[LUAU] Open Source Pizza - October 18, 2005

[Angela Kahealani]

To keep this posting on topic for the Subject line
(versus hijacking the thread)
what IS the recipe for the Pizza?
(Open Source Pizza).

On Sun, 2005-10-16 07:05, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
> Angela Kahealani wrote:
> > so, what's YOUR experience with OS?
>
> Very "negative" (note the "minus one" ranking that I gave)--I will
> try to discuss that in separate threads.  That's why I am asking
> whether anyone here has a different experience.  I would very much
> like to hear it.

It looks to me like one of the most interesting, though not least 
expensive ways to try out Open Solaris is on a JBox:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8249150994.html

> I compared OpenSolaris with Linux, b/c Sun's CEO Scott McNealy
> declared that we should consider Solaris as a "variant of Linux".  Of
> course this was six months, his position might have changed.

Sun's position seems to change daily. duh. (daily cycle ;-)
and "please consider our 'open' software" like you'd consider Linux 
fails miserably as near as I can tell by their license's terms.
You gotta be signifigantly ahead of Linux in some area to justify taking 
the proprietary license "hit". 

> But it is probably not fair to compare OS with Linux, as OS was
> debuted just four months ago.  That said, if Sun couldn't  quickly
> get more developers/end-users interested in OS beyond the existing
> Solaris community, I doubt anything will be different years from now
> (& the migration to Linux will continue).

My prediction unless they GPL the source. GPL wins in the long run.
Why? because it actually reflects the true spiritual nature of human 
souls. Coomerce is anti-life.

> In my brief adventure with OS, I also had the pleasure to encounter
> quite a few very sincere, hard-working, and earnest Sun employees. 

Doing what they're paid to do.

> But there is also a huge (as I have sensed) internal politics.  "Too
> little, too late" may not be the only problem, internal rigidity
> (which has been perceived as "arrogance") may be another.

$ are addictive, and Sun made plenty $ on government contracts, and the 
general commercial world is not so freely spending of $ as the 
military. Lower our prices?

> Since both you and Jim, among perhaps several others, are Sun alumni,
> I apologize if I said something incorrect.  Wayne

Being a Sun Microsystems alumni doesn't mean that {I,we} {a,we}re in 
agreement with any particular Sun policies. Otherwise, we might still 
"be there". Rigid arrogance is not new in upper management there.

Especially being a Sun alumni, I've periodically investigated the 
possibility of running a Sun system, and in later years with 
OpenSolaris, the possibility of running OS on x86 hardware, and every 
evaluation I've done since 1985 shows it costs more to do less. 
HOWEVER, it'll probably keep doing less for more 24/7 for decades...

Sun may still trump the server farm (soon to be replaced with IBM/Linux)
but workstations are moving to Linux on x86. Even Apple is 90% of the 
way into the BSD/GNU/Linux/OSS movement. I suspect a merger of 
Windblows with MacOSuX to keep Mac-rosoft afloat.

I recently saw a stastic that 90% of computers are infected with 
spyware, and I'm sure that correlates with MicroSoft market share.
That has to end, and only MacOSuX can rescue them. MSOrifice on MacOSuX 
is the closest thing to competition Linux has. As OpenOffice perfects, 
and as xorg and gnome and kde keep growing, there is ever less of an 
edge that either MS or Apple can field.

Back in 1982 when I hired into 3Com to do the hardware diagnostic on the 
Ethernet controller 3Com subcontracted to build for the Apple Lisa, 
3Com was putting all it's energy into PC e-mail and had JUST dumped 
their entire product line of Unix compatible products. I argued with 
Bob Metcalfe that Unix was the future, and they were fools. I, of 
course, as an engineer, was correct... only it's now called Linux, and 
Bob Metcalfe, the entrepreneuer (did I get enough "e"'s in there?) was 
correct that to maximise HIS profits, he had to foist on the world 
crappy software for 2 decades while Richard Stallman and the GNU 
company replaced the expensive LICENSE for superior technology. 
The only reason it's not already a unix world is all the profit that 
AT&T and Sun Microsystems had to make on Licenses. Once you free the 
license (GPL), there's no stopping OSS.

So, are Apple's semiopen license or Sun's semiopen license any 
competition for GNU/Linux? No, they're just signs of corporations 
seeing the writing on the wall about their time being limited.

We set out to replace your hierarchically controlled profitmongering 
with sovereign software, and triumph we will. 

Anyone not yet seen the movie "The Corporation"? GPL is the antidote.
GNU/Linux on x86 IS ALREADY the defacto standard for introduction of any 
new computing technology. Everyone else is now playing "catch-up".

Aloha, Kahealani

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Copyright 2005 Angela Kahealani http://www.kahealani.com/