“Hot on the heals of Oracle’s revamp of Solaris support, the licensing agreement for free downloads of Solaris 10 have changed. Here is the bit in question: “…Please remember, your right to use Solaris acquired as a download is limited to a trial of 90 days, unless you acquire a service contract for the downloaded Software”. So far the OpenSolaris license has not changed, it’s still CDDL.”
Oracle is probably going the Red Hat model. OpenSolaris will be Oracle’s Fedora
In other news….
“Get your free 30-day MySQL trial”
If MySQL turned commercial there would be a “OurSQL” fork pretty rapidly… Theres a cool naming scheme for ya.
perhaps?
ya, thats their plan. the reality of it is that its not a big deal, the tech geek users were already using open solaris on not solaris 10. ultimatly oracle will do good by solaris, but they have a tough road ahead of them making all of sun’s projects work within a healthy business model creating structure for the development of sun’s software.
Seems to be going back to approximately what Solaris was back before they offered it for free. People who really want to play with Solaris proper, be it as a hobbyist or learning system, will download it and run it unlicensed and it’s doubtful Oracle will care at all much like Sun never really cared about non-commercial use back in the day.
Beyond that you’re right, people more inclined to dance on the bleeding edge will probably play with OpenSolaris in the same ways that particular group uses Fedora.
people use Windows or Linux or MacOS.
What’s the thing solaris provide and that can’t be found in one of these 3 OSes ?
(don’t tell me ZFS…)
Solaris scales significantly better than any of the main commercial Linuxes, and is more stable under super high loads.
Not a dig at Linux. Solaris just has a lot of years head start focusing on those kinds of environments.
“If it’s been widely reported, that makes it Factesque”-Stephen Colbert
That must be how and why Linux has largely replaced Solaris in such areas and why Sun went out of business. I see the refrain still hasn’t died.
“Super high” loads like what? scientific applications?
I had linux and bsd servers with super high loads mostly used for lamp, web loadbalancers and they do just as well.
The only reason why Solaris, AIX still has market because some mission critical systems are built with them and they provide abilities such as hotswapping cpus,memory etc. or keep running in case of kernel panic.
I never had to work with solaris more than install and maintain it but my opinion is that its a major crap system and all the pros I heard from people like you is exactly like this.
80% of the ISPs use solaris, for what?
Asterisk works better on solaris, orly?
Write down a list of 10 applications which really scales better on it. I think you couldn’t because those are all inhouse developed applications what you never heard of.
Edited 2010-03-30 23:14 UTC
“Write down a list of 10 applications which really scales better on [Solaris]. I think you couldn’t because those are all inhouse developed applications what you never heard of.”
A quick google found SAP. How about SAP? That is not an inhouse app, no? The Linux machine used faster CPUs, and faster RAM, and still was slower than Solaris on enterprise SAP benchmark, on 48 core machines. Linux scales well to 4 sockets or so. But above that, Linux has problems.
http://download.sap.com/download.epd?context=B1FEF26EB0CC34664FC7E8…
http://download.sap.com/download.epd?context=40E2D9D5E00EEF7CCDB058…
I think it says it all, when you claim you have no real experience of Solaris and still down talk it. It is really funny. Some Linux guy sits with his dual core at home and never has any problems, and therefore he concludes that Linux scales well? Jesus. It is a whole different thing to handle massive loads. Linux sucks on big loads, or trying to handle load on as few as 48 cores. Amateurs.
http://www.mattheaton.com/?p=222
Linux sucks as a file server says a Storage Expert
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/sans/features/article.php/374…
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/sans/features/article.php/374…
SEGEDUNUM
There are several Linux shops that switches to Solaris. If you didnt knew that, I am sorry for you.
“Linux does not scale well, so we switch to Solaris”
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,s…
Linux overcommits RAM by default. That is horrendously bad. Linux allows you to use more RAM than the swap file allows. Then Linux will kill processes randomly. How good is that for stability?
http://opsmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/01/linux-memory-overcommit.html
And Linux unstable ABI, how good is that for stability? Upgrade something, and something else crashes. Soon you will have upgraded everything.
Top-notch documentation – try finding that for Linux. Or Windows, although acceptable Windows docs are usually available. I’m not familiar enough with OS X docs to know how good they are, though.
Boot environments – hose your configuration? Just boot into an older BE, and it’s just like it was before.
Sane memory management – this is primarily a knock on Linux, but… it doesn’t allocate memory that doesn’t exist, unlike Linux. (That’s not to say it doesn’t allocate over the actual system RAM, it will, but only up to RAM+swap. Linux will allocate more than RAM+swap.)
There’s a sysctl that can be used to turn off memory over-commit on Linux if you don’t like it.
I have to agree with you on the documentation while at the same time disagreeing. There are many aspects of Solaris which are really well documented. There are other sections which are more ‘application’ or ‘daemon’ specific which are very poorly documented.
The core operating system is great for docs, the additional services sometimes leave something to be desired.
I do. For my fileserver/VM box.
ZFS
Dtrace (though haven’t used yet)
Containers – runs both OpenSolaris and linux (little overhead). So easy to setup, and VERY powerful
ZFS – yep, twice
Very good Virtualbox support – it runs my VMs. Also allows for xVM(Xen) support – also in Linux
Crossbow Networking
Performance – yep, look at the latest OpenSolaris numbers compared to Linux AND FreeBSD..
Trying out both Linux and Freebsd for my fileserver, but I switched back immediately. I use Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Windows on OTHER hardware, but for my fileserver and VM machine, I haven’t found anything comparable to OpenSolaris.
….and you do not congest the network with all those pesky security updates….
Since OpenSolaris does not receive updates any more.
Is that OpenSolaris or Solaris proper? I know oracle has pretty much nixed the free security updates sun provided to all Solaris proper users (free/commercial/whatever).
New OpenSolaris builds are released every two weeks. That is when it gets upgraded.
2009.06 (build 101b I believe) is the last RELEASE… However, there have been plenty of updates. They are on build 134 (http://genunix.org/). Sure, the Oracle merger has probably dampened the releases so far, but that’s not to say there aren’t any updates.
Regardless, I’m running build 118 and has been nothing but solid. Updates to VirtualBox come every now and then, but everything else has been running without hiccup.
Solaris is the #1 platform used by Oracle customers.
Yes, in the real world large organizations actually pay for software. And reliability, stability, and support contracts are actually the deciding factors for their purchasing decisions.
This is very true.
To answer your question, Solaris is used by corporations who own Sun machines, where they offer real advantages, and not anyone else really.
This isn’t really a big deal. SXCE was the only Solaris worth using anyway, but Sun killed that off in Oct or Nov. I think. OSOL is where its at now.
Oh well, it’s not the end of the world, there are other operating systems.
I don’t know what Oracle are planning, but my guess they want to turn it into some “enterprise” product. I started loosing interest in Solaris when Sun killed their UltraSPARC workstations. I used to be a fan of SPARC hardware, but it’s too expensive and inaccessible to many hackers.
It is enterprise.
I have tried Solaris on the desktop, but to me it did not give me the experience I have with GNU/Linux.
But we all know Solaris shines in the server environment, and that is the place where service contracts make a lot more sense so I think this won’t really change too much.
I know more than enough small/medium business deployments of servers without support contract from the OS vendor. Some local company cares for all IT matters, billed by the hour – it’s cheaper that way.
Once such a company grows beyond a certain size, it usually moves to big vendor support contracts.
Those small businesses will be pure linux (well, and windows) territory again.
Of course I meant big scaled server environment
I think they would be Linux or Windows anyway.
Very few small companies need what Solaris offers over Linux, and Linux will often be cheaper for them to run, since a Linux administrator is easier found than a Solaris one and one can be less choosy with hardware.
Does anyone really care what Oracle says in its new license? Those who are running Solaris 10 in a commercial environment most likely have a support contract already. Those who don’t have a contract will use it anyway if they want, it’s not as though Oracle has put a lock on the software itself or can monitor your usage of Solaris 10. They might very well do something of the sort in the next version of Solaris, but until then they’re all talk and no teeth.
The entire Open Source world is built upon the foundation of licensing, the GPL and almost all other open source licenses do not function without the notion of accepting software licensing as legally binding.
I would say the complete opposite is reality – no one really cares about silly attempts at restricting usage through stupid software tricks. The license is the only thing that matters.
I wasn’t saying they shouldn’t, just putting a reality check on the situation. The majority of people use what they wish to use without even looking at the license, and it’s not as though people running a home server with Solaris 10 are going to not use it because Oracle says you must have a support contract. People *should* respect the license, but my question wasn’t about what people should do but rather what they will do. I’m of the opinion that Oracle is just covering their butts. I doubt they’re going to go after anyone who’s using Solaris 10 without a contract, but this is their way of telling you that they will not support you nor will they even listen to your support questions. If they actively wanted to lock people away, they would’ve implemented something in the software side because, let’s face it, that’s primarily what stops a lot of people who don’t even read a license. It’s just their way of saying you’re unsupported and completely on your own.
you dont seem to understand how software licenses works. FOSS licenses like GPL take effect at the point of distribution, not usage. EULAs are the ones that takes effect at the point of usage.
YOu are talking about EULAs if you are talking about restricting software usage
And you are bringing up meaningless distinctions that have nothing to do with my point. People that care about OSS honor licenses. The intricacies of contract vs copyright law and all the legal mumbo-jumbo involved with it doesn’t alter my point – I was simply stating that by Oracle merely saying out loud they don’t want unregistered usage is enough to make it obvious to anyone that the regime change at Sun means Solaris and OpenSolaris are going to be parting ways.
That is significant. On the other hand, any attempts on their part to actually enforce those restrictions will be significant only to pirates. OSS != piracy.
Yes they do, but FOSS licenses only take effect at the point of (re)distribution, not usage. UELAs are the ones that take effect at the point of usage.
I think the differences btw FOSS licenses and EULAs are not meaningless sir and I think it is crucial for people to know and understand the distinction btw them.
You talking about software usage restrictions and FOSS licenses implies either you dont know when FOSS licenses come into effect or you wrote your comment in an ambiguous way and it leads to misunderstandings
dont mean to criticize you sir, just trying to clarify stuff for those who dont know the difference btw something like microsoft EULA and the GPL
Fair enough. I was generalizing. I do understand the distinction – but the distinction wasn’t relevant to the point I was raising. I just got a little peeved by the “you don’t understand how licensing works” comment and my reply was a bit harsh. Sorry about that.
It comes down to this:
The GPL gives you the right to redistribute software IF you comply with the terms.
EULAS forbid the use under certain circumstances.
Like when they don’t comply with the terms.
If you care at all about applying security patches without a contract is does indeed matter. Less important, but it also states that if your support contract expires that you are to remove any patches that you have installed. I personally think it sucks they have removed access to security updates for people with no support contract but they must be insane if they think people with a functioning solaris system are going to up and remove patches from the system because they let their support contract lapse… I mean give me a break. Cut off access to patches? Sure. Uninstall the patches on a production system because we didn’t renew our support contract… yeah sure.
In the support contract offerings. If cheap enough, I
d give Solaris another spin.
My department just talked to a rep last week about buying some Sun workstations. Oracle is completely ending all Sun machines aimed at the desktop market. Kind of a problem since out entire CS department revolves around Sun hardware. Their support costs were shockingly high also, like 20% of machine cost per year per machine. Needless to say we wont be buying any of them ever.
I think Sun desktops were killed by Sun some time ago. I’m referring to SPARC hardware here, x86 is not quite the same. Since OpenSPARC is open architecture, there is probably a chance someone can introduce affordable versions of it for desktops/laptops.
Why is x86 so popular and sold by the millions? Because it’s accessible to the majority of population. Most computer graduate students are exposed to x86 and Linux from the very beginning. That’s why most of them have no interest in Power or SPARC hardware when years later they run their own businesses or give advice to CEOs on what to purchase.
Oracle are probably not interested in building a community of followers around SPARC, they are just another greedy corp. that chase after financial institutions and big money those institutions can spend on Oracle’s overpriced hardware and software contracts.
Actually they are killing everything desktop related. We were looking for Intel desktops.
Everyone I knew who had Sun workstations bailed from the over ten years ago when the writing was on the wall with Linux and x86. If you haven’t jumped by now then I can’t say I have much sympathy for you.
Truth to be told, the new x86 cpus, AMD and Intel are actually among the fastest in the world.
Four AMD 8-core Magny Cour at 2.3 GHz gives almost 600 specint_2006. If you instead choose 12 core Magny Cour, in best case you will get 50% more performance, that is 900 specint_2006.
Four IBM POWER7 at 3.5GHz gives 1000 specint_2006. The IBM machine with 128GB RAM costs maybe 175.000 USD so you can probably buy 4-5 AMD servers for the same amount.
And the Nehalem-EX will probably be faster than AMDs CPUs.
Ordinary SPARC cpus has the same problem, x86 is faster than the SPARC cpus. However, the niche Niagara SPARC can be many times faster than the fastest x86 on certain work loads (multi threaded light work).
The problem is if you try to run many sockets and many cores with these new x86 CPUs. Linux and Windows does not scale good enough. But Solaris does.
This means that Oracle/Sun wins:
1) Solaris on many sockets Nehalem-EX will be the natural choice, and much cheaper than POWER7 machines, giving a similar performance for a fraction of the cost.
2) Solaris on Niagara will be good for multi threaded work loads, it will be several times faster than x86.
In either case, Solaris wins. No matter which workload you have, Solaris will run it for you. Either on cheap fast x86 or on Niagara.
Linux has already scaled more than well enough over the past ten years, which is why Sun is out of business and no more and Oracle are nailing down the coffin on Solaris.
Solaris is dead. These articles are just the final nails. Oracle is merely trying to work out what money it can salvage and what it will have to do support-wise. Pulling meaningless statements out of your backside about scalability that haven’t proved to be true over the past decade won’t change that.
If you can’t see it by now then I’m sad for you.
If you actually took the time to read the agreement, you’ll find it has always said it was a 90 day trial
So solaris back to commercial roots , but this decision should not be surprising, because the oracle is a company that practically all his fortune to built a closed source solutions.
I’ve written this post in polish version .
http://osnews.pl/koniec-darmowego-solarisa-10/