We had the pleasure of having a quick chat with Sun's COO, Jonathan Schwartz, yesterday. We talked about a variety of things, including Java, Solaris, Red Hat and good ol' Unix.
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Can any person who works at Sun go _5 minutes_ without flaming half the industry? Really, it gets old.
"He believes that Red Hat locks Enterprise customers in, just like Microsoft does, by moving away from the LSB, by patching and forking code (including by using a very non-standard Linux kernel) and so applications only get certified or only work in the Red Hat codebase and no other Linux distro."
lies lies and even more lies. redhat el has always been lsb compliant customers regardless of redhats patches wouldnt be able to choose debian or gentoo without a fixed lifecycle of stable ABI. Jonathan is fully aware of this and continues to claim redhat is proprietary
Why doesnt he even mention Novell as a competitor?
So instead of being happy about Red Hat actually promoting the use of Java by its efforts, which actually makes Red Hat the only Linux company to really do so, he critisize their effort.
Guess his greatest wish is that Red Hat's Java effort fails and Linux developers moves in droves to Mono and C#. Sounds like a brilliant plan from Sun.
Johnathan is hoping that Steve doesn't extend Apple strongly into the Enterprise. I can't wait to read his comments once Apple makes it clear the Enterprise is a new tier that they will be highly competitive and focused in the coming years.
despite osx being a very good OS it will be beaten EVENTUALLY by solaris 10> and thats on the desktop this is due to a number of reasons:
1. superior technology
2. backed by a comapny that knows how to make decisive decisions (ie moving onto x86)
3. the solaris brand has a greater repuation which can only do solaris credit
4. the open sourcing of certain components will create interest from developers
"I can't wait to read his comments once Apple makes it clear the Enterprise is a new tier that they will be highly competitive and focused in the coming years."
Not unless Apple realizes what Sun finally realized: You can't compete against Intel and AMD. Apple will have to support x86 and AMD64 if they want to compete in the enterprise area.
"lies lies and even more lies."
Not really... Want Oracle to suppor your Oracle on Linux installation? Only if you are running Red Hat. Otherwise you are on your own.
> Only if you are running Red Hat. Otherwise you are on your own.
It's _Orache_ choice. Not Red Hat choice.
Anyone can fork RHEL (Whitebox, ...). Nobody can fork Solaris (like Windows).
Perhaps Mr. Schwartz would care to explain how making it easier to redistribute Sun's Java implementation would result in a fork?
1. superior technology -
---
your opinion. I am sure thats questionable considering the mach/bsd base of OS X now
2. backed by a comapny that knows how to make decisive decisions (ie moving onto x86)
----
what?. Like moving off and on from X86 3 times?. apple cannot do that. its a hardware company using OS X as a means to sell hardware. it will lose an integration benefits if it did that
3. the solaris brand has a greater repuation which can only do solaris credit
-----
come on. Macs have a much much better brand value
4. the open sourcing of certain components will create interest from developers
----
considering that the whole of OS X is a bsd base and apple has been doing more than press releases about a open source version I doubt this is a significant advantage.
"Not really... Want Oracle to suppor your Oracle on Linux installation? Only if you are running Red Hat."
it doesnt mean redhat is proprietary by any means. just that it got certified by assuring ABI compatibility and lifecycle guarantees. btw novell or anyone can do that same if they want it
redhat is LSB complaint and NOT proprietary. both are lies from Jonathan
No, Apple does not need to 'realize' that, as it is not the case. IBM's POWER architecture is quite capable. Supporting x86 and AMD64 does NOT buy them anything in the 'enterprise'.
The priceing on PPC is similar to x86, and Apple is selling HW that comes w/ a UNIX OS which will run on it. If there is sufficient application support, it will make inroads in the enterprise. The fact of it being x86 or PPC machine code makes no difference.
The only people spouting that Apple needs to move to x86 are those who want to run Mac OS X w/o paying for a Mac. However nicely it is packaged as a "Apple needs to do this for business reasons...blah blah blah...", it's really just someone wanting to run Mac OS X on their cobbled together system.
-Kelson
There are a number of things the ponytailed one says that don't make complete sense. Some of them are just fact-impaired market-isms, but one really gets to me.
He said that OpenSolaris won't impace the growth of BSD and Linux, as they aren't competitors.
But then he says the threat to Sun comes from Red Hat and Microsoft. Correct me if I'm wrong but Red Hat is one of the larger commercial Linux businesses, so if Linux continues to grow so might Red Hat. I guess he likes BSD and Linux fine, as long as they stay hobby or research projects.
And if Microsoft is such a threat, why did Sun make a huge settlement and partnership deal with them?
Jonathan wants to be the king of enterprise, that's why he released Solaris into the wild. If he can migrate Linux enterprise users over to a more, lets say, established UNIX he'll be happy. They pay the bucks (support et al). Desktop users don't want to pay Sun for anything... that's also why he likes OSX, it's focused on desktop and has a UNIX core... He knows Apple want mainly the media industry and knows apple will not focus on corporate enterprise, I believe that's also an IBM ingredient. So, Sun is really trying seeing IBM/Linux as the competition not Linux persay...
All IMHO
Jb
He said that OpenSolaris won't impace the growth of BSD and Linux, as they aren't competitors.
But then he says the threat to Sun comes from Red Hat and Microsoft. Correct me if I'm wrong but Red Hat is one of the larger commercial Linux businesses, so if Linux continues to grow so might Red Hat.
Schwarz has always made a distinction between "Linux" and "RedHat". Where "Linux" is everything but RedHat. Which makes sense, since Sun will never be able to compete with "Linux" (no company can), but they CAN compete with Red Hat.
redhat is LSB complaint and NOT proprietary. both are lies from Jonathan
Where can I read about the LSB? Do they publish the results of the compliance tests the vendors have to run to be certified? In short, what are the standards and how complaint is RedHat really?
I take it you didn't read the article very carefully. The only thing that Eugenia quoted Schwartz as calling proprietary was IBM's POWER5 architecture.
Nice attempt at baiting Johnathan into leashing out on Red Hat.
I'd prefer to see the real words that were said, though, not a second hand 'he said, she said' commentary.
cheers,
dalibor topic
You are wrong.
CCJ is under the GNU umbrella and it's just hosted there, but it is developed by Red Hat. In fact, Red Hat is not only the main contributor, but also the people who STEARING the project.
The project moved to Red Hat's hands about a year ago because Red Hat needed an alternative to both Java and Mono.
"
Where can I read about the LSB? Do they publish the results of the compliance tests the vendors have to run to be certified? In short, what are the standards and how complaint is RedHat really?
"
you can read about all that in linuxbase.org
"I take it you didn't read the article very carefully"
oh I was referring to Jonthan's various blogs and interviews in which he has lied about redhat being a proprietary distribution
" GNU Classpath is FSF's project, not Red Hat's"
FSF doesnt directly work on any project like classpath. Redhat developers are the main contributors. I agree that it isnt exclusively driven by them though
""
Schwarz has always made a distinction between "Linux" and "RedHat". Where "Linux" is everything but RedHat"
NO. its totally absurd. Redhat is a Linux distribution. saying that Linux is anything but redhat is pretty false. As a platform Linux includes redhat, novell, debian and several others including sun's own rip off of suse Linux with a gnome desktop on top called " SUN Java desktop system"
OMG! They have people hancking on gcc, too! And the kernel! We're all lost! It's all a big Red Hat conspiracy!
1. Which people would that be, and what are they steering?
"The project moved to Red Hat's hands about a year ago because Red Hat needed an alternative to both Java and Mono."
Please shove me some proof for that assertion about GNU Classpath.
cheers,
dalibor topic
>Please shove me some proof for that assertion about GNU Classpath.
Just read Havoc Pennington's emails to Miguel de Icaza on the desktop-devel-list discussion about Gnome's future high-level language of choice. There, Pennington explains the reasoning.
"1. Which people would that be, and what are they steering? "
That comes from the way GNU projects are developed. Every project needs a steering committee which is responsible for taking a look at big picture and doing design decisions. this is not something unique to classpath . there is a gcc and gnome committee too for example
team list
http://savannah.gnu.org/project/memberlist.php?group_id=85
redhat contributions are available here
http://sources.redhat.com/java/
fedora core versions have already included various java programs compiled with gcj
FC4 will include even more. check the development tree
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development...
The FSF owns the copyrights on GNU Classpath, gcc and gcj. So it is FSF's project.
The contributors come from all over the world, including Red Hat. Red Hat has been doing a great amount of very nice work on all sorts of GNU projects, including gcj and GNU Classpath. They've been spearheading efforts to make a nice, modern implementation of graphics toolkits as specified by the standard Java APIs, among other things.
Neverthless, the GNU Classpath maintainer does not work for Red Hat, as Jon seems to imply.
If Jon bothered to look through the ChangeLogs of GNU Classpath at http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/classpath/classpath/ChangeL... for this year, I think it would have been quite obvious to him that GNU Classpath is far from being a Red Hat project.
cheers,
dalibor topic
"The FSF owns the copyrights on GNU Classpath, gcc and gcj. So it is FSF's project. "
it seems to me that that is technically thats wrong. its a GNU project afaik
Nice handwaving, there 
Now please post a URL for such a post where Havoc claims that GNU Classpath "moved to Red Hat's hands about a year ago because Red Hat needed an alternative to both Java and Mono."
cheers,
dalibor topic
> Where can I read about the LSB? Do they publish the results of the compliance tests the vendors have to run to be certified? In short, what are the standards and how complaint is RedHat really?
LSB :
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_product.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
Details :
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
http://www.opengroup.org/lsb/cert/display_journal.tpl?CALLER=cert_p...
Red Hat will not be LSB 2.0. LSB 2.0 use ABI v5 (gcc 3.3.4+patch or 3.3.5). RHEL 4 will use gcc 3.4.3. RHEL 4 will be LSB 2.1 or 3.0.
Fedora is free ($0) and like gentoo, debian, ... don't have certification.
"it seems to me that that is technically thats wrong. its a GNU project afaik"
Thanks for rectifying my mistake, that's true. The copyrights are owned by the FSF, and it's part of the GNU project.
cheers,
dalibor topic
Sun calling someone else incompatible. Damn. I really can't elaborate or read further.
>Now please post a URL for such a post where Havoc claims that GNU Classpath
Just start reading from here, the whole discussion:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-March/date.h...
It is not part of one email, it is the whole discussion which outlined the "how, what, why" of Red Hat and Java in conjuction to Mono and Gnome.
If you look at the Classpath team table, you'll see that ~10 out of ~60 people are from Red Hat. Hardly a steering majority there.
Gcj'ed jars are coming into other distributions beside FC4. With gcj 4.0 upcoming, and binary compatibility ABI for gcj-ed libraries, all those cumbersome jars turn into nice shared objects, that are much nicer to handle from a packaging perspective. JPackage is doing some nice work in this area to make packages that ship both bytecode for gcj-bc-abi unaware runtimes, and precompiled shared libraries for gcj.
Kaffe is going to be able to use gcj-ed code, too, and other free runtimes[1] will probably follow. Chances are pretty good that other distributions, like SuSE, Mandrake or Debian will adopt JPackage's approach to allow for both free software runtimes and non-free ones to co-exist and happily crunch the bytecodes, native code, or both
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] You know, the ones not steered by Red Hat Like JamVM, IKVM, SableVM, JikesRVM, ORP, ...
is definitly good, but it only runs (well) on every 3rd x86 machine, at least in my experience. So, i dont see it displacing linux, which has pretty good hardware support. And solaris should be outdoing apple and OSX on servers, since apple only became a legit choice for the heavy duty stuff 5 or so years ago. On the desktop? No cobbled together x86 box is going to replace OS X
OK, so you're saying that he didn't actually say what you're saying he said, but one could interpret his postings in the thread in total to have the particular meaning you implied, right?
Then we're just having a small communication problem here
If you actually look at the way GNU Classpath is developped, instead of interpreting the cumulative meaning of Havoc's post on the Gnome[1] lists, it's quite obvious that Red Hat is not steering the project, except by contributing code to it.
They are contributing a whole lot of amazingly good work[2], but a lot of work also comes from outside Red Hat, because GNU Classpath has a very live community of free (and non-free) runtime developers that have better things to do than to follow some imaginary Red Hat party line.
For example, Mono's IKVM is one of the VMs using and contributing to GNU Classpath, and they are definitely not following the same goals as Red Hat, as you can see in the exchanges between Havoc & Miguel I doubt that Intel, IBM or other companies would be working on free runtimes using GNU Classpath if it was a project that was as heavily controlled by Red Hat, as some non-free runtime implementations are.
You see, GNU Classpath allows for a great diversity in runtimes. You can have conventional ones, like Kaffe. Of you can have ahead-of-time compilers like gcj. Or you can have bytecode transition environments to C, like JC, C# like IKVM, or Oberon, like JAOS. You can have pure Java runtimes as well, like the excellent, blazing fast JikesRVM. Or platform specific ones, like JAmiga. All of them are essentially sharing the same class libraries through GNU Classpath.
I'd be very interested to hear your hypothesis on how Red Hat is steering GNU Classpath development in such a way, that people are nevertheless happily writing free runtimes for the Amiga platform using it. Or for Mono, to put up a higher bar
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] Which is again a different project, and as Havoc is not a GNU Classpath developer, you're dealing with the same sort of second hand 'he said, she said' effect that Jonathan Schwartz finds himself up against: people interpreting his words in ways he never said or even intended them
[2] Like going from no swing last year to swing tables mostly working now.
He doesn't see these platforms as competitors per se, in terms of growth, but he believes that all these platforms will equally evolve in the future in their own ways, because there is no hammer that fits all nails.
Well, I'd like to think he's right there. Sun's message to their customers is undoubtedly confusing, but if they think it'll work then we'll just have to see.
He believes that there is no danger of Red Hat going very far within the Enterprise with this new project because of several reasons, including the fact that it would be a "tough sell" for established customers of the Java platform including Samsung, Nokia and Google.
If it comes integrated with the platform and fully supported by Red Hat as a package, then it will certainly work. That's why vendors like JBoss have recently attacked Red Hat because of their use of Jonas - they're very worried about what will happen. Jonas is something that quite clearly works and is a J2EE implementation that is going to have a lot of expensive Java vendors very worried. The Classpath implementation of Java needs some work, but Red Hat are obviously committed to it.
In fact, he fears that IBM is the one that would have the most trouble from the whole Red Hat-Java deal, because as they use Red Hat for their POWER projects, using a non-certified Java version could create potential runtime problems.
No. IBM have their own JRE, JDK and Java software so they don't need to worry. Besides, IBM have made no attempt to deny that they'd like to see a completely open source implementation of core Java. I think Sun's attempts to try and de-stabilise the relationships Red Hat has will fall flat. There's more money to be made out of Sun for IBM than Red Hat.
With over 2 billion devices worldwide running Java Sun is 100% committed to ensuring that anything 'stamped' Java is compatible. Folks really depend on that assurance.
Well, I agree with him there. That's something Java and it's process has brought, and there's no point in trying to deny it. There's been downsides, but that's been a plus.
Sun does seem to have a beef with Red Hat; that much was obvious from our conversation.
Because they're very worried, that's why.
He believes that Red Hat locks Enterprise customers in, just like Microsoft does, by steadily moving away from the LSB
Microsoft locks in through technology. Red Hat simply cannot do that so his logic doesn't tally. The two just don't compare.
by patching and forking code (including using a very non-standard Linux kernel) and so applications get certified or only work in the Red Hat codebase and no other Linux distro.
Ahem. I don't see Sun making any efforts to get Oracle to certify for Debian or anything else, and I don't see much of Sun's middleware certified for anything else either. Anyway, Red Hat's kernels are freely available as per the terms of the GPL so this is obviously a concept he has great difficulty in comprehending.
Such an example is Oracle, where they do not support any Linux distro other than Red Hat-based ones.
Wrong. They support Suse, but it is impossible for them to support everything. You can certainly run Oracle on a Debian or Gentoo distribution, as I've done so.
Jonathan believes that Red Hat, by differentiating the code so much, has created its own incompatible platform, and is therefore virtually pushing customers to continue use Red Hat instead of Debian or Gentoo or other.
Well yer, they would be but the fact remains that Red Hat uses GPLd software for everything as much as they can. Other distributions can use and contribute to that software without any fear or restrictions. We don't think we'll be able to say the same with Open Solaris I'm afraid.
"f you look at the Classpath team table, you'll see that ~10 out of ~60 people are from Red Hat. Hardly a steering majority there. "
Maybe I didnt make myself clear but the number of people DO NOT determine steering committee. the steering committee is invidually elected by project members of which Redhat does have a good share. gcj as part of the gcc project is steered by the gcc steering committee. look at the number of redhat people vs others in there
"Gcj'ed jars are coming into other distributions beside FC4. With gcj 4.0 upcoming, and binary compatibility ABI for gcj-ed libraries, all those cumbersome jars turn into nice shared objects, that are much nicer to handle from a packaging perspective. JPackage is doing some nice work in this area to make packages that ship both bytecode for gcj-bc-abi unaware runtimes, and precompiled shared libraries for gcj.
"
if you look at the code which made this possible , the primary source is definitely redhat here
"I'd be very interested to hear your hypothesis on how Red Hat is steering GNU Classpath development in such a way, that people are nevertheless happily writing free runtimes for the Amiga platform using it. Or for Mono, to put up a higher bar
"
redhat is not the only company with a stake in gcc. ibm and others too are obviously part of the commitee. its a open list. go see here. its not something secret or hypothetical. I dont understand your point that just because mono uses classpath that redhat cannot have control over the project. its not how things work.
mono has gtk# bindings doesnt mean gtk cant be maintained by redhat
"No, Apple does not need to 'realize' that, as it is not the case. IBM's POWER architecture is quite capable. Supporting x86 and AMD64 does NOT buy them anything in the 'enterprise'."
Of course it does. It buys them affordable rack mount servers that can be bought for $700. It also buys them affordable branch office servers that can be bought for $400 like Dell has. You can't touch an Apple POWER box for anything near that price. Their cheapest single CPU model is around $1,800.
"It doesnt mean redhat is proprietary by any means. just that it got certified by assuring ABI compatibility and lifecycle guarantees. btw novell or anyone can do that same if they want it."
Not necessarily saying it is proprietary. But what I AM saying is that vendor lockin is just as much a fact of life in the Linux world as it is in the Solaris world or Windows world. The reason is that you can't get any support for your apps unless you are running Red hat. And support is important in an enterprise environment.
However nicely it is packaged as a "Apple needs to do this for business reasons...blah blah blah...", it's really just someone wanting to run Mac OS X on their cobbled together system.
Correct that to 'someone wanting to run pirated Mac OS X on their cobbled together system'. Like if they think a Mac is expensive and then would pay for OS X! And besides using a pirated copy, they'd claim OS X is too expensive. Say, if it were 2c they'd actually buy it.
> the steering committee is invidually elected by project members of which Redhat does have a good share. gcj as part of the gcc project is steered by the gcc steering committee. look at the number of redhat people vs others in there
What is the problem ?
The huge contribution to the free software done by Red Hat ?
Do you have nptl ?
Remove it, it's done by the evil Red Hat.
I'll be very very very very very happy if other distributions contribute to the free software like Red Hat does.
I understand your points, but GNU Classpath is really, really not maintained by Red Hat.
Neither Mark Wielaard, nor C. Brian Jones, who are listed as project admins on the Savannah page, work for Red Hat. Whatever influence Red Hat excercises on GNU Classpath as a whole, it does so on the merit of their contributions, just like every other contributor.
Obviously, through the quality and amount of their contributions, some contributors are able to shape the direction in which a project is going stronger than others. Contrary to some other non-free java projects, here the development happens in the open, and is open for anyone to participate in, though. And that's what's happening, so that no single contributor has control over another, as you can see in the team page on savannah. It's not any more Red Hat controlled than the Linux kernel, or OpenOffice.org[1].
GNU Classpath is not a part of the GNU compiler collection project, so it's not governed by the gcc steering committee.
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] Both projects Red Hat contributes to, but does not maintain.
> The reason is that you can't get any support for your apps unless you are running Red hat. And support is important in an enterprise environment.
Don't use Oracle.
Use PostgreSQL (on Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Ubuntu, ... What you want).
The problem is Oracle and not Red Hat !
Red Hat does _not_ sell Oracle.
ps : PostgreSQL and MySQL are supported by Red Hat. Red Hat don't force you to use Oracle.
ps2 : MySQL 4.1/php 5.0.1 have a license that satisfy Red Hat. They will be in FC4.
"
Not necessarily saying it is proprietary. But what I AM saying is that vendor lockin is just as much a fact of life in the Linux world as it is in the Solaris world or Windows world"
oh i get support from novell and progeny for Linux unlike just sun for solaris
Vendor lock in is NOT a part of the Linux world. its part of the "proprietary" world which includes oracle. switch oracle with postgres or mysql or your vendor lock in problem disappears. so what ties you to redhat and novell is not linux but oracle
so claiming that redhat is proprietary is LIE. clame that oracle is proprietary and it creates lock in with redhat it *might* be true but thats only true because others didnt take the effort to guarantee ABI and lifecyle and get a oracle certified platform other than novell and redhat
"What is the problem ? "
hey I DID NOT claim it was a problem. I was supporting Redhat.
"I understand your points, but GNU Classpath is really, really not maintained by Red Hat. "
I completely agree. I never said it was maintained by Redhat just that Redhat has a good stake in it and relies on it for competitive performance case in point: jonas support
"I completely agree. I never said it was maintained by Redhat just that Redhat has a good stake in it and relies on it for competitive performance case in point: jonas support"
Sorry about the misunderstanding 
Pretty much any other free runtime has a stake in GNU Classpath as well. Kaffe increasingly relies on GNU Classpath for a great class libraries implementation. It's really a collaborative effort between projects as diverse as SableVM and JC, to name two.
Red Hat, while being a large contributor, does not get to control the direction of GNU Classpath in any other way than any other contributor does: through their hard work on it. There is no other means of control anyone but the project admins have.
cheers,
dalibor topic
p.s. Ask the other devs on IRC on #classpath on irc.freenode.org
More info, just posted minutes ago:
http://log.ometer.com/2004-11.html#24
"Red Hat, while being a large contributor, does not get to control the direction of GNU Classpath in any other way than any other contributor does: through their hard work on it. There is no other means of control anyone but the project admins have.
"
I completely agree again. Just stating that redhat wants to really pursue the java route despite all the bashing by sun and complete lack of support. If I was SUN I would have praised Redhat for all the stuff they have been doing with java just like redhat praises SUN for gnome
"Jonathan believes that Red Hat's ways in the business are not fully honest. He believes that Red Hat locks Enterprise customers in, just like Microsoft does, by steadily moving away from the LSB, by patching and forking code (including using a very non-standard Linux kernel) and so applications get certified or only work in the Red Hat codebase and no other Linux distro. Such an example is Oracle, where they do not support any Linux distro other than Red Hat-based ones. Jonathan believes that Red Hat, by differentiating the code so much, has created its own incompatible platform, and is therefore virtually pushing customers to continue use Red Hat instead of Debian or Gentoo or other."
Sorry Jonathan? Do you know that the sources for all those redhat patches are available for download in ftp.redhat.com? Gentoo and Debian are free to patch their kernel with redhat patches and run Oracle on it. In fact if they aren't doing it it's because they don't have the man power to do it - which is the WHOLE point of buying support from Redhat. Heck, in fact Redhat competitors - ie: Suse - are _using_ redhat patches - and redhat is using Suse patches, which is the WHOLE point of having a opensource OS. Hi? Life somewhere inside Sun? How is Solaris going to opensource Solaris if they don't know what is the real meaning of Open Source?
(and the one reason why Oracle certifies against Redhat is, well, because redhat has got a _good_ reputation and user base and has done a great job and deserves the users they've got...the point is that NOBODY tops sun releasing a linux distro based in redhat patches. Absolutely nothing)
I think Jonathan was simply baited into bashing Red Hat by the interviewer making misleading statements about the nature of the GNU Classpath project. Neither is GNU Classpath calling itself Java(TM)[1], nor is it the whole JAVA(TM) platform[2], nor is it in any real sense Red Hat's project, except in the interviewer's imagination
I'll have to ask Jonathan not to feed the trolls next time 
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] Noone wants to mess with Sun's trade marks.
[2] There is no official runtime for GNU Classpath
How does that support your claim that GNU Classpath "moved to Red Hat's hands about a year ago because Red Hat needed an alternative to both Java and Mono." ?
You've so far failed to show any of
a) GNU Classpath is actually in Red Hat's hands now,
b) it was moved there from someone elses hands,
c) the move took place about a year ago,
d) the reason for a, b & c was Red Hat's need of an alternative to both Java and Mono.[1]
let alone the conjuction of these statements.
There is a list, please work it off, and show me the URLs confirming all those claims you make.
Linking to Havoc's blog about Graydon's findings on C# & Java being very, very similar or reasoning why Red Hat doesn't feel like having a deliberate competition with Novel on writing parts of GNOME is different languages doesn't seem to have to do with either a, b, c, or d.
Just concentrate on validating the 4 claims above you made, without the handwaving, please.
cheers,
dalibor topic
[1] Small temporal logic giveaway: since c occured a year ago according to your claims, you have to find a d that's at least that old, or it couldn't have been the reason for a ^ b ^ c.
> Gentoo and Debian are free to patch their kernel with redhat patches and run Oracle on it.
Oracle works on Gentoo and Debian. Oracle don't need any patch from Red Hat.
> In fact if they aren't doing it it's because they don't have the man power to do it - which is the WHOLE point of buying support from Redhat.
Most Red Hat/SuSE patchs are upstream.
From the last fc3 kernel :
$ cat *patch | diffstat
968 files changed, 52578 insertions(+), 92049 deletions(-)
Most patchs are fix.
Vanilla linux 2.6.9 : 6 463 002 lines !
Yes, Oracle runs on fc3.
"think Jonathan was simply baited into bashing Red Hat by the interviewer making misleading statements about the nature of the GNU Classpath project"
trust me. Jonathan doesnt require baites to bash and lie about redhat. he practically does that on every oppurtunity. read the blogs and recent interview and quote one where he hasnt done the same thing over and over.
no of lies
1) redhat is a proprietary distro - what moral right has sun with all its proprietary stuff to claim this?
2) redhat is not lsb compliant
3) redhat is forking linux
4)redhat is linux
5) linux is not redhat
6) linux is everything but redhat
and so on
>Oracle works on Gentoo and Debian. Oracle don't need any patch from Red Hat.
The part that you don't understand is that companies who run Oracle (and not small-time dbmasters), need CERTIFICATION. Otherwise, they treat Oracle like a demo in these platforms. And these platforms are just not certified for Oracle, even if Oracle might run on them with one way or another.
The fact that I can run IIS on my Mac through VirtualPC doesn't mean that I would get the best out of it if I do so that way.
"The part that you don't understand is that companies who run Oracle (and not small-time dbmasters), need CERTIFICATION"
the part you dont understand it that nothing stops these distros from getting ceritified if they want to. there is no technical barrier.
If only redhat and novell has pursued a certification and got it its not a problem like jonathan likes to project
Far be it from me to argue that Jonathan's blog doesn't make for an amusing reading Or his interviews, for what they are worth.
I just think if the way the question may have been posed is along the lines it is presented in the 'interview', I'd find it more likely that the question would incite an inflammatory reply from Schwartz, rather than a question about GNU Classpath that actually made more correct statements about the nature of GNU Classpath and Red Hat's involvement in it.
A hypothetical 'I've heard Red Hat's stealing your crown jewels, do you like that?' question is likely to receive a different reply than a hypothetical 'What's your take on this independant implementation of the Java platform's class libraries striving to achieve compatibility with Sun's code?' question
But since OsNews didn't publish the actual interview text as it took place, instead of being able to discuss actual words said, people have to resort flaming each other over interpretations of an interpretation.
Oh well, as long as it sells ads ...
cheers,
dalibor topic
> The part that you don't understand is that companies who run Oracle (and not small-time dbmasters), need CERTIFICATION.
The part that you don't understand is that companies who run Oracle (and not small-time dbmasters), need Oracle CERTIFICATION and not Red Hat CERTIFICATION.
Red Hat does not sell Oracle certification.
Vendor lock in is NOT a part of the Linux world. its part of the "proprietary" world which includes oracle. switch oracle with postgres or mysql or your vendor lock in problem disappears. so what ties you to redhat and novell is not linux but oracle
Ah, it must be nice to live in a world where OSS has all the software requirements of businesses met and legacy systems can be rewritten with a mere wave of the hand.
Back here where the sky is blue, the grass green and the sun yellow, however, Oracle is often a required piece of software. Hence, so is an Oracle certified platform.
so claiming that redhat is proprietary is LIE. clame that oracle is proprietary and it creates lock in with redhat it *might* be true but thats only true because others didnt take the effort to guarantee ABI and lifecyle and get a oracle certified platform other than novell and redhat
Regardless of the semantics, the *practical end result* (all that matters out in the real world) is that using Redhat as an alternative to Solaris (ie: because you need something Redhat has that other Linux variants don't) results in just as much lockin.
Of course it does. It buys them affordable rack mount servers that can be bought for $700. It also buys them affordable branch office servers that can be bought for $400 like Dell has. You can't touch an Apple POWER box for anything near that price. Their cheapest single CPU model is around $1,800.
You appear to be under the illusion Apple's hardware expensive to buy because it is expensive to make. This is incorrect. Apple's hardware is expensive because Apple *likes* its market niches and high profit margins just the way they are.
Not to mention if Apple ever did sell an x86 Mac (not that anyone would buy it, since they wouldn't have any software to run on it), it wouldn't be a *PC compatible* Mac, it would just have an x86 CPU.
No, Apple does not need to 'realize' that, as it is not the case. IBM's POWER architecture is quite capable. Supporting x86 and AMD64 does NOT buy them anything in the 'enterprise'.
Since you appear to work at Cisco: I hope it is not too difficult to understand that POWER is not PPC.
The priceing on PPC is similar to x86,
Oh, now it comes to price, you don't mention POWER anymore. How tactical!
and Apple is selling HW that comes w/ a UNIX OS which will run on it.
Just see what IBM will do with Apple when Apple attempts to ship 16 way SMP PPC machines.
... Apple POWER box ...
There are no "Apple POWER boxes". Apple uses PPC, not POWER - have you seen the price tag of IBM pSeries?
"Regardless of the semantics, the *practical end result* (all that matters out in the real world) is that using Redhat as an alternative to Solaris (ie: because you need something Redhat has that other Linux variants don't) results in just as much lockin."
regardless of the technial difficulties of migrating from oracle to postgresql or whatever you are missing the point which is
Linux which is free software does not create any lock in.
Redhat which is a Free/Open source software does NOT create a lock in
what creates a lock in this case is the binary and proprietary blob of code called "oracle:"
if you use proprietary systems like oracle or solaris then the end result is lock in
if you choose to use Free/Open Source software there is evidently and obsolutely no lock in ever possible
if you choose proprietary thats your choice and I have nothing against that. However Linux and Redhat DO NOT create any lock since they are open source licensed. this makes possible clones like caos or whitebox linux
remember that
I've talked to Johnathon as well--this article leaves him up to a lot of bashing. It briefly outlines his own opinions not specifically company policy.
I simply do not see why people prefer redhat over sun.
Red hat Packages other people's works and makes loads of money off of it.
Sun makes their own software and invests billions of dollars and gives it to the open source community for free.
Sun has contributed more to open source than redhat, fact.
Is it simply not enough for you??? What do you people want?? Do you want someone to set sun's HQ on fire or something so you can dance nude around it in a cermonial dance or something?
Some of you pro-OSS anti-Sun guys are really freaking me out.
hah. Does not create any lock-in as long as you use the main fork. There is always going to be forks--especially in GPL'd software. Linux has already been forked into many other platforms.. you smart one.. Thankfully none of those platforms have taken off and are insigificant. I mean look, it takes like 5 minutes to port a red hat linux application to a Novell linux app.. There should be NO minutes. software developers are NOT happy with having to go port to a million different platforms and adding all these links on their website and having to do this over and over it is really unpopular. Linux APPS should run across all distros not just red hat. What really disturbs me is that red hat wont let you redistribute their OS unless if you use some stripped down one like Whitebox or centOS. They are the microsoft fo linux.. WAKE UP PEOPLE. It's all about MONEY. They only reason they renamed redhat linux to fedora core is to please existing red hat users. Go use debian or gentoo or something if you want support a true open source organization.
Let's see.. hmm... It's not hard to think is it?
I think a lot of people here missed the positive aspects of Schwartz's rumblings.
First off, he's competing with Red Hat, which is awesome for Linux users. If capitalism taught us anything, competition breeds innovation. Red Hat is going to have to compete with Sun in the same markets. So if Red Hat develops some great new feature to beat out Sun, its gonna wind up in Fedora Core and get ported out to other Linuxes.
And lets face it, Schwartz is a great antagonist for open source developers. If Sun touts some great new feature in Solaris, it puts the pressure on the Linux community to one up him.
Open source Solaris is great for the open source community for two other reasons. Commerical grade, open source Solaris will force other OSS companies to release their commerical grade distributions to the public. Also Solaris code could be ported to other kernels.
While many Red Hat users tout Fedora Core, it is my understanding that Red Hat's commercial distributions of Linux, i.e. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS, ES & WS, are not available to the general public. If Sun puts out a commerical grade distribution with all of the trimmings, Red Hat will hopefully follow suit and allow Red Hat users to download the Enterprise editions. Same goes for Novell and their professional series.
What excites me most, is that possibility Solaris will be released under a BSD style license, given its BSD roots. I'd love to see D-Trace or ZFS ported into any of the various BSD's. If released under the GPL, the improvements in Solaris could become part of Linux.
I'm a Perlmonger by trade, so I will pretty much leave the Java debate alone. On a personal note, I like Java and I think the community process works well. In the case of open source Perl, the pumpking gets to make the final say, unlike Java which is rather democratic. I believe if Java was open sourced, IBM would fork it in a heartbeat and based on the IBM people and products I've worked with, I think they'd mess it up.
The open source community needs a competitor like Sun, because Sun is competing with the open source community based on technological merit. Microsoft really isn't a competitor from a technology standpoint; the only leg they have to stand on is market share.
If it were under the BSD, features could be put in both the BSDs and Linux.. As the BSD is GPL-compatible.
I firmly believe from a business standpoint that sun is shooting itself in the leg with all the investments in things that they will do nothing with. Sun is concentrating more on software than servers--which is dangerous to me. As a result of this, sun is now the #4 server manufacturer. They should have opened up solaris long ago and had open source developers do the work not pay millions to do it.
I'm sure the OSS community is greatful.
I know the GNU foundation lists BSD as GPL compatible, but I believe fundamentally that the BSD license is not GPL compatible. The BSD license allows modification of source code without redistribution. IE, I can close source a BSD and redistribute my changes in binary form without source code as long as I give credit to the original authors in my license. This wouldn't fly with a Linux distribution.
Secondly, Sun will make their money back with support contracts. The base Solaris 10 support contract starts at $120 per cpu, up to 4 cpus. I don't know of any large company that wouldn't pick up a support contracts for their servers.
Also, if they like Solaris 10, they'll buy other products, like Sun One Directory Server, etc. to manage all of their Solaris 10 servers / workstations. Sun's strategy is pretty smart. Their baiting customers with free software and reeling them in with support contract and other software and hardware sales.
I would love to see a direct partnership between Sun and Apple. Imagine an end to end corporate solution with the most polished desktop operating system (Mac OS X) with Sun servers (running Solaris and Linux, depending on architecture and job) in the backend. Interesting to see which of the corporates bite.
I doubt Sun would release their product on Power PC architecture, but if Apple wants to bite the UltraSPARC bullet that could be interesting.
Imagine a 32 core Niagra chip in your next Powermac.
No, I didn't mean them working on the same architecture, but working together to provide a solution for corporates, perhaps with tools for better interoperability. Although, now that you mention it a 32 core Niagra in a Mac would be nice - wishfull thinking, maximum level:)
**Red hat Packages other people's works and makes loads of money off of it.
Red Hat employs most of the big time developers/contributors in many OSS projects. When Red Hat aquire other companies, they (Red Hat) _open_ the source code of the products that came with the aquisition.
**I mean look, it takes like 5 minutes to port a red hat linux application to a Novell linux app.. There should be NO minutes.
Can you run other UNIX(tm)(AIX,HP-UX) app on Solaris without porting/recompilation?
**What really disturbs me is that red hat wont let you redistribute their OS unless if you use some stripped down one like Whitebox or centOS. They are the microsoft fo linux..
Nice Try (tm)! Can you redistribute Solaris? Not OpenSolaris but _Solaris_. Have you ever seen Windows NT clones based on MS source code?
Hi!
I'm sorry to say that, but getting (and using) Solaris 10 on a x86 is a desaster. It took approx. 15 tries to put the beast on a PC-box. Older ones had always problems with the HD. Old SCSI never worked. Thus the HW-support is rather poor compared to Linux or FreeBSD. I tried those to see that the machine is ok. Finaly I managed to get a cheap Athlon-system (with a new HD) running Solaris 10. The onboard realtek was not there; I had to put in a 3com.
Right, using it does not rock as expected. Maybe I'm too indulged with Linux. First the stability is bad. Choosing the Java-desktop causes the system too reboot (looks more like pressing the resetbutton) instantly. Same with the management-tool. The x-server flickers with 60Hz, / is always full and lots of ports are unnecessarily open.
The whole system is damn slow. Today I booted the machine (Athlon 1600, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB Maxtor, Asrock or something board) and to have a comparison a PII400 (512 MB RAM, Asus P2b, 80 GB with Debian unstable). The login welcomescreen of Solaris appeared when I was logged in WM, xsreensaver, Opera started and on the way starting kamil. Sorry, Sun how could you say this is the future of Unix? Hopefully the sparc-port is much better. Or the somehow opensource licence of it will help to have a usable Solaris 11 on x86...
Do you have similar experiences? My conclusion is better use Linux on a x86!
Cheers,
h.
@Anonymous (IP: 203.115.156)
"Can you run other UNIX(tm)(AIX,HP-UX) app on Solaris without porting/recompilation? "
Thats a spurious comparison don't you think? Solaris doesn't
claim to be HP-UX/AIX compatible however Redhat does claim
to be linux. Sun already provide lxrun which can execute
LSB compatible codes on Solaris X86. This will be
extended with project Janus.
@Anonymous (IP: ---.dsl-coim.eth.net)
"Linux which is free software does not create any lock in.
Redhat which is a Free/Open source software does NOT create a lock in"
If you had a job in a real company you would realize that
this is not true. An enterprise doesn't pick an OS and
then go and choose some applications that they can run on
that OS. It's the other way around. The end result is that
because Redhat is so prevalent in the install base,
especially in corporations rather than hobbyists, that
ISV's generally only qualify to Redhat and Suse if you are
lucky. Hey, you are locked in by what applications you want
to run. Redhat execs were recently recorded bragging that
they estimate it costs $4m to switch distros (wachova
securities).
@David
"Ahem. I don't see Sun making any efforts to get Oracle to certify for Debian or anything else, and I don't see much of Sun's middleware certified for anything else either. Anyway, Red Hat's kernels are freely available as per the terms of the GPL so this is obviously a concept he has great difficulty in comprehending."
Why would Sun be putting pressure on Oracle to support
other distros? It's not really any of Suns business.
Lot's of Suns middleware is certified on linux
Application server
Directory server
Web server
And others
(also, many products are certified on Windows, HP-UX etc.)
Having the source under GPL doesn't mean shit if you can't
use the applications you want to use. This is kind of
the central point. Linux isn't (currently) about endless
choice and freedom it's about app support which is mostly
Redhat.
"Wrong. They support Suse, but it is impossible for them to support everything. You can certainly run Oracle on a Debian or Gentoo distribution, as I've done so."
Do you honestly believe that thats the point? How many
corporations would run an unsupported Oracle installation?
> The priceing on PPC is similar to x86,
One could build a cheaper 64bit PC below IMac @1.6Ghz's ~$2100 AUD target.
I understand that Sun is frustrated over the fact that more and more application developers, like Oracle, prefer working with Red Hat instead of Sun. Attacking Red Hat for this choice by application developers and trying to come up with all kind of explanation models for how linux can be good yet Red Hat as the primary driver and sponsor of linux development is bad just makes Sun look like sore looser more than bolster anyones belief that Sun actually has something good going on with Solaris.
Critizing Red Hat for proprietaryness as long as Solaris is not available under a FSF approved licensce is to dumb. When Solaris is out under a license that the FSF approves then I and I guess most others here are willing to start listening to you. Until that actually is a fact we expect a license that has been shoehorned to fit the technicalities of OSI. Sorry to sound sceptical, but Sun has still to prove itself as being more than good at criticising others for its own shortcomings.
Too many overall topics to cover, I will stick with the oracle one. I worked for an ISV recently and we steered development and deployment of our software toward Linux and Oracle (9i). We didn't want any lock in of linux version. We also had paid for Oracle support and had gracious ISV deployment license fees. Thru that I was able to speak with Oracle support at all levels and summary of linux support came to: We would support a version of linux that you need/want if we will make money off of it. There were willing to give commercial support to SuSE professional as well. It was not easy to get this answer, but I went under the banner of LSB as well.
Unfortunately you, like most others, are missing the simple
message which can be seen if you can avoid getting riled by
some of the exec rhetoric. execs are there to rattle of
soundbites and generate some publicity.
Simply put:
Choosing Redhat because it's OSS isn't the panacea for all
problems. If you want to run enterpise grade, supported
applications then you are just as locked in if you went for
something entirely proprietary like HPUX or AIX. Oracle
don't 'prefer' working with Redhat, Oracle, like any good
business, will go where the money is (as IQH correctly
points out) and in the linux business the money is currently
with Redhat.
The key is to provide open standards and interfaces. If
every OS provided consistent open standards and ISV's
wrote to them then you would be less locked in than you
are currently. The ball is still very much in the ISV's
court though and with what they decide to certify on. You
choose your apps THEN your OS. How does an OS being OSS
help you if your app vendor won't certify on it? The source
being available is of relatively little use to the majority
of sites that will deploy on your OS.
Solaris IS being open sourced and it will be released under
an OSI compliant license. Thats a fact. When it will happen
is still not clear. (something should be in place by the
end of the year)
Just read an article about IBM gaining even more market share. Linux is gaining even more. Sunw, is still losing market share.
Of course, all that could change. But for now at least, Shwartz seems to be just blowing smoke. When shwartz has something to back up his claims, then I'll take him more seriously.
"I simply do not see why people prefer redhat over sun."
Elsewhere, you admitted you were a Sun stockholder...
"Red hat Packages other people's works and makes loads of money off of it."
How black/white. RedHat, Novell take and give -- just like e.g. HP, Sun.
"Sun makes their own software and invests billions of dollars and gives it to the open source community for free."
So does RedHat, and its possible to 'take' as Solaris user given there are packages for Solaris.
"Sun has contributed more to open source than redhat, fact."
'Fact' based on what lies (statistics)? If its such an undisputable fact then please argue it futher with sources and premises or do you think you're somehow under the authority that one believes such simplistic statements while you have financial interest in Sun getting profit?
> 2. backed by a comapny that knows how to make decisive decisions (ie moving onto x86)
Sunw supports linux, then they try to kill linux, then sunw is back to supporting linux.
Sunw makes a half-hearted effort to put solaris on x86. Then sunw kills solaris on x86. Then sunw once again pushes solaris on x86.
Sunw has been saying for five years that they are "considering" open-sourcing solaris. Well? Which is it? Are they going to open-source it or not?
And, while we're at it, how about open-sourcing java? Yes? No? Maybe?
Sunw has some great technology and all. But, it's hard for me to applaud sunw for being an esspecially decisive company.
I hope that Sun never goes away for two reasons:
1) I worry that many mission critical functions would be running on windows. As far as I'm concerned, things such as power plants should be running on a Sun type UNIX OS.
2) We need competition. Right now, we have Microsoft, Apple, Sun and Linux. The more, the better.
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