Sun’s Java development site recently posted an interview with Sun’s Director of Marketing for Desktop Solutions. regarding the Java Desktop System.
Interview with Sun’s Peder Ulander
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> Moving forward, we are planning to integrate our Java Studio tools into the platform to strengthen our offering.
Great.. I was always wondering why Sun dubbed this the Java Desktop System, versus the Sun Desktop System. I think perhaps tight integration with Java will help this succeed in ways that Sun’s previous desktop offerings didn’t.
Of course, don’t expect for Microsoft to sit on their laurels. If this gets even a glimmer of popularity, they’ll brutually crush this like they crushed Sun’s last lets-take-on-Microsoft -on-the-desktop-attempt (CDE) with WindowsNT.
Remember that Sun is much greater in Microsoft’s radar that something like RedHat is.
“Of course, don’t expect for Microsoft to sit on their laurels. If this gets even a glimmer of popularity, they’ll brutually crush this like they crushed Sun’s last lets-take-on-Microsoft -on-the-desktop-attempt (CDE) with WindowsNT.”
In this case, it is the other way around actually. Sun is hoping to give Longhorn a run for its money. The new Longhorn Windows OS will have a completely managed API, and all code will run as managed code. Basically, that means all apps will be .NET apps.
Sun’s answer is Java Desktop System, which also runs managed code. But it uses Java instead of .NET (and it can also, of course, run native Linux apps).
I’m sure Microsoft has already taken notice, because Sun got a contract from China for 200 million Java Desktop Systems. Microsoft had to take notice of that.
> So, even if a virus does attack a Solaris or Linux system (it does happen), the damage to the system or user is minimized because of the way the UNIX file structure has been built.
Hmm? What does the ‘UNIX file structure’ have to do with anything?
When describing a product’s features, please don’t regurgitate meaningless jargon. No wonder the word ‘Marketing’ is used as a pejorative.
“I’m sure Microsoft has already taken notice, because Sun got a contract from China for 200 million Java Desktop Systems. Microsoft had to take notice of that.”
I’m sure Microsoft has noticed that, but I wonder if that number isn’t inflated from actual deployments in the next few years to the possibilty of deployments. This is what various people at HP have said in interviews.
Peder says: “It has an integrated Java Runtime Environment (JRE)”
What does that mean exactly? Integrated into the OS like MAC OS X has Java integrated into the OS? Or is the JRE just one of the applications present like it is when downloaded onto Windows?
Is anyone working on a deep integration of Java into Linux?
I think hes talking about how in *nix systems, theres clear limitations of the priviliges that a user has compared to the root user. If a USER becomes infected /w a virus, only their account will be effected. The rest of the system would not become compromised.
A very logical method of security.
cont.
Since every object in *nix sytstems are treated as files(devices,directories,etc). A “UNIX file structure” would be sort of approirate to describe this type of security.
No, not only their account may be affected. Anything they have permission to “touch” may be affected. This includes group permissions which usually involves files shared among users in a multiuser environment. Granted, root-only stuff is always safe (theoretically).
http://morphix.sourceforge.net/modules/xoopsgallery/view_photo.php?…
I can’t imagine a bigger contrast in development models and philosophy! 🙂 Ah! this linux desktop thing is getting curiouser and curiouser ……….
Taking a bunch of free software and slapping it on a CD won’t do it for our customers. If it were that easy, I’d be out making millions! Fortunately for us, this is the strategy that Red Hat and others are using.
That is a low blow. Sun knows that redhat has become a tad unpoplar with fedora, but saying that they just slap it on a CD is plain BS. Even if you don’t like redhat’s move or to begin with, redhat spends alot of time on the desktop. Modified gnome, kde, and open office to say the least.
Even Bluecurve is better then Sun’s theme. JDS also has so many toolkits and Sun dosn’t even try to make them look simmilar.
Good point! Basically root is the only safe account(theoretically). I guess my explanation was kinda general.
> Basically root is the only safe account(theoretically)
Gaaah! Noooo. Root is the most dangerous account. Root = God.
Or maybe that’s not what you meant.
Besides, once you’ve hacked a vanilla user account, a local root exploit isn’t that hard. Witness the recent incidents e.g. Debian, others.
So what if everything is a file? Nothing to do w/ security.
“Gaaah! Noooo. Root is the most dangerous account. Root = God.
Or maybe that’s not what you meant. ”
Actaully I meant that if a USER gets infected, that infection wouldnt spread to the ROOT USER.
“Besides, once you’ve hacked a vanilla user account, a local root exploit isn’t that hard. Witness the recent incidents e.g. Debian, others. ”
That im not really sure about. These “root kits” arent very rampant(ive only heard of 2-3 back in 1998-1999) and were confined to older distros(I think there was one for RH5.2). But according to the press releases, these systems were up2date, so I really cant comment on it very throughly.
“So what if everything is a file? Nothing to do w/ security.”
I meant that, someone could say that important files(say in /boot/ /usr/lib/ /etc/) are structured in a way that only the root can access them. In windows your given enough power by default to destroy an entire system, in *nix only the root can create this much damage.
This is got to be a joke – at least 200 million desktops starting with 500,000 to 1 million desktop per year
Smell like a 200 year process
China has a 1.4 billion population and 200 million means
one JDS for every 7 people in China.
In China, pirated windows or office CDs sell for less than $1.00 per CD-ROM and even at this next to zero price, M$ Office is not the No. 1 player in Office suite competetion, as there is a local company producing a program called WPS.
China is one of the few places that Windows/Office duo can’t make money and I can’t imagine Sun will do any better. They will probably run linux desktops, but the office suite would not be StarOffice.
damn, i was hopping that he talked something about project Looking Glass… now that is innovation!
I wonder if its going to be “offered” as a part of the Java Desktop System…
> Taking a bunch of free software and slapping it on a CD won’t do it for our customers
Duh! This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard these days. Neither Mandrake nor Redhat or Suse slap software on CD and sell it. This guy has never used any distro.
>We have a full staff of engineers working on usability, integrating the applications, increasing stability, and so on
Really? That’s why Sun Java Desktop has and Ugliest ever interface (uglier than win95) and more than 4 widget types different each from another?
In short I think this is a business speech. Sun’s Java Desktop is the worst and most unprofessional desktop I’ve seen in my life. Best wishes tu Suse with Ximian! They can do this a lot better!
Actually I beg to differ, I have a copy of JDS and I find it to be quite an intuitive interface, obviously the default them is something to be desired, but with a bit of customisation, it looks pretty good. It is well integrated, fast, damn stable and responsive. I will admit however in terms of software it is a bit of a bitch, but I am trying to force myself into the java mind set because unfortunatly it and .NET are the future and as much as I love C/C++, java isn’t bad, and JDS is here to stay if you ask me. I have even grown quite fond of it and look forward to any new release. (Although in saying all this I will probably drop down to my developer roots and run Fedora 2 when it comes out
)
Anyway the point is: Do not nock something you know nothing about! It will always bite you in the ass!
You have a copy? how nice
about the widgets, i think they could look a lot better. and the window decorations too.. why not make them look the same as the windows of java apps? It would give a much better overall look of the desktop.
You say it is fast, how fast it is? Is it compiled for 386/486/586?
“Duh! This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard these days. Neither Mandrake nor Redhat or Suse slap software on CD and sell it. This guy has never used any distro.”
Yes, they do. Which is why some of the software that ships with Red Hat won’t even run out of the box. Yes, I have had that happen.
Oh… And let’s not forget the Red Hat 7 disaster, when Red Hat shipped a version of GCC with Red Hat 7 that the GCC people has specifically said should not be shipped. Guess what? It couldn’t even recompile the Linux kernel out of the box. Apparently Red Hat didn’t even bother to test that.
Red Hat lost a lot of customers over that one. Including me. I refuse to put up with quality control that is that poor.
Pal,
>Yes, they do. Which is why some of the software that ships with Red Hat won’t even run out of the box. Yes, I have had that happen.
Could you please name a few ? And does SJD give you any guarantees that verything will work out of the box? Heh, does samba file share browsing work? They use Nautilus aren’t they? So, my main point is that if there are problems in software that other distros have then SJD will have them TOO. They cannot say our file manager is better than Redhats because they use the same software.
And regarding the Redhat GCC issue. First as I know it was a GCC issue not Redhat one. Secondly we are talking about the corporate desktop and GCC is not matter in this case. Of course hats off to Sun if they can provide a better QA and end user support than other distros. But the fact that it is just a Suse + Gnome + Java + Flash player makes me think that they could make something better and organized well before jumping to the market.
Cheers…
“And regarding the Redhat GCC issue. First as I know it was a GCC issue not Redhat one.”
It was a Red Hat issue because Red Hat new perfectly well that GCC 3 was broken at the time, and that GCC was recommending that it not be used. Red Hat used it anyway.
Granted it was GCC that was broken. But the point is Red Hat should have known that, and not shipped GCC 3 with Red Hat 7. They should have shipped the latest incarnation of GCC 2 like every other Linux distro was doing.
“Could you please name a few ? And does SJD give you any guarantees that verything will work out of the box?”
No.. I can’t name a few. Because as I said, I do not use Red Hat anymore. I haven’t since version 7. Red Hat lost me as a customer with version 7. I don’t have time to mess around downloading and installing the version of GCC that Red Hat should have installed by default in the distro, instead of the broken one that they did install. Red Hat’s broken version 7 cost me time. And that means it cost me money.
What I can say for sure, is that I have never had problems like that with any of my Sun servers. Sun servers simply work. And when they need to be patched, the patches are distributed as patch kits that are easy to install. And the patches simply work. All the time, every time. And in the unlikely event that one does not work, it is a trivial matter to backout a patch and restore the system to its previous state.
I can’t say that about any Linux distro I have ever used. So yes, I think that if Sun continues the level of quality control that they have in the past, that Java Desktop will be better organized, and better integrated than any other Linux distribution out there.
And as far as Red Hat, I believe, in their own words “The free ride is over”, when it comes to Red Hat Linux. And “We recommend that people use Microsoft Windows on the desktop”.
Red Hat obviously doesn’t care about the desktop Linux user. Sun obviously does since their product is targeted specifically at the desktop.
Well, its not fedora when it comes to threading under load, but I would say the desktop is about as snappy. I haven’t actually benchmarked any of my own C/C++ programs on it yet though…
In terms of java, you can achieve “roughly” the same look and feel as the GTK desktop. But it has problems with custom theme engines from art.gnome.org, I think over time or at least when java 1.5 is released we will see a lot more integration with GTK
This is got to be a joke – at least 200 million desktops starting with 500,000 to 1 million desktop per year
Smell like a 200 year process
China has a 1.4 billion population and 200 million means
one JDS for every 7 people in China.
In China, pirated windows or office CDs sell for less than $1.00 per CD-ROM and even at this next to zero price, M$ Office is not the No. 1 player in Office suite competetion, as there is a local company producing a program called WPS.
China is one of the few places that Windows/Office duo can’t make money and I can’t imagine Sun will do any better. They will probably run linux desktops, but the office suite would not be StarOffice.
They are taking a defferent approach to selling their software in china. They are basically selling their service to the chinese government to help create a desktop distro based on jds. It is possible that sun will make money because they are dealing with the government, not putting jds for sale on the streets.
From how I understand it the chinese government will be giving away the resulting desktop system. I think the 500000-1000000 a year will get ramped up as the system gets rolling. Getting 200000000 pcs to the people who need them is not an easy task, it is good to see they are taking it in realistic steps.
A good example of how to NOT answer a direct question.
Q. “What about the cost savings? Sun claims that the Java Desktop System is available at a fourth of the cost and 80% of the functionality of Microsoft. What functionality will be missing in the 20% that MS has?”
A. “From the perspective of a feature-to-feature comparison, we offer more than a traditional Microsoft solution, since we are integrating applications such as StarOffice and an email and collaboration program. These services cost an additional $600 on a Windows platform. At the end of the day, we focused on building a complete solution that would enable CIOs to easily migrate their transactional and knowledge workers from their existing solution to a more open, secure, and cost-effective alternative. We have integrated the major application components, made the desktop extremely intuitive and easy to use, and leveraged the security of a UNIX-based operating environment. This saves CIOs money both in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Total Cost of Acquisition (TCA).”