Let's take these one by one
Posted Sep 23, 2004 16:43 UTC (Thu) by
JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
Parent article:
A Sun engineer on Linux
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reliability: both the Linux and Solaris kernels have a record of high reliability, so I don't know what this guy is going on about.
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observability: seems to me that what's going on in the Linux kernel is a lot less opaque than what's going on in Solaris (though the situation may look different to Sun engineers if they have have kernel debug tools that they don't ship).
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serviceability: as long as Solaris is not open source, if a user has a Solaris bug and Sun decides not to fix it, she's stuck, while any number of independent consultants can be hired to fix their Linux bugs. If he just means that it's easier for Sun engineers to service Solaris, that's because they are experienced with Solaris.
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resource management: don't know enough to compare.
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binary compatibility: here he has a point. While there's an argument for changing interfaces when it can yield an improvement, it breaks old drivers, and even if they are open source, they languish until someone fixes them. And Sun has to deal with peripheral suppliers who won't agree to open-source their drivers or provide specs without an NDA.
In my view, this is Eric Schrock's only legitimate objection.
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