A new study on the major players in the Unix server market has declared IBM the clear customer favorite and brought to light some serious issues with Sun Microsystems' product line. Most alarmingly for Sun, the company appears to have lost its cachet as the dominant Unix player and done so while alienating customers. Sun finished last in almost every one of the Gabriel Consulting Group survey's categories, spanning technology performance, customer satisfaction and software tools.
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Member since:2005-10-08
Member since:2005-07-06
I think the one thing you also need to point out with government funding is this; it is subjected to the stupidity of the average voter - the nuts who disagree with cloning, stem cell research etc. all because their sky pixie might 'rain the earth with hell fire or brimstone' or claim that abortion plus gay marriage will result in the apocalypse.
As soon as something unpopular occurs, your funding is removed - atleast with business, the motive is either: the person wishes to make a contribution for the betterment of humanity - aka Bill Gates OR they demand a profit off the particular research, for example, the eventual result of years of research at SUN which resulted in Niagara.
Member since:2005-10-08
"I think the one thing you also need to point out with government funding is this; it is subjected to the stupidity of the average voter - the nuts who disagree with cloning, stem cell research etc."
Unfortunately, it is a lot more complicated than that. Remember that one person's passion is the next person's pork barrel project. Who decides what should get funding? And how? There obviously isn't enough money to fund everything.
Member since:
2005-10-08
"I got news for ya. Linux ain't opensolaris. I don't have to play your silly games, Simba. With Linux I can get to work right away and get my job done before you have time to type up your next post."
I didn't say it was OpenSolaris. What I said is that you are critisizing Sun, when what you really should be critisizing is that fact that no one has yet created a distribution of open Solaris build from that source code. Although there are at least four projects in the works.
Critisizing Sun for this is the same as critisizing Linus Torvalds for not giving you a working operating system, instead of just the source code for a kernel.
"Technology must be driven by the religion of science, not capitalism. And that, my friend, is precisely what the GPL is all about and why Sun doesn't like it."
I hate to be the one to break your little bubble of socialist utopia. But I AM a scientist. And in the real world, science and capitalism go hand and hand. Who is going to fund scientific research? the government? They only have so much money to go around... Maybe private doners? Yeah right... You might get $20 here, $20 there, but not nearly enough to fund research... How about corporations? Ah yes... That's where the big money for scientific research comes from... Ah wait... But there is a catch... Corporations aren't going to just fund research out of the goodness of their hearts. They want a kickback... And usually that kickback comes in the form of exclusive distribution rights, or some other form of rights that ensures they will get a financial return on their investment in funding your research.
Yes, it may suck. But that's how it works in the real world. Science and capitalism are inseperable.
Edited 2005-12-15 23:47