Writers and analysts love to sensationalize OS Wars. But Linux keeps building momentum.
Linux Threat Posed by Microsoft and Sun: In Your Dreams
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
This tells me that Schwartz just doesn’t get Linux one iota, or he’s psychologically brainwashed by what he wishes were true:
Many of our Wall Street customers write a bunch of Linux applications. In fact some of them write their own Linux distributions. Then they go to an [independent software vendor] and say “I need you to write your application to my operating system.” The ISV will say “No, we only support Red Hat stuff.”
I get the impression that Jonathan Schwartz is absolutely desperate to tell people that you can’t run applications between different Linux distributions. You can, and there are no, or very few, technical barriers in doing so – unless you run Solaris. The reason why many ISVs say they only support Red Hat (or Suse) is because there is little demand for anything else at the moment. As soon as Suse and Red Hat are not seen in that light, or a tide turns, there will be demand. If it comes down to it, and if there’s demand, there will possibly be a major off-shoot of Fedora that Red Hat will have to compete against if Red Hat really becomes an issue for people and customers.
People on Wall Street just do not write their own Linux applications on their own(?!) Linux distributions and ask for support, as they’re probably already running Red Hat or Suse – fully supported. I don’t know where he gets that really weird idea from, because it just isn’t going to stick.
The bad news is that Dell doesn’t own one, HP doesn’t own one and IBM doesn’t own one. They may have to acquire one.
Or they could just create their own distribution for nothing, or just off-shoot Fedora. He is just wishing for something that there is simply no demand for – yet. Quite how Solaris is any better, one can only imagine in his strange little world.
So, when we talk to a customer and they say they have a bunch of Linux applications, we say we can run them natively, with no modifications, on Solaris 10.
And if any of them have moved, or trialled Solaris 10, they’ll move swiftly back when it doesn’t work – which it doesn’t. He will also have to face the inevitable question: “OK, so we can run Linux applications unmodified on Solaris, and we already run Linux. Why should we bother moving – back?!”
Absolutely not. No way, no how. We are phasing out the pre merger DEC Tru-64, but merging the feature set with HP-UX.
This I do agree with. HP hasn’t got a clue what it’s doing, and is probably just as bad as Sun if not worse – except HP’s executives aren’t coming out with bizarre nonsensical comments.
What percent of the Opensolaris.org project is actually made up of members of the Solaris team? And, does that constitute a community of developers or has Sun simply populated their so called community with Sun paid employees so that it looks like the broader open-source developers have embraced the project?
That’s certainly the impression I get from the incredible number of Sun employees banging away helplessly at their blogs. The real Solaris community has been porting stuff to Solaris for years – that won’t change or be made any better. You can’t fake open sourcing or a community, which is what Sun is doing now.
Sun’s Project Janus is the Sun internal code name for technology they have developed that allows people to run Linux applications…
I assume Project Janus is some internal joke…
Janus raises many questions about Sun’s disinformation campaign with regard to Linux and specifically Red Hat. For example, if Red Hat isn’t fit for the data center, why has Sun made accommodations to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux applications on Solaris.
Because it’s already displaced Solaris.
Also, why do they only support Red Hat and not SUSE or Mandrake or Debian?
Red Hat are the market leader and are a pure, open source and GPL/LGPL licensed software led, company. There’s none of this both-source rubbish Novell comes out with, and that really scares Sun and Microsoft. Enterprises depending heavily on open source projects, even in the applications space?!
Sun’s open source activities lower down in the company have been a resounding success – Tomcat and Open Office being two. However, when anybody at management level in Sun gets hold of it it then becomes a silly, incoherent mess and a pawn that just cheeses everyone off who hears it. It’s a terrible pity that this overshadows the good stuff that Sun does.
Project Janus – funny that they should use the name Janus. On the one hand it could mean a gateway between Solaris and Linux, but on the other, Janus head is apparently a popular phrase for deception, that is, when action does not match speech.
http://www.phatnav.com/wiki/index.php?title=Janus_(mythology)
is that most people arnt techies. people only have a vague idea of what linux is. that means you can pull a mcbride on them and start throwing around terms that they know of, but really dont understand, and they will agree with you (if for no other reason then to appear knowledgable). if anyone wants to see an illustration of this, just go check out that solaris 10 announcment from a few weeks ago.
And if any of them have moved, or trialled Solaris 10, they’ll move swiftly back when it doesn’t work – which it doesn’t.
Care to cite some examples?
I assume Project Janus is some internal joke…
Hmmm, disregard my earlier question. Since you don’t know what Project Janus is, how can you possibly cite examples of it not working?
Because it’s already displaced Solaris.
Care to cite some credible statistics?
Oh who am I kidding? Forget it.
this guy does nothing but bitch and point out tiny mistakes. You could take anything any company person says and throw it out of context.
Sun’s cometitors do this often. IBM especially as they presented directly to me. When companies don’t talk customers don’t know much, when they do they are. People try to throw everything against their competitors and this guy is feeding into it.
Tell the whole story, without your biasedness! I’m sure I could write an article that does the same to you.
Care to cite some examples?
Since everyone who is moving to anything is moving from Solaris to Linux (been happening for years apparently) care to cite some examples as to exactly how the wonderful piece of work that is Solaris 10 will get them back?
It’s the Sun fanboys who have to respond on this – no one else.
Hmmm, disregard my earlier question. Since you don’t know what Project Janus is, how can you possibly cite examples of it not working?
Since I do know what Project Janus is I am more than qualified to talk on the rather interesting name. Nice try.
Care to cite some credible statistics?
I can do better. Sun’s actions, words and vitriol towards Red Hat and Linux and the many comments from Sun’s execs who say “People will come back to Solaris”. Would you rather not believe Sun’s own execs? Come to think of it I wouldn’t either
.
Oh who am I kidding? Forget it.
Please do. I hope you weren’t passing that as some sort response.
I wish SUN the best but I have my doubts about the ability of SUN to change its entire culture. There is such a difference in the OS and proprietary software development mindsets and company cultures do not easily change.
Care to cite some examples?
Since everyone who is moving to anything is moving from Solaris to Linux (been happening for years apparently) care to cite some examples as to exactly how the wonderful piece of work that is Solaris 10 will get them back?
“Everyone” is not an example.
Care to cite some credible statistics?
I can do better.
No, you cannot. If you are trying to make a point, how about backing it up with facts. Not just speculation, but hard data. For instance, how about a list of companies running linux on HP Superdome instead of HP-UX or Windows on same?
The story has very little bias – hardly any.
The author has asked a lot of pertinent questions that need answering.
Remember, he wants to know because if he’s not satisfied with what he’s been told, he can’t go out and sell his clients.
That’s what he’s asking for – an audit by the Board of Sun – because he sees inconsistencies – not little things but big things.
Since I do know what Project Janus is I am more than qualified to talk on the rather interesting name. Nice try.
Outstanding! Let me clear up my question then. Cite some examples of software packages, specifically packaged for RH in RPM format that have failed to run properly on Solaris 10. Then explain to us how we can get access to Janus ourselves.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/29/content_294146.htm
Hrm, anyone know of 200M Solaris installations anywhere?
uhh .. anybody?
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could start an open source kernel project now and pick up the same momentum that Linux has. Even if, especially if, you’re open sourcing some existing code base like Solaris (or like Darwin).
For all of the author’s complaining about how the media sensationalizes “OS wars”, he does a pretty good job of carrying on the trend. OS News has once again categorized an opinion piece as a news article. Although the author quotes news articles in his piece, he hasn’t done any first hand investigative work that would even qualify as news reporting.
The author makes extensive claims about the quotations of Jonathan Schwartz and John Dvorak, yet he doesn’t do any follow-up work to answer the questions he poses. Instead, he laments the fact that this misinformation exists. This is childish since it’s entirely possible to contact the PR department at Sun and Dvorak’s editors. Instead of actually doing the work to investigate his claims, he poses questions as if they were useful. If the author were sincere about clearing up misconceptions or misinformation, one might reasonably expect him to provide his own facts, or even a reasonable analysis. Instead, he choose to treat the piece as an ad hominem attack replete with rhetoric but little information.
I find the author’s suggestion that an “OS war” even exists to be a naive and myopic view. Competition between Linux, Solaris, Windows, OsX, HP-UX, or whatever your personal favorite OS happens to be is healty and benefits users. This competition drives innovation, feature implementation, and performance improvement. To suggest that OS development is a zero-sum game is equally rediculous. The development of a particular feature in Linux, Windows, or Solaris didn’t happen at the expense of an other OS, and the existence of these features drives demand and interest to get similar functionality implemented elsewhere.
Mr. Adelstein is entitled to his opinion; however, he and OS news should be honest and mark this as an opinion piece. It is disingenous and incendiary to publish a piece like this as anything else. Fundamentally, Adelstein fights the sensationalism that he claims to loathe, with his own sensationalism that satisfies his rhetorical needs. This piece isn’t news or analysis, it’s simply an opinion designed to appeal to people who share the same opinions. I would consider that flamebait, especially since the author claims to loathe sensationalism, yet shamelessly engages in it himself.
A “Linux rulez, Jonathan Schwartz, Microsoft, Sun, and John Dvorak all suck!” post is hardly news.
I find it ironic that the author accuses Sun and Schwartz of misinformation while his own article is riddled with them.
Here is my request for clarification from the author to the piece of misinformation and misdirection he has used in this opinion piece.
We also have to ask if he has implied by misdirection that Sun has some involvement in Linux clients running on all the platforms he mentioned? If so, which clients? We know of no client initiatives in which Sun has involvement in anything but their Java(tm) Desktop System – a combination of GNOME and SUSE’s Linux Enterprise Server.
First piece of misinformation. Sun is involved in many client initiatives, GNOME, Openoffice.org, Mozilla etc. Just because the author isn’t aware of them doesn’t make it ok for him to ask silly questions, instead of using a search engine.
Second, JDS is not just SUSE linux Enterprise Sever and Gnome. This is so stupid, it’s not even funny. Java Desktop System is based on SUSE linux Server. I gues the author is so far gone he doesn’t know that JDS is a desktop product. I think he might have even said JES is based on some other linux derivative then. This is where I should have stopped reading, but the fun continues.
Further, Linux is not UNIX and it definitely was not the first UNIX operating system to run on the x86 platform. Those that did include Xenix, UnixWare, AT&T, FreeBSD and the earlier Sun versions. All are older and predate Linux. Perhaps they predate Jonathan’s knowledge of history. Does it make you question his grasp of the situation?
What does the relevence of this to the first question in the paragraph?
What this does make me question is the authors capabilities in reading, comprehending and making cogent analysis of a given piece of text.
What percent of the Opensolaris.org project is actually made up of members of the Solaris team? And, does that constitute a community of developers or has Sun simply populated their so called community with Sun paid employees so that it looks like the broader open-source developers have embraced the project? ”
Does Solaris10 with the Java ™ Desktop System (JDS) run on Sun Ray servers and if so does Sun offer it as an official product offering?
Which version of JDS runs on the Sun Ray and when will you cease marketing it?
What percent of Sun’s infrastructure actually runs Linux internally?
Did Sun roll out JDS Linux internally as described or did Sun only offer it to Laptop users? Which version does Sun use?
How many laptops and desktops continue to use Microsoft and Apple Mac OS X instead of JDS?
What do you use on your desktop and laptop, Jonathan Schwartz? Do you use Linux? What do you actually know about Linux? Are you judging Linux from some ivory tower and declaring it a social movement as if your pronoucements represent some form of authority?
What do any of these questions have to do with the subject of the article?
First, OpenSolaris is in it’s infancy. Look at OpenOffice.org for a project that sun has opensourced and how it is managed to get an Idea of how OpenSolaris will head.
I am going to take the last question and ask it back to the author.
Tom Adelstein, Have you used Soalris 10 and JDS on any platform? Do you use Solaris 10 and JDS? What do you actually know about Solaris 10 and JDS? Are you judging Solaris 10 and JDS from some ivory tower and declaring it a social movement as if your pronoucements represent some form of authority?
I hit submit accidentally
Second, JDS is not just SUSE linux Enterprise Sever and Gnome. This is so stupid, it’s not even funny. Java Desktop System is based on SUSE linux Server. I gues the author is so far gone he doesn’t know that JDS is a desktop product.
Second, JDS is not based on SUSE linux Enterprise Sever. This is so stupid, it’s not even funny. Java Desktop System is based on SUSE linux Server? Does that sound right? I guess the author is so far gone he doesn’t know that JDS is a desktop product and not a server product.
What does the relevence of this to the first question in the paragraph?
What this does make me question is the authors capabilities in reading, comprehending and making cogent analysis of a given piece of text.
What is the relevence of this to the first question in the paragraph?
What this does make me question, is the author’s capabilities in reading, comprehending and making cogent analysis of a given piece of text.
When a customer asks for the “alternative” desktop to Microsoft Windows, Sun sales and partners use that as an opening to offer a Sun change in infrastructure. But do clients really want Sun’s change? Most want to keep their Microsoft infrastructures while replacing the desktop with Linux. Sun does not offer that solution.
Really, where is he data to back this up??? Am I missing something? Adelstein, in the first part of the article falsely talks about how Sun is using SUSE Linux enterprise server and Gnome as thier JDS desktop strategy and now he claims Sun has no desktop linux solution. Wow talk about lack of attention span or worse misdirection.
So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux.
Really, customers just want linux, eh? I thought customers just a wanted the Microsoft infrasturcture and linux on the desktop. Wasn’t that just stated in the last paragraph. Again misdirection???
Comming back to the begining of this section:
As a consultant and writer focused on Linux, I contend with a massive amount of false information promulgated by members of the press as well as companies themselves. Over the years, I have attempted to point out some foolish claims in my articles. In the mean time, people continue to grind out seriously flawed content about Linux and those who do not know the difference accept it.
As a consultant and writer, Adelstein is absolutely lousy. He hasn’t researched the technologies he writes about. Provides false information and draws conclusions from out of context quotes. Absolutely lousy journalism.
Final Thoughts on Adelstein’s Final Thoughts
Basically a typical linux zealots view. Linux is the saviour of all companies. If Sun had embraced linux they would have survived. But they decided to go at it on thier own with Solaris.
Few examples against such a naive and immature view.
A) linux hasn’t saved SGI. SGI is constantly losing money even after whole heartedly embracing linux.
B) Linux wasn’t the reason for Apple’s comeback, MacOS X was.
C) VALinux now VAsoftware is in constant losses, even though it does linux and opensource software. I was one of the best linux IPO stories. From $250 IPO to $1.91 today.
I don’t know what to say about this article other than the fact its pointless. If Solaris is not going to effect Linux then stop ranting about it, trying to cause arguments about it and generally trolling. And if you think something is Fud counter it with fact, not with more fud.
This kind of article just makes osnews even more like slashdot. Guess I will have to go further for a source of news analysis rather than crap written by Linux zealots. Belive it or not competition is a good thing, and diversity is a necesserary thing.
If politicians reacted to immigration in the same manner as the Linux community reacts to anything that may vaguely effect or compete with linux they would be deemed to be racist, bigoted and narrow minded.
Some freedom folks – belive it or not there are more ways than the Linux way – just ask IBM, you know the company that sells AIX, Windows etc.
Oh sorry, I forgot, you know that because slashdot says IBM are good they are good. When your job is outsourced to IBM Global Services think about all their “donations” to open source – you know the crown jewels like Websphere, their JVM implementation, AIX etc. Oh sorry, you haven’t spotted that yet have you – IBM are mainipulating the naive sheep for the purposes of profit, not out of genorisity.
I’ve been reading a lot of these articles about Solaris the last few days and I don’t particularly have any solid opinion about the future except to note that, the strongest force I have encountered – and I am talking about *me* personally, that is to say, *my own experience*, is that momentum has been the single biggest driver in the decision of what OS to use and deploy.
At my company, most of the big enterprise machines out on the net are Solaris machines, and my company has been using them for a long time. You could say my company knows a little about about UNIX, so this wasn’t a flip-a-coin decision.
They seem to remain cautiously tolerant of Linux experiments on servers but aren’t interested in switching or converting over to Linux. I ascribe this primarily to the fact that overall, Solaris is tried-and-tested, and I assume it’s a “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” scenario. That being said, we never run the latest and greatest Solaris versions. We’re always a bit behind until the platform stabilizes (I have no personal knowledge of what’s involved with this – IOW, at what point it becomes stable enough to push into production; I don’t admin any of the Solaris machines).
I have personally had to push to roll out anything Linux, which people are suspicious of but never for any specific reasons other than, “Who do we call for support?” (We haven’t needed it). The places I have influence over are sometimes internet-exposed, but never ultra-high volume or much more than flat websites. They have worked great. I’ve had no problems at all with them, and barely have to touch them except to do security audits.
I imagine, if my company is at all typical of large companies – and I suspect that it is – that Solaris will continue to exist for some time because of momentum, as opposed to whatever new features are in the latest version. I think suspicion about Linux – however rational or irrational – remains, but I have some doubts that people who are using Linux now are likely to switch to Solaris in large numbers, and definitely vice-versa. Things seem pretty conservative and I don’t think most sysadmins really agonize over what they run daily, once they get everything set up and working reliably. At least, the ones at my office don’t seem to. The kinds of day to day problems that seem to get them completely frazzled don’t seem to usually be OS-specific.
It’s new deployments where this question gets asked, and technical people don’t always control the purse strings. It may well be that if you have a compelling, crucial reason to switch from tradition, you can make that case, but pre-existing contracts with vendors (like Sun), discounts (with vendors like Sun), and official company policies (which may specify Sun) are the overriding factors in any decision.
From my perspective, the Sun boxes we have work. Whether they work better than Linux I don’t know, but they do work, reliably, and no one seems to be complaining about them. We have them running major websites, database applications, sometimes behind load balancers and complex network infrastructure. I could make a pitch, if I were in a position to do so, to switch everything over to something else, but no doubt my company would demand a support contract, and benchmarks, and lab results, and so many things that would make the switch difficult to rationalize, in terms of making Linux a big cost-saver. Maybe though, I don’t know. Finances are only one factor a company considers, at least in the sense that the up-front cost of a server is only part of it when you factor in the long term (nothing new to anyone here).
Lastly it seems like it comes down to beer. I can come out with a new beer made with state of the art processes, but a Guinness person is always going to be a Guinness person, come hell or high water. A dedicated person could probably make anything work well if they pour themselves into it.
On the other end, I don’t think Solaris will make a very big splash with hobbyists and desktop users. But then again, this has never been the marketing thrust of Solaris anyway. But I know that this does matter to a lot of people, who seem to have strong opinions on this.
I installed the last Solaris on a spare x86 system (whatever the last free x86 version was; I did it sort of as a lark), and it installed simply, autodetecting what it needed to, and I had no problems with it, but it didn’t particularly deliver anything extra to me as a home user than Linux did. So I switched back after playing around a bit.
I imagine most hobbyists, home users, and the like will probably be excited to try it, will install it, and probably decide the investment to learn all of the differences in Solaris doesn’t have enough of a payoff to make it worth it to switch. Maybe some developers will feel differently.
That’s just my guess. How much these kinds of home experiments have anything to do with the decisions one makes in the context of business is questionable, of course. Probably usually irrelevant. Possibly always irrelevant. In my company, it would have nothing to do with anything.
But in any case, it’s nothing to get emotional about, I don’t think. You could talk about the licensing, the legal issues behind proprietary OSes, and that’d be fair enough, but from a technical perspective, Solaris works great; I rely on these servers daily and they are always there, always accessible…
Firstly, I respect your right to post an opinion. What I
object to is you posting your opinions as facts. Your
statements always contain ‘they’ and ‘people’. Nebulous
conjecture – the worst kind of FUD.
I get the impression that Jonathan Schwartz is absolutely desperate to tell people that you can’t run applications between different Linux distributions. You can, and there are no, or very few, technical barriers in doing so – unless you run Solaris. The reason why many ISVs say they only support Red Hat (or Suse) is because there is little demand for anything else at the moment. As soon as Suse and Red Hat are not seen in that light, or a tide turns, there will be demand. If it comes down to it, and if there’s demand, there will possibly be a major off-shoot of Fedora that Red Hat will have to compete against if Red Hat really becomes an issue for people and customers.
You have reinforced the point, not refuted it. It is not
argued that you cannot get applications to work across
distros. What is argued is that you are restricted to which
distros to use if you want supported 3rd party applications.
Are you saying that this doesn’t matter?
People on Wall Street just do not write their own Linux applications on their own(?!) Linux distributions and ask for support, as they’re probably already running Red Hat or Suse – fully supported. I don’t know where he gets that really weird idea from, because it just isn’t going to stick.
Well, I don’t know whether this is true or not so I will
choose not post an opinion on it. Maybe you should try it.
As a direct question, how the hell do you know what Wall
Street companies are doing?. I don’t necessarily agree
with a lot of what Mr Schwartz says but I would be 100%
sure that he knows more about what is happening on Wall
Street than you do.
Or they could just create their own distribution for nothing, or just off-shoot Fedora. He is just wishing for something that there is simply no demand for – yet. Quite how Solaris is any better, one can only imagine in his strange little world.
Yes, they could. All he is saying is that Sun has control
over it’s own OS strategy and is not beholden to another
entity. Having control over the operating system is a
valid differentiator.
And if any of them have moved, or trialled Solaris 10, they’ll move swiftly back when it doesn’t work – which it doesn’t. He will also have to face the inevitable question: “OK, so we can run Linux applications unmodified on Solaris, and we already run Linux. Why should we bother moving – back?!”
Could you clarify what you mean here please?. Do you mean
that Solaris 10 doesn’t work or that the Linux Application
Environment doesn’t work? The value add is that you can
consolidate your Solaris X86 and Linux environments onto
single nodes. If you have that as a requirement then
its a tick in the box. Unless of course ‘they’ don’t want
to and ‘they’ just want to run Linux.
I assume Project Janus is some internal joke…
Why? It’s a name that represents the duality envisioned
by the development team. That’s all. No ‘hidden’ meanings.
Generally, the article is inflammatory. As others have
already pointed out, it is hypocritical in the extreme.
Why is this news?
“It’s hard to imagine that anyone could start an open source kernel project now and pick up the same momentum that Linux has. Even if, especially if, you’re open sourcing some existing code base like Solaris (or like Darwin).”
Linux is the kernel. It mimics a Unix/unix-style environment. It has become the target unix developers look to, so you could say it is for all practical purposes “Unix” without the Unix trademark.
That said, most of the parts built on top of the kernel are portable. For example, converting a system to/from Linux and FreeBSD or even Solaris is fairly trivial if you focus mainly on the GUI.
With enough of the GNU toolset added to any unix-like operating system, you’d be hard pressed to find any differences without dropping to the shell and checking implementation-specific features.
That’s a benifit. With the exception of Windows, almost everything out there is unix now or can run code targeted to either unix (in general) or Linux specifically.
“Really, where is he data to back this up??? Am I missing something? Adelstein, in the first part of the article falsely talks about how Sun is using SUSE Linux enterprise server and Gnome as thier JDS desktop strategy and now he claims Sun has no desktop linux solution. Wow talk about lack of attention span or worse misdirection.”
i would like to quote this:
“Unless something has changed radically in the last few hours, Sun’s older JDS Linux runs on the Sun Ray but the newer version does not. Even Solaris10 cannot offer the JDS desktop to Sun Ray users. The Sun Ray server runs on Solaris 9 – Sparc Edition with the older GNOME 1.4 desktop. It does not run on Solaris10 and it does not run on Solaris x86.”
what was that you were saying about attention span?
“Really, customers just want linux, eh? I thought customers just a wanted the Microsoft infrasturcture and linux on the desktop. Wasn’t that just stated in the last paragraph. Again misdirection???”
sun customers dont want microsoft, if they did they would be microsoft customers. it really isnt that hard…
“As a consultant and writer, Adelstein is absolutely lousy. He hasn’t researched the technologies he writes about. Provides false information and draws conclusions from out of context quotes. Absolutely lousy journalism.”
really? kinda like quoting someone talking about how the latest version of jds doesnt work on sun rays, and pretending he was saying jds just didnt work? that would be drawing conclusions from out of context quotes… i dont even want touch the whole assumption that sun customers want microsoft. just lousy.
“Basically a typical linux zealots view. Linux is the saviour of all companies. If Sun had embraced linux they would have survived. But they decided to go at it on thier own with Solaris.”
i didnt even know solaris had zealots, guess im wrong.
“Few examples against such a naive and immature view.
A) linux hasn’t saved SGI. SGI is constantly losing money even after whole heartedly embracing linux.
B) Linux wasn’t the reason for Apple’s comeback, MacOS X was.
C) VALinux now VAsoftware is in constant losses, even though it does linux and opensource software. I was one of the best linux IPO stories. From $250 IPO to $1.91 today.”
when the hell did he say that linux was magic fairy dust that you sprinkle on an it company to make money appear? this last little bit has nothing to do with anything in the article, and is a fairly clumsy troll.
actually, the article is basically talking about how jon schwartz has been acting like a troll, and the non-techies in the industry are just nodding along blankly.
what was that you were saying about attention span?
What are you trying to say? What does Sunray server software not supported on Soalris 10 have to do with Sun’s linux desktop solution?
sun customers dont want microsoft, if they did they would be microsoft customers. it really isnt that hard…
May be you should read the article or atleast the text I pasted from it. He claims in a grossly general statement that “Customers don’t want what Sun is selling and want Microsoft’s infrastructure with linux on the desktop”. That statement is wrong on mulitple level, I was merely pointing out that a so called Linux consulatant and writer is making general statements without Data to back his claim up. Basically doing what he is accusing Sun of doing.
really? kinda like quoting someone talking about how the latest version of jds doesnt work on sun rays, and pretending he was saying jds just didnt work? that would be drawing conclusions from out of context quotes… i dont even want touch the whole assumption that sun customers want microsoft. just lousy.
What are you ranting about? Read the article and reread what I have said. That is what I accused the author of the article of doing. You have it confused.
when the hell did he say that linux was magic fairy dust that you sprinkle on an it company to make money appear? this last little bit has nothing to do with anything in the article, and is a fairly clumsy troll.
Again if you had actually read the damn article, sigh.
Sun has plenty of rationalizations as to why it keeps having to cut staff and resources. Ultimately, denial and the inability to shift its culture plays some large part. They had the perfect answer when they dialed up the Linux Java Desktop System. But, they did not fulfill the promise. They changed horses in mid-stream and somehow fell for an intoxicating belief in Solaris 10. As we say in my part of the country – that dog won’t hunt.
Who’s the troll? What I inferred is exactly what the Author intended to say in the end of the article.
“What are you trying to say? What does Sunray server software not supported on Soalris 10 have to do with Sun’s linux desktop solution?”
what the author was trying to say is that jds is all well and nice, but sun itself doesnt support it in their desktop solutions. using sun rays, there isnt a way to use jds. it is a valid point, and not that hard to understand.
“May be you should read the article or atleast the text I pasted from it. He claims in a grossly general statement that “Customers don’t want what Sun is selling and want Microsoft’s infrastructure with linux on the desktop”. That statement is wrong on mulitple level, I was merely pointing out that a so called Linux consulatant and writer is making general statements without Data to back his claim up. Basically doing what he is accusing Sun of doing.”
“So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux. “. thats the quote. based on the rest of the article, he is talking about unix customers. what you are referring to is the interest from windows customers in linux. two different groups. the unix guys are wanting to replace unix boxes with linux, not whatever combination of solaris and linux sun happens to be pushing this week. windows guys dont want to get rid of their domains, exchange servers, etc. they just want linux for certain things like printservers or webservers, but living on a windows network. i dont know if he is right or wrong, but that is what he is saying.
“What are you ranting about? Read the article and reread what I have said. That is what I accused the author of the article of doing. You have it confused.”
once again, a quote from the article:
“Unless something has changed radically in the last few hours, Sun’s older JDS Linux runs on the Sun Ray but the newer version does not. Even Solaris10 cannot offer the JDS desktop to Sun Ray users. The Sun Ray server runs on Solaris 9 – Sparc Edition with the older GNOME 1.4 desktop. It does not run on Solaris10 and it does not run on Solaris x86.”
aparantly my sarcasm was a tad too subtle.
“Again if you had actually read the damn article, sigh.”
quote me the part where he says that linux makes businesses successful, since that is what you were responding to.
“Who’s the troll? What I inferred is exactly what the Author intended to say in the end of the article.”
sun has had a wildly contradictory and borderline schizophrenic attitude towards linux for quite awhile now. one day its the future of the company, the next it is just hype, and unix is the way to go. im suprised you read osnews and havnt picked up on it, people have been talking about it and wondering what they are actually going to end up doing for awhile now.
what the author was trying to say is that jds is all well and nice, but sun itself doesnt support it in their desktop solutions. using sun rays, there isnt a way to use jds. it is a valid point, and not that hard to understand.
No he isn’t trying to say that and it isn’t a valid point in the context of the article. What is basically means is the Author has no clue what JDS is. JDS is bundled with Solaris 10. Once the SunRay software is released SunRays running of Solaris 10 servers will automatically get JDS.
“So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux. “. thats the quote. based on the rest of the article, he is talking about unix customers. what you are referring to is the interest from windows customers in linux. two different groups. the unix guys are wanting to replace unix boxes with linux, not whatever combination of solaris and linux sun happens to be pushing this week. windows guys dont want to get rid of their domains, exchange servers, etc. they just want linux for certain things like printservers or webservers, but living on a windows network. i dont know if he is right or wrong, but that is what he is saying.
Read the paragraph preceding the quote you just posted. The author says first cutomers what microsoft infrasrtuctures with linux on the desktop and then customers want linux. He doesn’t make a distinction between cutomers in the two paragraphs. Sorry, it is either his bad writing style or purposeful misdirection. Niether of which lend him any credibility to criticize Schwartz.
Here are the relevant quotes:
But do clients really want Sun’s change? Most want to keep their Microsoft infrastructures while replacing the desktop with Linux. Sun does not offer that solution.
So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux.
quote me the part where he says that linux makes businesses successful, since that is what you were responding to.
I already did, go back and read it again.
sun has had a wildly contradictory and borderline schizophrenic attitude towards linux for quite awhile now. one day its the future of the company, the next it is just hype, and unix is the way to go. im suprised you read osnews and havnt picked up on it, people have been talking about it and wondering what they are actually going to end up doing for awhile now.
The only people who have been wondering about it on OsNews are linux zealots who like to troll on Sun related articles. I wonder who really is the schizophrenic here.
This guy is accusing Dovark of not knowing what he is talking about? This guy is more clueless than my grandmother, (and she is dead). Schwartz states;
“, his readers and others by suggesting a Linux layer exists in a Windows operating system.”
I read the article at least twice and never ever saw that in there at all. Did he even read Dovorak’s article? I think not, as he blubbers on about things that weren’t said, aren’t true and are simply stupid. Enough said.
“So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux. “. thats the quote. based on the rest of the article, he is talking about unix customers. what you are referring to is the interest from windows customers in linux. two different groups. the unix guys are wanting to replace unix boxes with linux, not whatever combination of solaris and linux sun happens to be pushing this week. windows guys dont want to get rid of their domains, exchange servers, etc. they just want linux for certain things like printservers or webservers, but living on a windows network. i dont know if he is right or wrong, but that is what he is saying.
The only other way to interpret what the author is trying to say is
a) Microsoft customers want Microsoft on the servers and linux on the desktop
b) Linux customers just want linux and sun isn’t selling it to them.
Which doesn’t make much sense. And there is nothing in those paragraphs that suggests you can interpret it the way you did, the author never once mentions UNIX. So My first inferrence must be correct. The Author is just clueless and a bad writer, giving him the benefit of doubt.
Sorry to jump into the middle of your argument; however, these quotes make it conspicuously evident how little research the author has actually done.
But do clients really want Sun’s change? Most want to keep their Microsoft infrastructures while replacing the desktop with Linux. Sun does not offer that solution.
That’s precisely what JDS is, actually. It’s a Linux or Solaris desktop into which Sun has integrated StarOffice and other Microsoft compatible applications and components. Now that MS and Sun have a patent sharing agreement, I would expect that Sun would likely begin to integrate support for other MS features into JDS, where possible. How is this not a Linux/Unix desktop with MS infrastructure?
So while Jonathan Schwartz’s disinformation brings him headlines and sales leads, it ultimately doesn’t serve customers who really just want Linux.
Sun was the first company to introduce a Linux desktop solution. I’m a bit spotty as to why you think they’re not listening to their customers? If you want a server, they’re perfectly happy to sell you one of their x86 machines with Linux on it from RedHat or SuSE. What makes you think that Sun isn’t listening to their customers?
Also, WRT to SunRay, their ship date didn’t slip when Solaris 10’s did, so they’ve been forced to deliver a release that doesn’t work with the latest and greatest; however, I’m told their next one will, and that they’re going to release an update soon which will work with Solaris 10. (I have some friends who work on Sun Ray).
Sorry to jump into the middle of your argument; however, these quotes make it conspicuously evident how little research the author has actually done.
Precisely my point. I asked in the first part of my rebutal if the Author had actually used Soalris 10 and JDS. It is evident he has not and has absolutely no clue what he is talking about.
The only other way to interpret what the author is trying to say is
a) Microsoft customers want Microsoft on the servers and linux on the desktop
b) Linux customers just want linux and sun isn’t selling it to them.
Which doesn’t make much sense.
Wow, I read these comments and then look over on slashdot and what’s the first headline I find?
Unix servers up 2.7%, Linux servers up 35.6%
So it looks to me like:
a) Microsoft customers want Microsoft on the servers and linux on the desktop (well, duh, remeber the worms?)
b) Linux customers just want linux and sun isn’t selling it to them.
Can those stats be interpreted any other way? I know they don’t help the Microsoft arguement any, but Solaris is a server OS, not a desktop. And UNIX sales are up less than 1/10th of Linux. This tells me customers want Linux. Why isn’t Sun giving it to them across the board? Is Sun affraid of Linux? Johnathan Schwartz’s comments sometimes leads me to believe they are.
I think what is important to understand here is Sun has noone holding them back, noone keeping them out of this Linux pie, but themselves. They still believe Solaris to be better than Linux. Perhaps technically it is right now. Perhaps it is not. I haven’t read all that code, have you? But we all know in the future the only wind in Solaris’s sails will be coming from Sun’s pocket book. Linux, on the other hand, has IBM, Novell, RedHat, just to a name a few. In reality Linux has the support of thousands, or tens of thousands, of organizations and millions of individual contributors. Thats more than you can say about any corporation.
Sun is dreaming if they think they can compete with that without embracing the ideology that drives it, the GPL. And notice how they never forget to mention their GPL products to show us how much they embrace it. Yet they fight it every chance they get because they think they’re better than us, they think they deserve 35% of the sales.
Boy, I sure hope they’re right. Cuz, see, here in Linux land we tend to share in these markets and cooperate with our competitors to provide customers an environments that works for them, not for our shareholders.
Obviously hmmm didn’t read the article, just the headline:
From the article:
When it comes to operating systems, Unix and Windows servers continued to grow. Unix server revenue was $5.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004 while the corresponding figure for Windows was $4.6 billion.
Linux servers represented 9 percent of worldwide server revenue in 2004, which is 35.6 percent growth compared to the year before.
This is from a Slashot reader’s post “It’s Linux *revenue* that’s up 35%, not count”.
FYI, Adelstein (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jds/) wrote the book on JDS, was instrumental in the JDS release 3 beta (just ended) and has helped Sun engage with Linux customers more than it cares to acknowledge…more than it is capable of appreciating, given the company’s unredoubtable commitment to ignore customers’ Linux queries. No one knows JDS, what it is as well as the present state of its demise, better than Adelstein–not even Sun’s Product team.
He is not saying Solaris isn’t a fine operating system, but rather pointing out how the incendiary and false PR tactics of Sun’s COO are counter-productive for Sun, confusing to the Linux markets, and that they raise important questions about what Sun is actually doing. All of this obligates Sun to address such sincere questions raised in good faith.
Speaking as someone who has supported Sun and its real commitments to open standards, I at first believed Sun’s anti-Red Hat campaign and its anti-Linux rhetoric were so stupid that it was not possible for a company leader to believably engage in them. Evidence now speaks the contrary and I share Adelstein’s concern expressed in his opinion piece that if the Sun board understood what its senior managers were trying to accomplish, and how, then they would feel a more urgent need to re-evaluate fundamentals there.
It’s not about OS religion, but about basic mature business conduct. Particularly when Sun is in a position to DOMINATE the Linux markets (particularly the desktop), current tactics at Sun demand explanation; they indicate that individuals there are neither ready nor adequately prepared to handle the present challenges of the technology business environment. It’s extremely personally disappointing to acknowledge this.
But worse, recognizing Sun’s senior managment’s demonstration of its cultural narcissism, its lack of imagination, lack of knowledge of business history, of technology adoption models and market forces taking effect as we all sit here and watch is the most disillusioning experience of all. Such a collapse of sense as well as sensibility at Sun is unconcievable to the logical imagination; and it can, perhaps, only be explained by the paralysis and rote action (returning reflexively to the cozy womb of Solaris) of 3 years of layoffs and the absense of mature business leadership from atop.
Jonathan Schwartz at some point got the idea that Linux is his enemy, and he can’t seem to free his mind of that image. Sun will not achieve until Schwartz steps down in order to rid the remaining talent (what is left) of such a fundamental negative conception. Having leading Linux capabilities is essential to the future of any technology company with hopes of contributing to the future of computing. Solaris and Linux–under Schwartz–appear to be incompatible, but many customers would indicate a different belief, if one is ready to listen.
Adelstein’s questions were posed to help lead mature businessmen and women to constructive action.
first of all, i misread the part that robert quoted, but i did rtfa. regardless, the response was that of attacking a major point, the article wasnt about the success of linux in business, it was about suns confusing linux strategy.
@hmmmm
pretty much hit the nail on the head. sun doesnt want to stop pushing solaris, and solaris is having a real hard time competeing with linux. it seems like the company is standing on both sides of the fence, with jon schwartz trying to explain how they have a unified business plan. the oss community doesnt buy it. so sun decides that they want to try and make solaris the next linux, and trys to set up an environment to foster that. the only problem is we already have a better environement for it, and as the author said, a bunch of people on the payroll who are blogging doesnt constitute an open source community.
@mj
would be interesting to know if the author was aware that it was a foobar keeping jds off the rays. as for jds being ms infrastructure, i would disagree. star office just makes it feasable to be on a corporate desktop. what they would need to do is full exchange integration, smb support in whatever config manager they use, real nice rdp client, etc. the listening to their customers thing is that on one hand you have solaris server and jds desktop offerings, on the other hand you have customers that want linux in the server room with windows on the desktop, or windows everywhere with linux living on the windows network. but their offering center around solaris on the server, linux on the desktop. if you dont have a solaris server, jds is only about half as cool. sure they will sell you an x86 linux server, but they dont really want to, and will try and get you on solaris instead.
@raptor
sun is the top unix company. linux has been demolishing unix installations (as microsoft has told anyone who will listen for the last year or so). he doesnt explicitly say it, but a reference to “Suns customers” most likely means people using unix. also, sun is selling linux, but its been alternately hyping and bashing it for at least half a year now. my guess is that its as simple as jon schwartz running his mouth without the consent of marketing (who probably wants to throttle him), i disagree that it is deliberate, because angering the linux community has some very real consiquences when they decide to retaliate (look at darl mcbride, the most hated man in technology.) i just think schwartz doesnt know what he’s talking about, which is actually pretty normal for CEOs.
@blitzenn
“While chatting over dinner with the executives of a middleware company during the recent RSA conference for encryption and security in San Francisco, I heard about a secret project. It concerned the development of a version of Linux that runs smoothly as a task under Windows. The project was completed and then shelved. Whether it will ever reemerge is doubtful, but it does offer some interesting possibilities and hints as to what Microsoft may be up to with MS-Linux.
The immediate usefulness of Linux running under Windows is obvious. You can use all the Windows drivers for all the peripherals that don’t run under Linux. Drivers have always been an issue with Linux as PC users have gotten spoiled with Windows driver support. Today’s user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work.”
the first two friggin paragraphs dude….
and dvorak is clueless. i thought about firing off an email asking him why i get sound and networking right after a linux install without touching anything, and on windows have no sound or networking. linux isnt the same animal that it was five years ago…
i disagree that it is deliberate, because angering the linux community has some very real consiquences when they decide to retaliate
Oh please. What exactly are the consequences? Sun is not SCO, nor are they even remotely comparable in terms of influence and power. What exactly is the “linux community” going to do? Hurl bad spelling and grammar at them until they bow in submission? The “linux community” has nothing to do with what is happening to SCO right now anyway. This is like you personally taking credit for knocking out Mike Tyson just because he drives the same brand of car as you. It is IBM who is taking SCO to the mat…not the “linux community.” Sheesh…some folks are in deperate need of a reality check regarding the overall importance of both themselves and computer operating systems in general.
Great article, but there are on point that i disagree, Red Hat is to damm Comercial in these days … but, it’s a life style to survive in the future.
MS can’t have a status that don’t deserve it’s true, but with their new policy they will loose some major % of desktop market.
I believe that in 94% of desktop market, 60% is pirate desktops…
Well Sun, “java tr**” … How can they jump to Linux, when a major number of libraries don’t feat in Linux. “It give me really big hope with Sun “Linux”” …
really? groklaw has had no impact on the case? the communities refutal of literally every concrete claim made by sco within hours has had no impact? the trashing of sco by the vast majority of engineers to their superiors has had no impact?
the initial reaction of the msm was in scos favor, and it was only with a colossal amount of effort that the linux community reversed that. the court case will go the same with or without public opinion, but sco as a company will not. darl has complained about groklaw more then once. if it had no impact would he have bothered, when the best outcome would be to add credibility to pjs site? hell, sco even made an anti-groklaw (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1676532,00.asp) in an attempt to offset the effect it was having. as much as you think we didnt make a difference, darl sure does.
even if you ignore the effects that public opinion has on companies, and the obvious shift that the linux community was responsable for, there is alwas the help that is still being given to ibm. it doesnt matter how many lawyers you throw at it, groklaw has more information on this case then ibm could ever have hoped to gather on their own.
anyways, dont take my word for it, do your own research. i probably wouldnt have believed it either, if i hadnt been a regular reader since it was on radioblogs.
I’m not denying that the community had some impact, but to imply that the community (in the form of groklaw) came riding in to rescue poor helpless IBM is evidence of a significant lack of perspective and an overly inflated sense of self worth.
the community had a very significant impact, not on the case, but on sco as a company. as for sun, they are attempting to leverage opensource into their business. the relationship with the community is downright vital for them (if of course, this is the path they are ACTUALLY on and dont change their minds in a few weeks). they are acting like they dont realise that.
Yeah, those late comers at Sun didn’t jump on the open source bandwagon until 1984. What a bunch of opportunists.
i mean basing their business in an opensource development methodology. sun has not been an opensource company since 84. they are (maybe) trying to become one now.
i mean basing their business in an opensource development methodology. sun has not been an opensource company since 84. they are (maybe) trying to become one now.
Define opensource company? sun has open sourced a lot of stuff since 84 and also contributed to opensource projects.
Johnathan Schwartz at some point got the idea that Linux is his enemy, and he can’t seem to free his mind of that image. Sun will not achieve until Schwartz steps down in order to rid the remaining talent (what is left) of such a fundamental negative conception.
What do you mean remaining talent (what is left)? I think you have read too much into what Schwartz has said or perhaps not enough, Incase, you haven’t
noticed Schwartz has always attacked RedHat’s domination of the Enterprise linux market.
You and Adelstein have conflated Redhat to mean linux. The very exact mistake or deliberate misdirection of which you accuse Schwartz.
I thought writing JDS the linux desktop would have given you some credibility but your response and Adelstein’s opinion piece have robbed you of any remaining.
Having leading Linux capabilities is essential to the future of any technology company with hopes of contributing to the future of computing. Solaris and Linux–under Schwartz–appear to be incompatible, but many customers would indicate a different belief, if one is ready to listen.
Why is it that you linux advocates or Zealots have these delusions that linux is innovative enough to be the future of computing?
You go on to say:
But worse, recognizing Sun’s senior management’s demonstration of its cultural narcissism, its lack of imagination, lack of knowledge of business history, of technology adoption models and market forces taking effect as we all sit here and watch is the most disillusioning experience of all. Such a collapse of sense as well as sensibility at Sun is unconcievable to the logical imagination; and it can, perhaps, only be explained by the paralysis and rote action (returning reflexively to the cozy womb of Solaris) of 3 years of layoffs and the absense of mature business leadership from atop.
Whoa…. So not supporting linux and supporting Solaris is lack of knowledge and lack of imagination. Sun never left Solaris to return to it’s cozy womb!!!
Weren’t you just saying that under Schwartz linux and Solaris were incompatible. Yet you yourself are making them incompatible with your ideological nonsense.
Linux has nothing innovative to offer. It is a re-implementation of old ideas few of which came form Solaris and Sun’s work. Open Source is innovative and great but please don’t confuse Open Source with linux. There are far more innovative OSes out there, Solaris 10 being one of them.
Open Source might be the future of computing/software. It is quite possible that the furture of computing makes OSes the way we know them today obsolete for most consumers. Like firmware on a cellphone or TV or HIFI preprocessor.
Adelstein’s questions were posed to help lead mature businessmen and women to constructive action.
Adelstein’s opinion piece is an incoherent discombobulation of pointless questions, which no business man/ woman would consider pertinent.
Your response has done nothing but show that linux advocates are truly blind and are of the false notion that the linux community is the open-source community.
Open Source is far greater than linux and predates it by just as much. Stop conflating linux with open-source.
would be interesting to know if the author was aware that it was a foobar keeping jds off the rays.
I suspect he didn’t bother to take the time to find sources who might be connected enough to know. The more important issue is that they still plan to support Solaris 10, and the newest rev of JDS, even though it might not be available in the version that is out at this moment.
as for jds being ms infrastructure, i would disagree. star office just makes it feasable to be on a corporate desktop.
This seems like a matter of arguing semantics. I would contend that by supporting MS office, StarOffice is in fact MS infrastructure. It may not have been written by MS, yet it does allow the user to interact with data that has been created by MS applications. This interaction allows both MS clients and StarOffice clients to function together and use the same data. I would argue that this is indeed infrastructure, since in its classical definition infrastructure refers to an underlying base or foundation for an organizational system. In this case, the organizational system is corporate/desktop data and information.
what they would need to do is full exchange integration, smb support in whatever config manager they use, real nice rdp client, etc.
So this seems more like complete Microsoft interoperability, instead of just sharing an infrastructure. That said, this is possible with JDS and the recent Sun/Microsoft technology sharing agreement. This kind of technology may not yet be present in JDS, but the agreement makes future developments of this nature possible. (And also the ability for users to download the functionality for free, and without having to pay license fees to MSFT — all hypothetical, of course)
the listening to their customers thing is that on one hand you have solaris server and jds desktop offerings, on the other hand you have customers that want linux in the server room with windows on the desktop, or windows everywhere with linux living on the windows network.
I think you’re making a pretty large generalization by assuming that all of Sun’s customers actually want Linux in the server room, or Linux living on the Windows network. Still, none of Sun’s actions actually preclude their customers from achieving this. If nothing else, the Sun/MSFT technology sharing agreement makes it more likely that Sun will be able to deliver technology to their customers that plays better with Windows in the datacenter.
but their offering center around solaris on the server, linux on the desktop. if you dont have a solaris server, jds is only about half as cool. sure they will sell you an x86 linux server, but they dont really want to, and will try and get you on solaris instead.
But this is a contradication. You’ve already admitted that Sun will sell you Linux on the server, so why argue that their offerings don’t include Linux on x86 servers?
If you’re trying to suggest that Sun should eagerly sell their customers Linux instead of Solaris, and they should like it, damnit, then I think you’re being unrealistic. All companies favor their technology versus that of their competitors; however, only the realistic companies will sell their competitors technologies to drive their own volumes.
Just as an example, you should consider IBM Global Services. They will literally run whatever you want; however, they’ll charge you and carp at you more if you’re not using their technology. I have friends who work at Nordstrom, which is a *huge* client of IBM GS. They’re also a giant Solaris/Oracle shop. IBM technology handles a lot of the cash register and inventory identification technology. (Just go into a Nordstrom and look at the registers — they all say IBM on them). However, Nordstrom also uses Sun and Oracle for a lot of their other operations. I’m not at liberty to discuss the nature of these systems; however, IBM Global Services manages a lot of Nordstrom’s IT operations (not all of them, though). From interacting with Nordstrom’s own IT department, and other Sun/IBM GS customers, it’s clear that IBM is willing to run Solaris/Oracle at a particular price, but they certainly take the opportunity to advertise, compare and contrast, and try to push their own products into their customer’s datacenters. It’s not clear to me why you would expect Sun to sell other companies technologies instead of their own. I would imagine that would irritate shareholders a lot more than Schwartz shooting his mouth off every now and then.
For all of the crap people give Sun about suffering from the Not-invented-here syndrome, people have also given them an unnecessary amount of crap for not developing their own Linux server solution. Many other companies do this, and it’s far more effective for Sun to partner with them to deliver solutions instead. The Register discusses this topic ad-nauseam in an analysis piece written as a response to Merril-Lynch’s analysts suggesting that Sun needs to buy its own Linux distribution:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/15/sun_needs_linuxbuy/
And, believe it or not, Sun really does want to sell you an x86 server, as long as the hardware is from AMD. But again, don’t take my word for it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/sun_kills_intel/
So, I’d take a more balanced approach to apprasing Sun’s strategy. Certainly it’s not perfect, but it has more positive aspects than the author of this piece is willing to admit. The truth is usually (but not always), somewhere between the absolutes, so if you’re willing to split the difference between Schwartz and Adelstein, and do a little of your own research, you’re likely to come up with something that is both positive and negative, and much different from the opinions presented in this article.
If you’re trying to suggest that Sun should eagerly sell their customers Linux instead of Solaris, and they should like it, damnit, then I think you’re being unrealistic. All companies favor their technology versus that of their competitors; however, only the realistic companies will sell their competitors technologies to drive their own volumes.
As an example to support your statement above. Linux and OSS advocates like to make IBM hte poster child of a corporation that supports linux and oenly does so. Often enough IBM is made the linux hero and Sun is villified..
I would like to present an example of IBM’s sneakiness.
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/factsfeatures…
click on the linux fact’s and features pdf and look at the last page to find this fine print.
Support for Linux running in single system image mode (non-LPAR) requires a network attached pSeries system with AIX 5LTM. Linux running in an LPAR on the p655 requires either AIX 5L in an LPAR on the p655 or a network attached pSeries system with AIX 5L.
So the only way to run linux on a pSeries system is to also have a AIX5L license or worse an entire pSeries sytem running AIX5L on the network.
I wonder why. Let’s see IBM’s philosphy ” we support linux across the board, but if you want to run it you also need to buy our own inhouse OS or a machine running our own inhouse OS”.
This just goes to show how shallow the linux cmmunity is. They believe words and marketing but fail to see the actions. I wonder why IBM hasn’t been crucifies for having such fine print. Why because Palismo doesn’t shoot his mouth off or because he sweets talks you linux linux while stabing you in the back and selling you an AIX license?
Have you ever heard of he saying actions speak louder than words? Sun sells linux just like IBM or HP does. They sell RedHat of SUSE because customers demand it. But they are a lot more open about what they really feel than say IBM or HP. My experience in life has always been to trust the person who is open and frank thant hides thier true feelings and talks behind your back.
Schwartz is right, IBM and HP have crap OS strategies of thier Own no one wants to buy AIX or HP/UX but alot more want to Buy Soalris. IBM’s hardware is more powerfull yets Sun sells the most UNIX servers, ever wonder why?
The only reason IBM ad HP are on the linux bandwagon now is becuase they have been selling x86 hardware for a while and linux is now the mindshare for vloume hardware and the market is for volume hardware. Sun just got into the business and is doing what the others are selling linux on x86 hardware and also certifiying them to run windows. The differentiator here is that only Sun have a viable x86 OS strategy compared to IBM and HP. Schwartz is merely pointing that fact out.
The linux zealots however want to believe that linux is the future of computing and any one not wholly supporting linux is doomed to fail. I have pointed out earlier that many companies are dying even after fully emabracing linux and some are thriving even without embracing it and delivering thier own OS.
A little dose of reality is in order.
In the article Adlestien accuses schwartz of misdirection when he said in an interview that “HP has end-of-lifed HP/UX by not porting it to x86”.
The author then quoted HP’s response claiming otherwise. The response what no we are developing HP/UX and adding tru64 features to it and EOLing tru64.
This begs thw question, what are HP customers going to run HP/UX on? HP has ceased devlopment of PA-RISC (the only thing current HP/UX customers use), Itanic is dead or eventually will dies, Hp stopped thier intanic workstation line, sold thier itanic development team. HP sells 90% of the itanic servers sold over the world and they are selling less in one quarter than Sun or IBM sell in a week. Also maybe 50% of the itanic sales probably run linux and some windows.
So once PA-RISC inventories are gone, what are HP customers supposed to runHP/UX on itanics? Port all thier Apps to a completley new architecture and buy expensive hardware from HP to run it? Why won’t they just buy linux based itanic servers?
HP is essentially killing HP/UX. No matter what intel or HP says itanic will never become and industry standrad architecture, it will be relegated to a niche and eventually fade away. Most vendors have started EOLing thier itanium lines.
Again actions speak louder than words
The Fear Uncertainty and Doubt comes from the posters and critics of the article rather than the author or the article.
Admitedly, the guy goes after Sun and looks angry. But, he’s asking the Sun’s Board to review his concerns. No sense cutting the author for that. Let’s see if the Board looks into the allegations and what happens if they do.
I’m sure the author has been around long enough to consider the flames when he wrote the article, especially given the holy war between Sunnies and Linux people.
If he wanted to please anyone, I guess he could have written a love poem.
Raptor-
“Why is it that you linux advocates or Zealots have these delusions that linux is innovative enough to be the future of computing?”
The Zealotry argument is a distraction from the point. Linux has the legitimate openness that OpenSolaris doesn’t and likely won’t have under Sun, if OpenOffice is a telling case. The Linux model will adapt any innovation necessary. It is therefore innovative enough. Solaris has weaknesses on drivers and installation, which make conversations of its innovation moot at this time.
This particular discussion is about Sun’s bait & switch strategies, which makes it impossible for Sun’s own Linux products to function, much less flourish. It’s not actually about our views of the innovation or qualities of Solaris. I for one think the Solaris project team has full right to advocate and back its product, but not thrive as senior managers spread distortions to the media, channel partners, customers and Sun employees. There are smart, diligent people out there selling Sun’s Linux which can’t be sold under the messages emanating in the Blogspace.
“Weren’t you just saying that under Schwartz linux and Solaris were incompatible. Yet you yourself are making them incompatible with your ideological nonsense.”
That’s a misreading. I like Solaris and think there is a place for both. JS won’t get away with stifling the Linux efforts of his own people. It’s driving them literally mad. Moreover, the market is continuing to reject Sun as a vendor under the confusion. The market is making our point. BTW the market understands Linux better than Sun.
This, of course, is a bad forum for a mature discussion on the demise of one of the most promising businesses and talented companies ever. Call me if you’re really interested.
Linux has the legitimate openness that OpenSolaris doesn’t and likely won’t have under Sun, if OpenOffice is a telling case.
What is the legitimate openness linux has that OpenSolaris does’nt? please iterate through those reasons.
The Linux model will adapt any innovation necessary. It is therefore innovative enough. Solaris has weaknesses on drivers and installation, which make conversations of its innovation moot at this time.
So not having all drivers and a linux distro like installer is lack of innovation. Last I checked debian and slackware didn’t have redhat or suse like installers gento has a compile to install motto. Are they not innovative then?
Windows has by far the best driver support of any OS. It then by that rationale is more innovative than linux. Does that make any sense?
This particular discussion is about Sun’s bait & switch strategies, which makes it impossible for Sun’s own Linux products to function, much less flourish.
I just showed you IBM’s bait & switch stragies which are fasr more dangerous becuase they are hidden witht he illusion of being open. Why aren’t you and adelstien writting about IBM? The difference is Sun is open about it’s linux strategy.
Which of Sun’s linux products don’t function? You mean the entire SunONE middleware doesn’t function on RedHat or SUSE or the Sun supported linux distorbutions? If you are talking about JDS not being up to date on SunRays as being a linux strategy, you are nitpicking and losing sight of the big picture.
JDS is the default desktop on Solaris 10. JDS was never intended to be a sole linux technology. It was first released with a linux base but Sun made every effor to hide the underlying OS technology. JDS could just as well use Solaris as the OS. You of all people should know this. Just because you wrote a book on JDS and painted it as a linux desktop product from Sun doesn’t make it one. JDS was a set of desktop technologies that used linux as it’s initial base.
It’s not actually about our views of the innovation or qualities of Solaris. I for one think the Solaris project team has full right to advocate and back its product, but not thrive as senior managers spread distortions to the media, channel partners, customers and Sun employees. There are smart, diligent people out there selling Sun’s Linux which can’t be sold under the messages emanating in the Blogspace.
Someone should clue you in that blogs are personal opinion spaces. The fact that Sun has an active blogging community and has thier COO and president openly expressing his opnion speaks volumes of Sun’s open culture.
You and Adelstien have however misunderstood personal opinions and blogging and attacked Sun’s culutre for being closed for not adopting linux and putting up a faux public linux supported face while peddling inhouse technologies like IBM does.
Look at Sun’s actions towards linux and Open-source. Sun contributes heavily to GNOME, Mozilla and Apache. Sun has opensourced and offered to the community StarOffice, GridEngine. NFS. Sun actively funds the NFSv4 linux intiative.
Sun has on it’s catalog linux the same linux distributions as IBM and HP do. Redhat and SUSE. Sun has most of thier Middle ware and productivity software available for linux. IBM still has exclusive software for it’s own platforms, not all of thier stuff runs on linux.
You and Adelstien are taking blog postings and inteview quotes out of context and blaiming Sun and it’s mangers for daring to be different. Wasn’t your beloved linux started by being daringly different.
Moreover, the market is continuing to reject Sun as a vendor under the confusion. The market is making our point. BTW the market understands Linux better than Sun.
As a vendor of what? linux or servers? Sun’s server volume has constantly increased year over year. Price pressures and a lack luster highend server market have dampened revenue but the fact is people are buying more Sun kit than ever before.
You really need to figure out how to get real data. My suggestion would be to stop reading Johnathon Schwartz’s personal opinions and read up on facts. You will be less upset and more objective.
Sun has come a long way around in thier strategies, however most of thier strategies in place today won’t play out and show results in the short term, but in the long term they are very viable.
If you have ever followed Sun history, Sun has been in the same situation before and has reinvented it’s self to meet the new maket’s. Analysts have been predicting the demise of Sun for years. Sun is in a state of metamorphosis. Just like when caterpillar makes a cocoon to become a butterfly, the cocoon representive of the the end result or the intial state. Sun’s was in the cocoon for a couple of years and are slowly begining to form the end result of that metamorphosis. What it looks like in the end will be clear soon I presume.
2006 promises to be a good year with Sun’s throughput computing chips, the new APL line and possibly 8 way opteron boxes coupled with Solaris with stuff like ZFS comming out this year. Most large companies role out new OSes after an incubartion period of one year. So Solaris 10 deployments should pick up by 2006 as well.
This, of course, is a bad forum for a mature discussion on the demise of one of the most promising businesses and talented companies ever. Call me if you’re really interested.
Mature discussions can happen anywhere once the intial reaction of anger subsides:) Sure we can always discuss things over the phone.
the cocoon representive of the the end result or the intial state.
should be
the cocoon isn’t representive of the the end result or the intial state.
You and Adelstien have however misunderstood personal opinions and blogging and attacked Sun’s culutre for being closed for not adopting linux and putting up a faux public linux supported face while peddling inhouse technologies like IBM does.
You and Adelstien have however misunderstood personal opinions and blogging and attacked Sun’s culutre for being closed for not adopting linux and not putting up a faux public linux supported face while peddling inhouse technologies like IBM does.
Shouldn’t type before morning coffee:)
I suspect he didn’t bother to take the time to find sources who might be connected enough to know. The more important issue is that they still plan to support Solaris 10, and the newest rev of JDS, even though it might not be available in the version that is out at this moment.
well, i would say a nice chunk of his arguement falls apart around there ;-).
as for jds being ms infrastructure, i would disagree. star office just makes it feasable to be on a corporate desktop.
This seems like a matter of arguing semantics. I would contend that by supporting MS office, StarOffice is in fact MS infrastructure. It may not have been written by MS, yet it does allow the user to interact with data that has been created by MS applications. This interaction allows both MS clients and StarOffice clients to function together and use the same data. I would argue that this is indeed infrastructure, since in its classical definition infrastructure refers to an underlying base or foundation for an organizational system. In this case, the organizational system is corporate/desktop data and information.
i would argue that the orginization system would be along the lines of groupware, but you are right, its a matter of symantics. and come to think of it, i remember reading some gnome blog about how sun was going to grab evolution and port it to java, then rebrand it for their office suite. i know around here anyways, the office would survive longer without word then without outlook.
So this seems more like complete Microsoft interoperability, instead of just sharing an infrastructure. That said, this is possible with JDS and the recent Sun/Microsoft technology sharing agreement. This kind of technology may not yet be present in JDS, but the agreement makes future developments of this nature possible. (And also the ability for users to download the functionality for free, and without having to pay license fees to MSFT — all hypothetical, of course)
well, most microsoft propriatary protocols and formats have been reverse engineered already, but the current implementation for many of them sucks in a big way. im sure such things wouldnt be opensource, but having a linux distro that can seamlessly sit in a windows environment without alot of work would definately be attractive.
I think you’re making a pretty large generalization by assuming that all of Sun’s customers actually want Linux in the server room, or Linux living on the Windows network. Still, none of Sun’s actions actually preclude their customers from achieving this. If nothing else, the Sun/MSFT technology sharing agreement makes it more likely that Sun will be able to deliver technology to their customers that plays better with Windows in the datacenter.
actually, i was argueing the authors point. if you go wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back, this whole thing started with my response to a real crappy troll who obviously knew less about sun then the author. i tried to explain it in a flamey sort of way, and ended up pretty much supporting his arguement (which makes sense to someone who just reads the news, and doesnt follow suns every move in the server market.) i dont know enough about the specific trends sun is seeing from its customers to comment either way, but when an analyst says that this is what the market wants right now and it seems logical enough, ill believe it till i see something that disproves it.
anyways, i believe the point was that suns solutions arnt the kind of thing people are looking for from linux. ive gotten the impression from the stuff i have seen schartz say that solaris is the crown jewles, linux is the afterthought, so im inclined to believe him till i see something better.
But this is a contradication. You’ve already admitted that Sun will sell you Linux on the server, so why argue that their offerings don’t include Linux on x86 servers?
If you’re trying to suggest that Sun should eagerly sell their customers Linux instead of Solaris, and they should like it, damnit, then I think you’re being unrealistic. All companies favor their technology versus that of their competitors; however, only the realistic companies will sell their competitors technologies to drive their own volumes.
Just as an example, you should consider IBM Global Services. They will literally run whatever you want; however, they’ll charge you and carp at you more if you’re not using their technology. I have friends who work at Nordstrom, which is a *huge* client of IBM GS. They’re also a giant Solaris/Oracle shop….(trimmed cause osnews is bitching at me that the post is too long)
the thing is, those solutions (tend to be anyways) linux based rather then aix. im not saying sun should push x86 over sparc. but if they are becomming a linux company, they arnt acting like it. im sure you remember when ibm was one of the great satans to hackers, that has been pretty much flipped at this point. the reason is that they have consistantly shown that they are actually behind linux and are willing to play nice in the spirit of free software. sun on the other hand, is giving the impression that they will sell linux, but dont really have an interest in being a part of it in the same way. a good example was the recent patent grant, sun gives use of its patents to projects that it owns. ibm gives the use of its patents to the community.
For all of the crap people give Sun about suffering from the Not-invented-here syndrome, people have also given them an unnecessary amount of crap for not developing their own Linux server solution. Many other companies do this, and it’s far more effective for Sun to partner with them to deliver solutions instead. The Register discusses this topic ad-nauseam in an analysis piece written as a response to Merril-Lynch’s analysts suggesting that Sun needs to buy its own Linux distribution:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/15/sun_needs_linuxbuy/
ah, yet another blow to the authors arguement
its a matter of perception here. the opensource mentality is “lets all work together to make something great”. the corporate mentality is “lets make a buck in any way possible”. linux guys tend to be wary of coporations, and with good cause; the linux mentality is the polar opposit then the traditional corporate one.
And, believe it or not, Sun really does want to sell you an x86 server, as long as the hardware is from AMD. But again, don’t take my word for it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/sun_kills_intel/
they will, and want to are two different things but point taken.
So, I’d take a more balanced approach to apprasing Sun’s strategy. Certainly it’s not perfect, but it has more positive aspects than the author of this piece is willing to admit. The truth is usually (but not always), somewhere between the absolutes, so if you’re willing to split the difference between Schwartz and Adelstein, and do a little of your own research, you’re likely to come up with something that is both positive and negative, and much different from the opinions presented in this article.
well, just from press release and interviews, i have always had the feeling that ibm wants to do linux, novell wants to do linux, hp sees little difference between selling hpux and selling linux, and sun is getting dragged into it kicking and screaming. again, this may be a matter of perception, but articles like this show that im not the only one who has it. thanks for taking the time to write an intelligent response, they are few and far between around here