Wow! BIG NEWS! (not Masq related but what the hell..)
Sun now will GIVE WAY Solaris for single user systems!!
Mind you.. this is only the binaries and NOT the source so
its not on the same level as Linux. Also.. Linux has some
very cool features that Solaris doesn't (MASQ, etc).
But.. Solaris is an excellent SMP platform and has some
great managment stuff. But.. once you start getting into
this stuff.. you probably aren't going to be in a single
user system anymore!
--David
>Sun Releases Solaris For Free
>(08/10/98; 8:12 p.m. ET)
>By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb
>Sun took a dive into the freeware community Monday, releasing its Solaris
>operating environment free for non-commercial use.
>
>Solaris is Sun's flavor of Unix. Starting Monday, educators and others who
sign
>an agreement not to use the software for commercial purposes may download the
>environment for free. Solaris normally costs $695, though educators usually
pay
>only $99 for it, said Graham Lovell, group marketing manager for education at
>Sun.
>
>The free release of Solaris will accomplish a number of Sun's goals, Lovell
>said. First, the company wants to push Solaris on both Sparc and PC
>environments. He said the company was surprised by the growing demand from
>people who wanted to run Solaris on PCs. The plan will also accommodate
>organizations that want to upgrade from older versions of Solaris but can't
>afford to.
>
>In addition, Sun (company profile) wants to promote development for the
Solaris
>platform. However, Lovell denied the release had anything to do with the
>growing popularity of Linux, a free version of Unix that has gained support
>from Netscape and Novell.
>
>"Linux is not the competition," he said. "The competition is non-Unix
operating
>systems."
>
>But one analyst disagrees. Larry Augustin, president of systems vendor VA
>Research, said Sun's decision to give away Solaris for non-commercial use has
a
>lot to do with Linux. "Sun knows that open-source, free software is biting
into
>them from the bottom of the market," he said.
>
>Lovell also declined to identify Microsoft's Windows NT as the main thrust of
>the non-Unix competition, saying only "NT is certainly in that category."
>
>Solaris is the leading flavor of Unix, according to studies by International
>Data Corp., and other research firms, commanding a 50 percent market share.
>However, the Unix market has been eroded by Windows NT. Sun itself entered the
>NT business last month, acquiring application-server vendor NetDynamics.
>
>The release is good for Unix as a whole, Augustin said, but is probably not
>that important overall. Five years ago, it would have been revolutionary. But
>compared to other recent free OS and open-source efforts, this non-commercial
>release has a "me-too" feel, he said.
>
>What would be revolutionary, he added, is if Sun released the Solaris source
>code, which would allow the company to quickly address the OS's shortcomings,
>such as its slow speed on Intel platforms.
>
>Users of the free Solaris program will receive support and information through
>the Solaris Developer connection program. The Sun website also contains a
>directory of free software available for the Solaris platform.
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| David A. Ranch - Remote Access/Linux/PC hardware [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
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