Linux is a better Linux than Sun Solaris10
Two weeks ago, IDG reported that Sun Microsystems announced that it had made another move to encourage developers to port other operating systems to its servers, notably Linux. According to the report dated February 14th, Sun released two specifications related to its UltraSparc T1 processor to make running non-Solaris operating systems on their servers easier. Just two days ago, David Rosenberg writing about Sun for InfoWorld reported: I feel that there is a great deal of confusion and mixed messages. Just a year ago Sun was basically against Linux-I would even say that the perception was that Sun was an enemy of Linux. Now they cite statistics of new servers running Linux. Last week, reports circulated like this one saying that : Sun bought up Linux firm Aduva for an undisclosed sum. Aduva, an Israeli start-up, has its HQ in Sunnyvale Californian and an R&D centre in Ramat Gan, round the corner from an Intel fab. Now, go to the web page which states that Solaris is a better Linux than Linux according to Marc Andreessen. And according to Marc:
These are not empirical statements. You're supposed to take the word of Andreessen because he's an authority figure. To prove it, the Sun website provides you a short bio:
Historically, we might have some problems with Marc's accomplishments. First, he played a role in bringing a web browser to market, that's true. Most people would credit Jim Clark, the founder and CEO of Silicon Graphics and Netscape as the critical role player in Netscape's massive growth. Did Andreessen have the connections to pull off a marketing effort or take a company public? Clark gave Netscape the credibility it needed not Andreessen. You might even consider Andreessen a little dated considering he launched whatever in 1993 and was named whatever again in 1996. I don't know what to expect from Sun considering their Chairman made Jonathan Schwartz president. Perhaps people around Sun suffer from amnesia. After all, they do keep hiring former executives like Bill Joy, Michael Lehman and a host of others. So, making out that Marc Andreessen is an authority on operating systems like Linux may just fit Sun's model of the world but not reality. As far as Andreessen, it doesn't take long in the IT world to become dated. This guy didn't make it with AOL Time Warner. What has he done for us lately besides make a testimonial for Sun and buy some of their equipment? You also have to question what kind of deal Sun made Marc for his reference. Shrewd BrandingIn an area of business where empirical data has little impact, creative marketing, saying Solaris is a better Linux than Linux confuses. Marketing requires some artistic skill. But a ten year old with a set of water colors should be able to tell you that this marketing message may not make the Met. What message do these guys want to convey? First, Sun's attempting to bring Linux users to their hardware according to their own marketing. Then they say that Solaris is Linux. Just think about Logic 101. A dog is a better cat than a cat. Or a Ford is a better Chevrolet than a Chevrolet. Some fundamentals don't work. Rather than cite Bandler and other linguists, let's just apply some common sense. First, by using Linux as a referential index, Sun established a context called Linux. Contexts have a significant impact on content. With context Sun established Linux as the referent. So, Solaris is now content in a context call Linux. Here's a quick example. I used to explain this to marketing people by telling them I want to say three words and have them tell me what they mean. I used the words tide, crest and mustang. Most of the time, people would answer that they were products advertised on television. Then I would add, but what if I said they were things found on a nature walk near the ocean. Well, tide became something in the ocean, crest became the top of a wave and a mustang was a horse. Solaris10 is it ready for prime time?If you consider this article flame bait, then I believe you're missing the point. Personally and professionally I have a problem as an analyst with potentially misleading advertising. Is this misleading advertising? Maybe not, but it's confusing and not even very cute.
Recent Commentary from a LXer ReaderThe following post from one of LXer's readers talks about a recent attempt to install Solaris 10. I have a sailing buddy that has been a Senior Engineer at Sun for well over a decade. While we were racing a couple weekends ago he asked me if I had checked out Solaris 10, as they had completely rewritten the kernel. I got bored one day and decided to download the 4 CDs and install it on an extra drive I had to check it out. I have had similar experiences with Solaris. I had a difficult time getting it to work with any video cards in low-end and high-end systems. I finally got it to run with an ATI card, but when it rebooted it didn't like my flat panel. I discussed the video card problem with a Sun support person who asked me to hook up a Windows computer to a serial port and use hyper-terminal to get into the system to reconfigure X. Well, I don't have a Windows computer to do that and I sent my serial cables to a charity long ago. I had a similar problem with starting X in SUSE but at least it gave me text mode so I could look at X. All I needed to do was change the X windows configuration because I had originally installed SUSE with a different driver. ConclusionUntil recently, Solaris10 didn't dual boot. But Sun has added GNU's GRUB bootloader for the (x86 platform) something that has existed on Linux for years now. You can find their new features here. But watch out for the keys. They list a host of features but those features may be new, enhanced, an existing feature set, a partial feature set or unsupported. The product comparison only shows different versions of Solaris starting with 2.6. Sun touts and spouts lots of things, confusing things. They seem to have an explanation for every confusing message they send. I tend to wonder who would really miss Sun? Would you? |
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Subject | Topic Starter | Replies | Views | Last Post |
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The logic angle | Prophasi | 12 | 3,066 | Mar 4, 2006 7:25 PM |
CDDL? | ahl | 21 | 4,547 | Mar 1, 2006 4:48 PM |
Stop focusing on the license | tadelste | 0 | 2,372 | Mar 1, 2006 1:17 PM |
And You Say Sun Isn't Telling The Whole Story | drgrep | 4 | 3,265 | Mar 1, 2006 12:25 PM |
It's true that Solaris has a better filesystem | mangoo | 3 | 3,228 | Mar 1, 2006 11:33 AM |
Solaris 10 IS NOT what the world is running, Sun mistakes | cjcox | 1 | 3,055 | Feb 28, 2006 11:57 AM |
Solaris advantages vs Linux | tbuskey | 4 | 8,823 | Feb 28, 2006 10:54 AM |
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