Re: Linux Advocates Fear Solaris 10.

From: Casper H.S. Dik (Casper.Dik_at_Sun.COM)
Date: 12/24/04 

Date: 24 Dec 2004 22:28:55 GMT

Hamilcar Barca <hamilcar@tld.always.invalid> writes:

>Sun does want to get new customers for Solaris. Schwartz' rants make it
>clear he expects to get at least some of these customers at the expense of
>Linux and especially Red Hat.

Red Hat is in business to make money and so are we. Business is done
"at the expense of" other businesses, the competition. How one
could do something "at teh expense of" a free operating system is
beyond me.

>>>>>Solaris/x86 is a joke.
>>
>>>> A a Linus Parrot.
>>
>>>I don't think name calling bolsters Sun's arguments, even if its CEO
>>>thinks it's a positive move.
>>
>> Linus said the nearly the same thing;

>So, you do think name calling bolsters Sun's arguments.

You parroted Linus; it's a very simple english noun which was verbed and in
this case I nouned it back which gave it the original form. Now, perhaps
you didn't know that Linus used the exact same phrase.

To me, calling Solaris/x86 a "joke" is far more offensive than
being called a "parrot" of one's Great Leader.

>> to dismiss something as a joke which is used as business critical by
>> many of our customers is downright offensive.

>It's a commercial operating system from a for-profit corporation. Taking
>insults aimed at Sun's products as personal is not wise.

You're insulting Sun's customers and Sun's engineers.

A, I see, the old "commercial is bad" "for-profit is bad"?
Personally, I find "you can use any operating system as long as it's Linux"
far more threatening than "commercial" or "for-profit".

Red Hat is "for profit" and "commercial" as well.

>I see no valid argument to the contrary, and have nine years experience
>proving that Linux is free, Free, "open", and "open source".

Yet you continue to side step any and all arguments.

>I doubt if any Unix-like operating system is 100% compliant with any
>standard. Certainly, Linux does not meet the standards for Unix
>compliance -- nor is it so intended -- and it does not meet POSIX
>compliance.

The point with POSIX threads is that Linux purposely avoided being
standard compliant for no valid technical reason other than "we like
our threads better even though we really have no experience with them".

>You said that before, but you didn't provide any evidence. Non-standard
>extensions do not in and of themselves cause a product to be proprietary.
>Use of such extensions probably does.

I did, just now, the fact that gcc forces other compiler vendors
to be "compatible" just as others have to follow M$ on some of their stuff
makes them as bad. I have no problem with experimenting with new
language features; I do have a problem with not flagging them by default.

>No, it isn't.

You haven't really tried, have you?

>Then, in your words, you don't know what is. Why not read the record of
>DoJ v. Microsoft or Sun v. Microsoft, and stop using pejoratives which do
>not boost your arguments.

At least, I am using arguments and you're not.

>I intended merely to criticize the use of pejoratives. Given the choice
>between the plague and gcc, should I have any doubt as to which you would
>choose?

Neither. (Though the plague can generally be cured using an appropriate
antibiotic as long as you diagnose it early enough; I also tend to avoid
rodents of any sort whenever I am in California as that is one of
the few places where the plague is indiginous in the rodent population;
there's no known cure for gcc)

>Yes, it was. I can't say with any certainty whatsoever that no programmer
>would choose gcc before choosing the plague.

That's not what "avoiding like the plague" means.

Casper 

-- 
Expressed in this posting are my opinions.  They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.