[advocacy-discuss] Any responses to this Infoworld Article ?

[Jason King]

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 3:10 PM, andrew <andrum04 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Try Ben's response here:
>
> http://cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=972
>
> What struck me more than the parts Ben has picked out was this quote from Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation CEO:
>
> "The future is Linux and Microsoft Windows"
>
> In other words - we're not scared of Microsoft, but we're pissing out pants about the current resurgence of Solaris. The first page of the article is then Mr Zemlin telling us how hopeless he thinks Solaris is, although the author apparently believes "that Solaris has some superior features is not really in question."
>
> The only concrete example of how Solaris is a dying duck that is cited is one customer who replaced SPARC Solaris systems with x86 Linux systems. Well blow me if that isn't a lot cheaper to support and runs faster - of course it would! These SPARC systems are probably a good few years old, like 5+, so hardware support from Sun will be costing plenty and as far as speed goes - well everyone knows Moore's Law.
>
> I think the more the Linux "establishment" humph and haw about Solaris, the more they show they are worried Solaris is a serious threat.
>
> (I also don't think it is any coincidence that Linus recently allowed the addition of a kernel debugger to Linux on the same two platforms Sun Solaris runs on - namely x86 and SPARC).

As others point out, it is amusing to see Linux employ the same type
of FUD that was once upon a time hurled at them by Microsoft.

One thing that would help is more wide distribution of articles such as this:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/How-the-FAA-Is-Bringing-Its-Air-Traffic-Systems-into-the-21st-Century/

that highlight OpenSolaris.  Right now, it seems every time you see
'company replaced 10+ year old sparc servers (that never had a
problem), with brand new quad-core xeons and Linux (because it's
trendy) and saved so much money and got better performance!'  (of
course tilted to imply Linux and not Moore's Law was the reason behind
it), the article is plastered all over.  Those less technically minded
will just see 'Linux good, Solaris bad' and make decisions
accordingly.  More *solaris success stories can help counteract that
effect.