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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: QwikSand who wrote (20519)	10/1/1999 9:30:00 AM
From: Michael F. Donadio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Source Code To Be Released For SOLARIS! fool.com Friday, October 1, 1999 "It may be those who do most, dream most." -- Stephen Leacock Sun to Pull Back Shade on Solaris By Richard McCaffery (TMF Gibson) Network computing products and services provider Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) plans to freely release the source code for its proprietary Solaris operating system to catch the rising tide spurred by Linux, an industry-sweeping operating system free to all users. According to The Wall Street Journal, Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer, said the company has completed its internal debate on the matter and just has to decide the best means for distributing the code. Under the plan, Solaris source code would become openly available, but users would still have to pay Sun licensing fees to use it in any commercial environment, the Journal reported. Programmers would also be required to report glitches and provide open access to any changes made in the code. Linux, on the other hand, is free for anyone to use in any application. The company hopes releasing Solaris' code will spur greater use of the system and encourage developers to design new applications, much the same way developers have improved and added features to Linux. Linux is a Unix-based operating system designed by software developer Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The software, notoriously fast and efficient, has recently gained popularity, especially as a potential competitor to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows. Solaris is Sun's Unix-based operating system, used to run all of its popular servers and workstations. What does this mean for investors? Hopefully innovation, competition, and opportunity. Consider Linux developer and distributor Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT), which packages Linux programs and offers a wide range of support services. The company had one of the most successful IPOs this year, debuting August 10 at $14 per share and quickly shooting up more than 500%. It closed yesterday at $98 3/16. Michael

To: QwikSand who wrote (20519)	10/1/1999 1:10:00 PM
From: JC Jaros	Respond to of 64865

This opinion piece was posted on slashdot.org yesterday. Today, after the news about Solaris opening the source, the discussion centers around GPL -v- SCSL (yawn). What nobody seems to get on /. is that Linux doesn't have a brand. Even if Linux were to pick up scalability from the Solaris SMP codebase (which it would need to do modularly so as not to throw huge system speed degradation for all the x86ers), Linux has nearly no commercial franchise (as great as it is otherwise). I think the timing of this whole thing is being precipitated by (here it comes) a pending PUBLISH order to M$ by Judge Jackson. I think even talks have taken place with both Sun and M$ in that regard. There is indication of that from some of the recent moves and statments from M$. With the Win32 codebase exposed, nix does Windows and M$ loses it's leverage. End of monopoly. -JCJ What if SOLARIS was Free? Would LINUX Still Survive?* LINUX: No matter where you turn these days, LINUX is the word. Linux is the biggest thing to hit the computing industry since Apple introduced Macintosh in 1984. I myself joined the Linux bandwagon in 1997. My first experience was Luke warm at best, but as I started to use Linux more often I soon realized what everyone was talking about. As we speak, there are various projects to develop software for Linux. Projects for GUI's, Office software and efforts to port Linux to the new Intel 64-bit chip. It seems like everything that has already been done on another OS is being ported or implemented on Linux. There is a mass media explosion on covering this new OS. Everything from web sites to conferences dedicated just to Linux and it's user base. There are independent user groups (LUGS) popping up around the world. As the Anti-Microsoft warriors spread the word about Linux, many businesses are contemplating whether or not to include Linux in their corporate network. Since Linux is free, it's easy to convince management to use Linux. Also, companies such as Linux Care are providing 24/7 support to make those CEO's sleep at night. The Linux movement as a whole attracts people to it. It's that feeling of rebelling, of being the first guy on the block to have an FTP server in your basement. Call it a movement; call it a revolution, Linux is here. SOLARIS: Sun's Solaris is one of leading forms of UNIX in the world. It powers a large chunk of the world's Internet servers as well as many corporate networks. Solaris is also the favorite platform for many academic institutions. Not only does Sun make Solaris, it also makes the hardware systems (SPARC) that Solaris can run on (Also runs on x86.) Solaris Highlights: Highly scalable (64 processors) Already runs on 64-bit SPARC chip (Intel doesn't even have one yet) Has been proven in the industry Has the support backing of a major company (Sun) Runs everything Linux does (Mail, DNS, FTP etc?) Already has many software packages ported to it. Now has Star Office If you look at what the Linux community is doing now, it has already been done by Sun. Solaris can do everything Linux can do, but better. You have the backing of a major corporation, which is also in competition with Microsoft (Linux people should like that.) My Point: After reading the above text, ask yourself one simple question: What if Solaris was free? How about these questions: Could Linux survive as a UNIX alternative? The answer is no. Why re-invent the wheel? Solaris is a fully operational, scalable and reliable OS. Linux would have no place in a world were Solaris was free. Sorry, that's the truth. (The only place left would be embedded systems) But since this is reality, and Solaris isn't free The Linux revolution is here to stay. osopinion.com Here is the slashdot discussion and link for that (before the fact) post. slashdot.org Here is the slashdot discussion for after the fact Solaris/SCSL news item. slashdot.org