Due to me not working for OSNews these past eight weeks, I've been a bit out of the loop, as I didn't really follow technology news. I did notice that a lot is going on in OpenSolaris land, and today, Oracle has outlined what it has planned for Solaris 11 - and according to some, the fears about OpenSolaris' future were justified.
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Member since:2006-10-06
Sorry for those folks at SUN that worked hard to move the company forward to see now Oracle move in the complete opposite direction. The thing is that SUN should have focused on hardware and integrating the best features of Solaris into Linux, so as not to shoulder the development of a whole OS on their own, much like IBM and HP do currently.
Why should they focus on getting their best features into linux..?
Many of us never fully gave Opensolaris a shot for fear of what is currently happening. We know it has a sound tecnical basis, but it provides very little that cannot be had in Linux and I like the GPL much better than SUN´s CDL.
It's cddl and i personally see it as compromice between the gpl and the bsd. And as a better licens then the gpl. Not that it's relevant here.
Member since:2009-08-26
You mean the same customers that are buying Oracle?
Every technology investment comes trade-offs. To make technology decisions based entirely upon whether or not the code is open is foolish. There are plenty of cases where expensive proprietary software pays for itself over time.
Member since:2005-12-15
Member since:2007-06-16
What are you talking about, " Nobody wants to be locked into proprietary expensive platforms."
How many corporations are locked into Windows or Apple? And they do not care whether is proprietary or not. Companies just need it to work. It is people like you, that do not understand businesses, that care whether something is GPL, CDL, or whatever. The ones making the important decisions don't give a hoot about that!
A major corp. will consider Solaris 11 from Oracle a more viable option than Open Solaris from the so called community. Why you may ask? Because corp. are conservative and try to avoid risks at any cost. When your job is on the line, you will choose what is safe and works. Not you though, you make decisions based on passion on a reality that does not exists.
Take a business 101 course, maybe your eyes will open wide, but maybe not!
Member since:2006-01-28
The only thing that one can take from you post is arrogance.
Bereft of any reasons why a company would bet its livelihood on a on operating system that they cannot fix or control in any meaningful way, the only thing you can add is a personal attack based on your presumed intellectual superiority.
I run a business, a successful one at that. And many of my clients come to me with exactly the same concerns that I have conveyed here. Not small businesses, by the way.
Wonder why Google, Nokia, or HP use Linux internally? Or Hertz or Avis and millions of other companies.
By the way, life is about hedging your bets. You may want to run Oracle, or may have to for some reason, but may prefer doing so on an OS over which you can have some control.
And Linux has greater industry support than Solaris from the likes of IBM, HP, Dell and every major hardware manufacturer or software vendor. The tides have turned, the ship has left. Proprietary Unix has no future.
Member since:2005-07-06
Oracle isn't really in the OS (or even hardware) business, they are in the turnkey solutions business. If you're going to run apache, postfix and Postgres on your commodity hardware servers then they have no interest in you as an OS customer.
The customers they do want are the ones who will run Oracle software on the Oracle(Sun) operating system on Oracle(Sun) hardware, all wrapped up in a juicy Oracle service contract. They want to sell you the whole stack, and if you aren't interested in the whole stack then they're less interested in you as a customer.
Member since:2005-08-27
I like your well thought out post. Oracle can't do much about the low cost or free solutions. Those will always exist and Oracle may not want to stick their necks out there to try and offer free solutions for which it can't monetize. They do quite fine with enterprise solutions and the support from them.
The benefits of Oracle over free databases are the features, support and experience Oracle has in the industry. They can debug from app server to DB what you need and offer solutions including patches.
What they have to offer on the hardware and OS side is exactly the same:
The benefit of Solaris over free OS are the features, support and and experience Oracle has over the industry. They can debug from hardware to kernel what you need and offer solutions including patches.
That kind of support is one that they don't have to guess at. And I've received many OS related patches from Sun in the past for specific problems that were not even announced until they became GA.
Member since:2006-12-07
I wonder how do you imagine that people are doing business today. Do you think that companies edit and recompile the source code of the servers they run their business on ? Open Source or not makes little or no difference.
If some company decide they want to use open source product, they are likely to go to vendor like Novell or Red Hat. If they do, they will very pay steep price, and very much depend on support from those companies.
There is a difference if company is using modified OS as a part of their business process, like some who are selling devices running embedded Linux. But, such companies are small percentage.
I have been doing business with the company which is major Red Hat partner in the region. There is no much difference between the way they do business, and, for example some Microsoft partners.
I am 100% sure that lack of Oracle involvement in Open Solaris would not lose them any significant customer.
Why should they pay their developers good money, only to have some guy being able to download OS for free ? It is a waste of resources. Unlike Linux, major part of Solaris have been developed in-house. Contributions have limited significance.
Member since:2010-05-19
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
They bought Red Hat once, and hired good sysadmins to take over once they adjusted.
They're not alone, I know a few sysadmins that are in a similar situation.
Granted, one of them works at a company where they still use dumb terminals attached to AIX machines, but they also have workstations as well, and these run free alternatives to their former Red Hat/SuSE.
That's about it.
There are pointy-haired bosses, and there are savvy ones.
Both hire people to maintain systems, some just do it smarter. (oh, snap)
Member since:2006-09-01
Because that guy may want to develop a proof-of-concept to convince his boss the idea works.
There are many reasons, and most of them have to do with getting people to put their hands on the product. Linux has better mindshare right now then Solaris does, and that's not going to change as long as Oracle locks Solaris up in an gilded tower.
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Member since:
2006-01-28
Of course, customers will care. Nobody wants to be locked into proprietary expensive platforms.
The larger the company, the better informed they are. After SUN defended and presented the virtues of opensource, it will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle, particularly when mission critial support for linux is available and linux remains open source.
Sorry for those folks at SUN that worked hard to move the company forward to see now Oracle move in the complete opposite direction. The thing is that SUN should have focused on hardware and integrating the best features of Solaris into Linux, so as not to shoulder the development of a whole OS on their own, much like IBM and HP do currently.
Many of us never fully gave Opensolaris a shot for fear of what is currently happening. We know it has a sound tecnical basis, but it provides very little that cannot be had in Linux and I like the GPL much better than SUN´s CDL.