Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Stephen Shankland looks at Ian Murdock's role as Sun's chief operating systems officer in a ZDNet article. "Sun has been trying for years to restore the luster of Solaris, a version of Unix that peaked in popularity in the late 1990s, but that since has faced a strong challenge chiefly from Linux. Sun has worked to reinvigorate Solaris by boosting its performance, offering it as a free download, making it an open-source project called OpenSolaris, and pushing a version that runs on servers using Intel's and AMD's mainstream x86 processors. Linux and Solaris are cousins that stem from the same Unix heritage, if not from the same source code. But Linux fans simply have a hard time trying Solaris, Murdock said Tuesday."

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Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 10, 2007 17:03 UTC (Thu) by DeletedUser32991 ((unknown), #32991) [Link] (5 responses)

Linux and Solaris are cousins that stem from the same Unix heritage, if not from the same source code.

Does one have to read further?

Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 10, 2007 18:04 UTC (Thu) by AdHoc (guest, #1115) [Link] (3 responses)

That can be read two ways. I would read it as saying they share a common Unix heritage, but not common source code.

Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 10, 2007 18:31 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, I agree. I'd say it is obvious that Linux is a Unix in spirit.

Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 10, 2007 20:12 UTC (Thu) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link] (1 responses)

I remember when Linux was a unix :) It was one of a large family of unix-based and unix-like operating systems. It was common to refer to it as a unix, with or without adornments like "un*x" to avoid the Open Group's trademark.

This ended around 2001, when Sun capitalized on The SCO Group's ramblings to solidify "Unix" as a marketing term that means all unices except Linux. There was a flurry of studies comparing "Linux" to "Unix", and a general pretense that "Unix" was a monolithic entity with a single market share and that Linux was something else entirely. In reality the differences between Linux and Solaris are in the same class as, say, Solaris and HP/UX or AIX.

I still don't know why they did it. They missed the opportunity to ride on Linux's success by including it as one of the gang, and instead put themselves in opposition, so that all those studies had to remark on the loss of "Unix" market share to Linux.

So, yes, I do think they've read too much SCO press releases :)

Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 17, 2007 9:50 UTC (Thu) by bkoz (guest, #4027) [Link]

> In reality the differences between Linux and Solaris are in the same class > as, say, Solaris and HP/UX or AIX.

In reality the differences between Solaris and Linux are much less than the differences between either and HP/UX or AIX.

Maybe they've read to much SCO press releases?

Posted May 10, 2007 19:08 UTC (Thu) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]

Of course, isn't it generally known that linux descends from the unix family of operating systems? IIRC, Linus referred extensively to Maurice J Bach "The Design of the Unix Operating System" while coding the first linux implementation.

Clearly, unix ideas are the foundation of the linux design. No copying of code was ever needed, since the essence of the unix philosophy has been well known in university CS departments for decades.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 10, 2007 20:21 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (10 responses)

In a previous announcement some person from Sun scoffed at the notion that many people had that in Open-Sourcing Solaris would idealy lead to the GNU/Solaris kernel.

Solaris was solaris, Linux was Linux. It was Sun's job to make the userland match the capabilities of Linux rather then use the Linux userland.

Of course I think that it's a waste and that their efforts would be better spent improving superior software rather then taking inferior software and trying to match capabilities.

(I do understand backwards compatability. You have solaris containers and such so there is no reason why Sun can't offer 'legacy support personality' and even spend time improving it and accepting patches from people that prefer Sun userland over Linux userland)

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 10, 2007 22:42 UTC (Thu) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] (9 responses)

Err, no such thing as a GNU/Solaris, or even GNU/Linux *kernel*. The term GNU/Linux refers to the Linux operating system, which (according to its proponent) is inseparable from the GNU toolchain and utilities.

People moving from Linux tend to be more familiar with the GNU version of tools like ps, ls etc., so it'd be nice if they are more integrated with Solaris out-of-the-box.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 11, 2007 0:57 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (2 responses)

I think you misunderstood. I believe drag was suggesting that the GNU userland, combined with a Solaris kernel, would form a "GNU/Solaris" system. I know of similar setups with GNU/ (Free/Net/Open/DragonFly)BSD, GNU/Hurd, GNU/Darwin (kernel from MacOS X), as well as the popular GNU/Linux setup. The GNU userland is very flexible, primarily because GLibC is very flexible, and doesn't really depend on any one specific kernel. Stands to reason, since the GNU system was developed piecemeal, on other Unix kernels, years before Linux even existed.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 11, 2007 1:45 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

Ya.

I ment the GNU/Solaris system. Saying 'GNU/Solaris kernel' was a mistake on my part.

Makes sense to me, it would be full circle:
The GNU folks originally used Solaris machines to develop GNU before Linux was usuable. So Solaris gave them the ability to make GNU as the bootstrap OS for that, much like Minix was the bootstrap for Linux.

Now Solaris is going GPLv3 in order to save Sun's ass.
(or at least it seems that way)

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 11, 2007 8:47 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Now Solaris is going GPLv3 in order to save Sun's ass.

GPLv3 Solaris will immediately be more popular the CDDL Solaris and over time it'll become more useful as well (more attractive package => more users => more developers => more features, etc). If the difference will be big enough to save Sun's ass it's not yet clear, though...

Slash means "on"

Posted May 12, 2007 1:38 UTC (Sat) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

I've always read the slash as meaning "on", so "GNU/Linux" is shorthand for "GNU userspace on Linux kernel". With that reading, "GNU/Solaris kernel" is just being a little more explicit, isn't it?

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 12, 2007 2:55 UTC (Sat) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (4 responses)

BusyBox makes a perfectly functional command line even in a dvelopment
environment, and a working subset of the Linux kernel's been built and
booted with tcc (google for tccboot).

Stallman claiming ownership of anything built with gcc is a bit like
Microsoft claiming ownership of anything built with Visual Studio.
See "insane over-reaching"...

Rob

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 12, 2007 22:45 UTC (Sat) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

Is it just me, or does this comment perfectly fit the classic FUD template? Taken literally, nothing it says is false; however, taken literally, nothing it says is relevant to the discussion, either. To make it relevant, one has to assume some extra claims like "the fact that it is possible to use the Linux kernel without GNU tools means that it is unreasonable to use the term 'GNU/Linux' even to refer to the 99.9% of cases that do rely on GNU tools", and "Stallman claims ownership of anything built with gcc".

But once you look at these claims directly, it becomes obvious that they are false and trivially debunked; perhaps that's why the original poster stuck to insinuation.

(Plus: an analogy between Stallman and Microsoft with fictional behaviors on *both* sides! Extra points for sure.)

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 14, 2007 5:50 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

Rob was just debunking the statement, "(according to its proponent) is inseparable from the GNU toolchain and utilities" so I don't think that his response is irrelevant or classic FUD. Of course, I'll admit that this topic has long since been beaten to death.

Also, I don't quite know what's up with the second paragraph. It looks like a strawman to me. Has Stallman ever tried to lay claim to GCC's output?

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 14, 2007 9:24 UTC (Mon) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link] (1 responses)

He's never tried to claim copyright over gcc's output. But recent trends aside, there are other meanings of "ownership" :) I don't know about RMS himself, but I've definitely seen the argument that even bare Linux systems should be called GNU/Linux because they need gcc to build. That argument is worth countering.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 14, 2007 15:28 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That argument is insane. If you followed that argument to its conclusion, the free BSDs, a huge number of embedded systems including thoroughly proprietary games consoles, and even parts of Solaris and HP-UX would be `GNU'. Indeed RMS has always gone to considerable lengths (right down to drafting multiple different exceptions to the GPL for different language runtimes) to ensure that GCC's license will *not* contaminate works compiled with it. I've never heard anyone even tangentially associated with the FSF claiming that GCC's license contaminates such works.

salimma's comment was unclear (RMS does not claim that GNU/Linux is `inseparable from the GNU toolchain and utilities', but rather that a Linux kernel with the GNU toolchain and utilities on it probably deserves the *name* GNU/Linux: he's restricting the domain of that name, not expanding it, making it clear that things like BusyBox-atop-a-kernel are not GNU/Linux because there's no GNU stuff there). landley's comment was, well, easily misinterpretable at best to make it seem like RMS had claimed things he has never to my knowledge claimed.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 11, 2007 5:43 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] (3 responses)

From the linked article: "Even if you're spectacularly interested in these technologies, you can get derailed quickly," O'Grady said. One gripe in particular is Solaris' "20-year-old shell," basic command-line interface software that doesn't even support keyboards' backspace key, he said.

Indeed. There are several Solaris machines where I work, and every one of them is retrofitted with Bash, which is also set to to be the default shell for all users. This also papers over part of the differences with Linux from the point of view of scripts. It is amazing that Sun never got around to improving their shell in any significant way.

Sun hopes for Linux-like Solaris (ZDNet)

Posted May 14, 2007 15:29 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

While where I work the admins have set pdksh as the default shell on all our Linux boxes. *sigh*

Now that is corny!

Posted May 18, 2007 5:16 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] (1 responses)

Sorry, I had to ;-)

Now that is corny!

Posted May 18, 2007 13:19 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

With puns like that you'll soon be Bourne off to a much hotter place (the
celestial machine room, the aircon just broke down and they need every
hand they can get to shut things down neatly).