Friday, November 03, 2006

A Linux Win?

Microsoft has inked a unique deal with Novell that will make Windows and SuSE Linux co-exist peacefully in corporate data centers. Is this a win for Linux as Red Hat claims?

I don't know, but it is sure an acknowledgment by Redmond of the growing popularity of Linux.

Now what is the future of Unix (AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris)? More importantly, the one trick pony company called Sun? Why would corporations pay premium for Unix and the necessary expensive hardware? What's your take?

4 comments:

  1. Sun is more than a One trick
    (NFS ?) pony after they bought STK.
    AIX now has good FS in JFS2 and
    virtualization techniques.
    HP/UX is like 1/2 trick pony ?
    Good OS to me is a good FS and well thought out security features.

    I have seen lots of tricks in Linux
    and community spirit with inspiration from the Free Sex era
    of the bygone days. But, yet NO kudos from me for Linux. I wouldn't
    turn my enterprise over to Penguins yet I am happy with AIX and Solaris.

    As a Multician for me
    There is but one OS - Multics.
    The rest are legitimate or illegitmate children of mother
    Multics.
    visit www.multicians.org.

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  2. Exile from the real world..

    Multics.. learnt something today..

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  3. SUN is no one trick pony. The OS Solaris alone is a bundle of innovations that the linux kernel has already incorporated into itself. Think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The kernel memory slab allocator, the page cache mechanism in the virtual memory manager are only but a few examples of technologies where the linux kernel folks decided to emulate Solaris. These again were only possible due to SUN's confidence in itself in publishing these technologies as universally accessible usenix papers. The confidence stems from continuing innovations such as the widely acclaimed dtrace that have gone into the latest Solaris kernel.

    Iam not a Sun employee, but an engineer who has worked on both Linux and Solaris kernels, with a lot of appreciation for what Solaris has contributed to Unixes in general.

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  4. Ganesan

    Besides Solaris and the associated hardware.. what have they got? I am not sure if they made any money off of java..moreover, it is in the open domain now anyways..

    Another pointer is SUNW stock price.. It hasn't gone past USD 5 - 6 in the last few years..

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