Re: End of "Free" Solaris binary licence program - now it's free.

From: GWS (one4sun_at_lios.apana.org.au)
Date: 02/24/05


Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:00:10 +0000 (UTC)

Scott Howard <scott@hunterlink.net.au> writes:

>> It would be nice if Sun could give people the option of using the same
>> license on Solaris 9 binaries, so those who don't have Solaris 9 and get
>> an old machine can use it.

>Sun is driving hard to get people onto Solaris 10. Giving out the same
>licenses for S9 would erode adaption, even if only a little.

Perhaps, but there are many, many systems running Solaris 9 and doing a full
upgrade to 10 might not be feasible in a commercial 'production use'
enviroment. I guess it's different for workstations which generally don't
run services that other systems and users depend on, but with servers it's a
bit strange to take away the ability to still download Solaris 9 ISO's to
create backup boot CD's, etc. from.

>Realistically, no sun4m machines have been shipped for over 6.5 years (SS5)
>with most of the common models (such as the SS20) not having shipped for
>almost 8 years - it's not like we're dropping support for anything
>recent :)

True, but there are probably more SS20's still in use that many of the later
systems. In terms of scope of usability, SS20's have more scope for
continuing to be useful for many years to come.

I tend to agree that no company can fully continue to support legacy
products for an unlimited time, but Sun hardware is very well supported by
alternative operating systems such as the various BSD flavours, and now
we're seeing robust Linux flavours like Gentoo, etc. too. So legacy systems
are going to have tonnes of support from the alternative OS arena long after
Sun's ceases to acknowledge that they even made a product some 20+ years
ago.

The Sun-3's are a good case in point - the 3/60 has been around since about
1985 or 1986. That's a lifespan of 20 years and there are still a lot of
Sun-3/3x systems in use since they're quality designs that go the distance
in low-range server applications. It would be hard to justify supporting
even the early SparcStation's in a current OS since the resource
requirements of Solaris (which is becoming very resource-piggish) have grown
faster than hardware has come along to accomodate the changing resource
needs.

I still have a 3/60 here which works fine. Not much good for anything other
than a small mail or web or FTP server. It might be old hardware, but like
anything else if looked after properly it can have a greatly extended useful
life.

Regards,

Craig.

-- 
Guru Will Sellit! ** 'sunrk' on Ebay ** |  Get Back on Track at the Sun Shack
    Craig Dewick - aka the one4sun!     | www.sunshack.org or www.sunshack.info
Main info website at www.one4sun.net.au +--------------------------------------
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