+------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | On (07/10/05 05:57), Dennis Clarke wrote: | | Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 05:57:26 -0700 | From: Dennis Clarke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | To: Claire Giordano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Cc: [email protected] | Subject: [osol-discuss] Re: Interested in seeing Zimbra on Solaris 10 and | OpenSolaris - PLS VOTE NOW over at zimbra.com | Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | > | > I hate that we have to vote for "Other", rather than having Solaris or | > OpenSolaris be a choice in the poll. Of course, perceptions are | > changing, more and more, and all of your community participation is | > helping... | | Well lets look at the past ten years. Solaris was a killer UNIX OS | but the x86 edition was a joke. Then Linux became a hot and cool | thing. People forgot that a Sun logo on the server meant that it runs | forever. Then people started calling Solaris a "Linux-like" OS | recently. Its enough to make my stomach churn. | If perception is reality then a LOT of real "big time marketing" is | required to get the word out. | At this point the entire OS is a free download and the source is open. | It is like giving away the cure for the common computer but no one | seems to know about it or, more likely, wants to know.
I disagree. I come from working on Solaris and Linux in the .com boom, then to only Linux and *BSD. >From people I know in the Linux and BSD community on opinions of Solaris is that there is just a general ignorance of it. Some may repeat things they have heard others say (eg, "Slowaris"), but most have no idea about it... Because generally it was just too expensive for a lot of companies. Seems to be the same with other *NIX implementations, like AIX etc, where you needed to purchase the expensive hardware and then and only then can you learn it. Unless you happened to walk into a place where you learned this on the job, you are just going to be ignorant for the most part. With Solaris being free and many people able to look at the source, people (like myself) can play with it in their free time and learn it... and even apply it to their workplace, since it is now an available option for the companies/clients that can not afford to pay a ton of money for Sun/Solaris. Times are definitely changing, and I think it is amazing. Again, I think the biggest problem for getting Solaris out there is just battling the ignorance of what Solaris is. It was not a cheap skill to learn, just like AIX, HPUX, IRIX, etc. So, in part I totally disagree with your assessment. I don't think I have ever heard anyone call Solaris any "Linux-like" or anything like that (unless they were obviously talking out of their butt). People are ignorant of Solaris. Sun didn't help with that by making it cost a ton of money to just educate yourself on it. Giving the software away, yet still charging for hardware is the best move I think Sun could make right now. It gets Solaris into the companies that just flat out do not have the money to spend on software licenses and such. It is also easier to evaluate to see if it can be the right tool for their business/needs. Battling the ignorance is what is needed, not more spam in our collective faces... in my humble opinion :) | | One thing is for sure, there were people running around like maniacs | yelling "Sun is Dead .. Sun is Dead" to anyone that would listen a | little while ago. That "perception" seems to have been killed off | quite neatly. Now the Solaris and OpenSolaris perception needs | adjusting. | Tough to say really. I'd have to ask people at geeky parties. Which | I don't go to. Or get invited. :-) | | Dennis | _______________________________________________ | opensolaris-discuss mailing list | [email protected] _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
