[NTLUG:Discuss] GNU and Solaris -- WAS: O'Reilly Discussion Guidelines

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Thu, 2004-09-09 at 00:36, Will Senn wrote:
> Bryan ... I just had to chime in ...

I will accept how anyone posts, and _never_ complain (except politics). 
I merely posted how I approach things, because of the guidelines I
learned before even the web hit.

> Now, where were we, oh yeah, staying on topic (not) - anybody sign up 
> for that free Solaris 10 DVD offer?

How is Solaris "not quite on-topic"?

You _do_ know that SunOS/Solaris was _the_ "original" GNU platform,
don't you?  In fact, as lot of Linux adoption comes from Sun
administrators (myself included ;-).  I just have to roll my eyes when
the IT media asks "Why is Solaris is so Linux compatible?"

Part of Linux's popularity begins in the ARPA-4 -- such is where where
Larry Augustin, Michael Tiemann and many others come.  If you don't know
who they are, you should read up on them.  If you don't want to, at
least see the movie "Revolution OS."  History is a huge part of
understanding UNIX/Linux.**

Frankly, I think the sooner Sun starts shipping a GNU/Solaris, the
sooner I'll reconsider it.  They can't GPL the Solaris kernel since they
re-licensed UNIX from SCO recently (they were one of the few companies
that did _not_ have a perpetual UNIX System V license from AT&T, along
with Microsoft), but they could ship an entire GNU-based distribution
around their non-GNU kernel.

God knows they made the switch from UCB (BSD) in SunOS 4.1/Solaris 1 to
SunOS 5/Solaris 2, so they can do it again.  Just include the SV (System
V) compatibility subsystem like they did for UCB, and it will work. 
Rutgers has already integrated RPM into Sun's PKG system, so you can
view information and manage it.  They also have APT for retrieving RPMs.

But some people, even in the Sun community, just have an attitude on
adopting anything that is "not invented here" (NIH).

-- Bryan

**SIDE NOTE:  Sometimes I joke that the only reason Red Hat isn't called
Cygnus is because Red Hat IPO's first.  Cygnus was bigger, operated well
into the black and is probably the most critical commercial entity in
the entire Freedomware world.  People can't understand why Red Hat went
from operating heavily in the red to near-black _before_ Red Hat
Enteprise Linux ever came about.  It has something to do with when they
bought that company that "little company" was 3x their size with 10x the
revenue.  ;-ppp

-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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