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Perhaps I'm missing something, but their stances seems painfully obvious to me. "Linux should not be used on a server." I must say I agree.

Linux was designed as a desktop/workstation OS from the begining, and the majority of developement is still for that purpose. I'm sure you've all read the history surrounding it, given it's recent resurfacing in light of the "Is Linus the father of Linux?" article/book, so I don't need to go into that.

Other free alternatives have been around for many years with server performance and stability in mind. OpenBSD and FreeBSD were both designed for server use, and are both free, yet people still insist on Linux.

Sun has seen this too. While Sun will sell you a server with Linux on it if you really want them to, Sun believes that Solaris is a better operating system for a server than Linux is. That is also why they sell a Java *Desktop* system using Linux. Sure, Linux can act as a server if you want it to, but so can windows 98 with the proper software. Just because you can use something as a server does not mean it's a good idea. To my knowledge everything Sun has said thus far has kept with that opinion.

So then, on to the "article". Relating to the comment "Solaris would still be losing out on all of the free software .... that would have been made using Mono." from the letter, would someone please explain to me why he thinks Sun would miss out on anything?

The likelyhood of GNOME using mono seems very slim, given that it (GNOME) is not a DE specifically for Linux (regardless of it's roots), and switching to mono would prevent software from running on other Unix systems.

"GNOME is a Unix and Linux desktop suite and development platform.", which currently runs on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD, Darwin (MacOS), Cygwin, and I've heard AIX and IRIX, whereas mono is only available for Linux, Solaris, and MacOS (JIT, not interpreter). That is far from encompassing "Unix", and even so, still gives me an answer to the "Sun missing out" argument? Am I missing something?

It also fails to address the fact that mono will only work with those three systems, and and that leaves out the BSDs and HP-UX, and kills any chance of getting it to work on systems not officially supported. Given that HP is a supporter of GNOME, I would think that anything that will prevent it from running on their OS (HP-UX) is not likely to occur.

(As a side question, does anyone know why there is so much support for the Linux kernel, and so little work being done on HURD? Linux was supposed to be a temporary fix afterall; A kernel to make GNU usable while they worked on HURD; A quick dirty hack that seems to have gone terribly, terribly wrong.)

As to the question of Open Sourcing Java, if you read here http://www.sun.com/981208/scsl/principles.html , you will see why they aren't jumping to do that. (Also, I took the time to check the Sun news archive, and didn't find anything from them, as a company, saying they would, or would not, OpenSource java, only a few things from employees who like the idea. Still, no mixed messages from them directly, although many other sites, unrelated to Sun, have made the claim for them.)

Compatibility is key. I know everyone likes to say that if you have a controlling body you won't have a problem, but that argument is flawed for two reasons.
1) You have a controlling body with all but the core code downloadable now: Sun and the JCP.
2) Controlling bodies are optional.

Take a look at the Open Group. There have been set standards in what makes something "Unix" for years, and only 3 major Unix makers comply with the 98 standards.

Someone mentioned Perl earlier as an example of non-splintering, but there was a major problem with that a few years back when ActiveState started adding win32 APIs and changing the sytax around so it wouldn't run properly on the standard Perl distro. Or, there is the fact that Java already had a branching causing incompatibility when Microsoft made their own VM, which was a large part of the reason Sun sued them a few years back.

Or am I the only one who remembers these things?

Recent history has shown that incompatibilities happen, and happen rather often. Open sourcing Java will likely only make it worse.