of this article? Saying " apparently Sun hasn't heard of something called Linux" is the same as "Apple hasn't heard of something called Microsoft".

You fool, technology is all about marketing, not functionality; if you expect to be a respectable hack you must remain pragmatic in your opinions.

What was the point of the article? Are you saying Solaris has nothing going for it? Are you saying that there is no point in having alternative open source unixes? Should we all zonk our *BSD installs?

Given the dearth of reliable Linux distributions I would reckon many companies welcome this step.

I will be downaloding a copy when its available for Sparc and giving it a go! Cant wait

It might just be me, but I'd rather technology was all about functionality not marketing.

Anyway, I'm not sure you can have a pragmatic opinion.

Hyperbole is a standard tactic these days - it's such a stupid thing to say that I'm amazed anyone would not recognise it as such.

Having said that, Solaris has a rock solid reputation that means that quite a few startups will be more willing to try that than go with a linux distribution. It's approaching the customers from the opposite direction.

The "point of the article" is that opensolaris is about to release a beta - which seems like a news-worthy thing to me. As a linux/solaris sysadmin, it's probably of more interest to me than most.

Support contracts are where SUN hopes to make the money, especially with commercial/enterprise operators that will not take on board any OS without knowing there is a reliable support structure behind it. This is how Red Hat and Novell make their money.

Of course, just like Oracle did to Red Hat, there is nothing stopping the other UNIX vendors (or Linux disties, or even Microsoft!) offering Open Slowaris downloads and support contracts too....

Hear hear.

The articles churned out by this particular individual show a very obvious bias towards Microsoft.

Apparently he is unable to see the good in any other companies offerings. Or maybe he just doesn't understand them - the big clue here I suppose is the "Copy Linux" title, which manages to be both completely inaccurate and as humourous as a vasectomy without anaesthetic at the same time!

It's funny how you find this kind of narrow-mindedness in Windows fans - must be a kind of insecurity.:-)

lol, Im a fan of Solrairs, but the only reason Sun doesnt sell software like Solaris and has had to give it away is because to be frank for most users (I mean businesses) Solaris and even Linux hold little appeal.

Thats why the title says "Copy Linux" as that is what Sun want you to think

writing your own operating system from scratch, it's state as of two months ago which was when I checked it out was it was not fun, tough to use, and little wobbly. I don't believe in miracles so I will wait a year or so before I check in again. This is not to say it doesn't show promise it's just not ready for most Linux users.

if you are not happy, then simply go a way and don't use it.

at least, Solaris is very robust in handling applications and most major DBMS. and the most advantage than Linux is thread handling.

every one know that linux distributions the change the main background and new theme, then release new version, it is really very ridiculous.

Most businesses ?

Apparently you have no idea how many Solaris servers, X86, X64 or SPARC are actually out there.

The title is completely inaccurate because it's not a Linux clone - it's a rock-solid operating system that has a pedigree going back 14 years that has been released for developer involvement. It's NOT a prototype operating system effectively written from scratch (note I'm not talking about the tools here) which is exactly what Linux is.