simply can't compete. For one thing, their prices are still insane (not Apple Hardware insane, but close). Their support, while excellent, is way too expensive. In fact, it's so expensive, that third parties offer discount Sun support. HP does. And third, their hardware underperforms.

    Compare that with run of the mill dual proc 3Ghz Intel boxes, which are super fast, cheaper than a used Camry, and abundant. And Linux runs great on them.

    Linux has won this contest, and this is Suns attempt at making amends to all those customers they raped for the last 10 years by overcharging for support and hardware.

  • Yes, it will kill it... (Score:4, Funny)

    by BalkanBoy ( 201243 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:36PM (#10892572)
    Just like Windows NT killed UNIX.

  • There are many that still don't get it, 10yrs late (Score:4, Insightful)

    by postbigbang ( 761081 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:36PM (#10892580)
    Sun doesn't get it. Their sense of open source only works when you write FOSS like this: F|=O$$.

    As said before:
    1) no Solaris on a mobile phone
    2) no Solaris on a laptop/notebook/pda
    3) no Solaris on a media centre
    4) no Solaris in an automotive ECM, and so on.

    I've talked to their PR people, and Sun engineers. They DON'T get it. Their idea of community is a country club. It's stockholder interests that they have at heart. That's ok.

    What's not ok is to make believe that they're going to get Linux Love by putting on a blond wig and some lipstick.

  • Pffffftt (Score:4, Funny)

    by sabat ( 23293 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:50PM (#10892708) Journal
    Whatever kind of weed this guy is smoking, he really ought to share.

    What the hell is he talking about? People will use Slowlaris if it's free? Like that's the only reason we're not using it? Please.

  • The license is the key. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel DOT hedblom AT gmail DOT com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:51PM (#10892713) Homepage Journal
    What SUN and many others miss is that the most compelling thing about linux and linux distributions isnt the system in itself, its the license its released under. The GPL license is a protection against malicious corporations and what prevents anybody from gaining strangelhold. It forces corporations to work together with the users in a never before seen way. I and many with me will not migrate to a license that makes it possible for SUN to just rip the floor from under our feet in five years time. Even a GPL license will be very scrutinized so that all the bases are covered and not just some parts of the system.

    I think they put all to much weight into peoples cheapness and think that GNU/linux is all about money. Well a big part of the money bit is to not let anyone lock you in like MS did. I find this a desperate move from SUN who cant decide what leg to stand on. MS is sure to be happy to have one single entity to crush if SUN should gain foothold with Solaris. With linux its just not possible to stomp it out in one blow.

  • Redhat Solaris? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Uncle Barnard's Star ( 714324 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @05:51PM (#10892715)
    While I'm a GNU/Linux user myself, I can't understand all those people who insist on pitting Linux vs. BSD, Debian vs. Redhat, or Gnome vs. KDE. If opensource Solaris is as free as Java is now, I doubt it will make much headway. But if Sun licenses Solaris the way it licensed OpenOffice, then I guess Linux is in danger. But who would care then, but the few Linux überzealots? Redhat is already packaging OpenOffice into their OS offerings. I fancy in the future, they might come up with a co-branded Redhat Solaris. Maybe we could even hear of Linus contributing patches to make sure free Solaris interoperates well with legacy Linux.

  • Linux isn't about the OS... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@NOsPAm.slashdot.2006.taronga.com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @06:01PM (#10892817) Homepage Journal
    Well, the site's been slashdotted...

    Linux isn't about the OS, it's about the community. At this late date, could any kind of realistic Open Source Solaris get the kind of mindshare Linux has among the people who are in a position to do something useful with it?

    The Linux distros only had a year or two community-growth head start over the BSD releases, for example, and BSD was much further ahead of Linux technically... but Linus had the right formula and Linux took off.

    Now the distance between Red Hat or Suse and Solaris is much less, and Linux has been growing as an open source OS for a decade and change... I don't see any reason to worry about an Open Source Solaris kicking its butt.

  • Sun Communicating w/ Linux User's over the Net (Score:3, Funny)

    by KidSock ( 150684 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @06:03PM (#10892840)
    Apparently Sun has been able to communicate with Linux user's over the Internet. They sent them the following message:

    "We're about to release Solaris as Open Source. We're going to completely take over the OS market and if you resist us we're going to sue you for patent infringement. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we relase it is to stop using Linux."

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