[COLUG] Open Solaris and the Borg

[Stephen P. Potter]

Jim wrote:
> Stephen Potter wrote:
>
>   
>> Or are you guys going to start running me out if I keep 
>> bringing up too much OpenSolaris.  ;-)
>>     
>
> Solaris (open or closed) is so _nineties_. In '06 it's moot. 
> Solaris has some good features. 
> Linux will absorb them and move on. 
> Resistance is futile. 
>   
Linux has, so far, failed to absorb the good features Solaris has had 
_since_ the 90s.  And, I'm not
necessarily just talking about technologies, I'm talking about real 
features, such as solid engineering
and design principles, inherent security, and backwards compatibility.  
Do you realize I can take a
binary that I compiled on SunOS 4 (last released in '92/93) and still 
run it on a Solaris 10 system?
Or, even if you think that is a little too far fetched, how about 
guaranteed compatibility for Solaris 2.6
and later to Solaris 10, 8 years of backwards compatibility.  I couldn't 
even upgrade from Fedora
Core 4 to Fedora Core 5 without having several things break.  Linux 2.4 
to 2.6 was a completely
incompatible change.

There are many, many corporations that require stability and continual 
support.  Solaris 2.6 just
went out of support in August of this year, and I've got people 
complaining because they can't get
an official patch for the DST change.  I'm trying to get people off of 
about 500 instances of Solaris
2.6 at the Bank.  Until a Linux vendor can match that kind of support, 
Linux will not completely
replace Solaris.

I find it fascinating that Linux fanatics tend to be so vocal about how 
bad a Windows monoculture is,
and about how poor interoperability is between real Unix versions, and 
yet they seem so happy to
embrace a Linux monoculture and ignore the complete non-interoperability 
between the various Linux
distributions.  I've said for a long time that culturally Linux is at 
exactly the same place as Unix was
twenty years ago.  As the years go by, I've seen nothing to change that 
opinion (note, I say is has
pretty much stayed at 20 years, not that Linux hasn't moved forward). 

-spp