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Sun Microsystems Software Linux

Sun's COO Pretends Linux Belongs To Red Hat 391

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-kinda-anyway dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ever mindful of minting phrases likely to spread virally through the Net, reports JDJ, Jonathan Schwartz's blogging gifts were used Friday to assert that "it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux." The article comes up with a new angle on one of the most-talked about members of the tech-exec digerati, saying of Schwartz: "He's the Winston Churchill of technology - he mobilizes the English language at least once a week, and sends it into battle against Sun's rivals." But Churchill would never have tried to pull a fast one by disingenuously describing Linux as "Red Hat's Linux" - the community will upbraid him, for certain. Churchill Schmurchill, Schwartz is a technology mischief-maker not a technology statesmen."
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Sun's COO Pretends Linux Belongs To Red Hat More

Sun's COO Pretends Linux Belongs To Red Hat

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  • Could be worse... (Score:4, Funny)

    by WillerZ ( 814133 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:45AM (#11017141) Homepage
    At least he doesn't claim it's Sun's Linux.

    • SCO's? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zentac ( 804805 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:48AM (#11017175)
      or for that mather SCO's

    • Wazzamatter ? Post 1 is on topic! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ehack ( 115197 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:54AM (#11017250) Journal
      Anyway, I think the comment applies to servers. With IBM selling its PC division, the company will be heavily committed to Unix-likes for survival - M$ may be the 300 pound gorilla, Sun sees itself as a raptor, but IBM is a tyranosaurus - no speed but lots of weight and sizable claws. It's a dangerous mistake to count out the animal that is too big to see :)

    • At least he doesn't claim it's Sun's Linux.

      But he did. [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Could be worse... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by EvilAlien ( 133134 )
      I'll one-up that... at least he doesn't claim its SCO's Linux.

      Unfortunately, Sun has the ear of lots of the UNIX community in the corporate realm, including the PHBs and admins who still think Linux is a toy. There are, unfortunately, a lot of them with their heads in the sand. That is why I run Linux on my U5 at the office... and remind them of how fast and stable it is fairly often ;)

      • Re:Could be worse... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by inflex ( 123318 )
        But linux is a toy... relative to the big Sun iron boxes.

        Seriously, Linux is useful for things but it's still quite young and toyish, especially when compared to the likes of OpenVMS, Tru64 *sigh* and yes, even Solaris.
        • Linux runs on the largest single image Unix hardware on the planet.

          All of this screaming about Linux being a toy is just a diversion. Sun doens't want people to realize that company that sold them their "big iron" technology now runs Linux.

          Solaris is no VMS. Don't even mention the two in the same sentence if you wish to be taken seriously.

    • Re:Could be worse... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by avronius ( 689343 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:28AM (#11017618) Homepage Journal
      I use this expression a great deal. Typically when describing variations of linux. Red Hat's Linux vs. (insert flavour here). Much like saying "This is Avron's car". It does not suggest that all cars are mine, rather that *this* one is.

      It is amazing the way that people take a contextually accurate statement, and skew it to blow something out of proportion.
  • Thosed that are divided with be conquered?

    They should play pretty until they knock off more of the Microsoft market.

    Dumb!

  • Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:45AM (#11017146) Homepage Journal

    Didn't RTFA, but when referring to the various Linux-based operating systems, it's not uncommon to refer to them as "Red Hat's Linux" or "Slackware Linux", etc.

    It's just a convenient way of specifying a particular operating system with certain conventions and features. Maybe if you spent a little less time reading blogs and submitting stories to Slashdot and a little more time doing... oh... I don't know... something with Linux... you'd know that.

    • Re:Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 )
      Yes, except this is an "OS War" not a company war. If you were doing a tech write-up you'd have to deal with a specific distro. By saying it's between Microsoft's Windows, Sun's Solaris (ha!), and Red Hat's Linux, it is saying it deals with only Redhat, not Linux as a whole. The war is not between MS, Sun, and Red Hat. It is between MS, Sun, Apple, and the OOS movement, with each of them teaming up once in a while.

      Also, I would make the argument that "Red Hat" is not as well known as "Linux" noawadays, so

      • you might remember also that Linux is not an OS.

      • Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

        by the_mad_poster ( 640772 )
        Linux is not an operating system, it's the kernel on which multiple operating systems are built.

        Since Red Hat is the most prominent Linux-based operating system, it is, in fact, perfectly legitimate to compare "Red Hat's Operating System" to "Microsoft's Operating System" and "Sun's Operating System".

        Comparing "Linux" to "Windows" would not make sense since "Linux" is a kernel and "Windows" is an operating system. That's like saying "The Chevy 454 Engine is better than the Dodge Charger". It doesn't make

      • Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 0racle ( 667029 )
        From Suns angle, it is a company war. They don't care about these little hobby distros, and even Debian and Slakware fall into that. They draw the attention of people that Sun has very little interest in. CIO's on the other hand, think of Red Hat when they hear Linux. That is Suns competition.
      • Yes, except this is an "OS War" not a company war.

        Tell that to Red Hat and their stupid "just another day at Red Hat" planes flying over Sun's campuses.

      • Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Alpha27 ( 211269 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:43AM (#11017797)
        I think you missed the COO's point.

        The reference isn't to say that Red Hat is the owner/maker of Linux, but more of a distinction in the plethora of linux options, as Red Hat stands out as the main company who is selling an O/S package, that uses the Linux kernel to Enterprises.

        As a result, MS, Sun and RH would be looked at as competiting for the same or similar enterprise markets. That's where I see the reference of "Red Hat's Linux"

        Also when someone is talking about enterprises and OSes, distros like Debian, Gentoo, Fedora, and others will not come to mind because of the lack of support the way someone who works for an enterprise would expect. A company would want something like a server contract where they can pick up a phone with the company who makes the product, and not necessarily have to dig through a list of consultants found on a simple listing provided on the OS's website. That's not to say the consultants are no good in anyway, but you have to think they way someone who works for an enterprise would.

        If I order a product from Microsoft, Sun, or Red Hat, they offer support with that product. I go to Debian, I don't get that directly from Debian.

        As for it being an OS war, it IS. Ultimately, you would have to pick a distro to install, and for many, it will be Red Hat. Remember it's not the company people are only picking, it's the product they sell as well.

        As for Apple being an option in this, it has a small market share compared to the others. You won't find "many" setups with Apple being used for enterprise server applications (I know there are few, so don't attack me you Mac zealots). Apple is not competiting in the enterprise areas as much as the other three.

    • Re:Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dont_think_twice ( 731805 )
      Maybe if you spent a little less time reading blogs and submitting stories to Slashdot and a little more time doing... oh... I don't know... something with Linux... you'd know that.

      I don't think a person named "The Mad Poster" has the right to tell people they spend too much time on slashdot.

  • What's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:46AM (#11017155)
    Red Hat's Linux clearly in this context means Red Hat's version of Linux. Ok, it's ambigous but let's not get stupid with the nit picking.

    • Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Informative)

      by davecb ( 6526 ) * <davecb@spamcop.net> on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:11AM (#11017417) Homepage Journal
      He's speaking to businessmen who buy particular vendor's products. They didn't buy DOS, they bought MS-DOS, and ignored DR-DOS.

      Similarly they buy Red Hat in the U.S., so he's obviously adressing U.S. businessmen. If he were adressing German businessmen he'd have said "SuSE's Linux".

      In neither case would I expect him to say "version of". The listener is expected to get that from context.

      --dave

    • Red Hat's Linux clearly in this context means Red Hat's version of Linux. Ok, it's ambigous but let's not get stupid with the nit picking.


      What next? Complaining that he didn't call it Red-Hat GNU/Linux??

      Whatever.

  • Non-inclusive possessive pronoun.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperDuck ( 16035 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:46AM (#11017159)
    I think he meant Red Hat's "offering" of Linux, not necessarily implying that they were the only one, just the only contender at that level.

    • I think he meant Red Hat's "offering" of Linux, not necessarily implying that they were the only one, just the only contender at that level.

      Although I do agree with you that Slashdot might be interpreting his words wrongly, it has also to be pointed out that benign interpretations of many SCO statements could also be made. However, they (the SCO statements) were definitely meant to spread misinformation/misrepresent facts etc.

      Sun's schizophrenic[1] relationship with Linux and pretty consistent way in whi

  • Mac OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:46AM (#11017162)
    There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote [apple.com]). According to Apple, this eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of "UNIX-based"[1] systems in the world. (Probably over 13 million now, according to sales since then.)

    "With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world" [computerworld.com]

    More... [google.com]

    [1] Please, whether or not Mac OS X is or isn't "UNIX" or "Unix" or "UN*X" or "UNIX-based" or "UNIX-like" or "not UNIX", etc., etc., etc., is the subject of another discussion, and really derails the essential, widely accepted concept (by normal, sane people, anyway) that Mac OS X is "UNIX"-based.

    • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 )
      There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). According to Apple, this eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors.

      So what? Linux distros are compatible enough that only the most old-school care about whether Red Hat or Debian or Novell or whoever have more "market share". The only thing that's interesting is how many people are using Linux vs XYZ platform.

      I've not seen any hard statistics on this because there aren't any. You cannot count Lin

      • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Informative)

        by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) *
        Wow. Why do people think the only place Macs are used are in "design"?

        My world is also a University. One of the largest public research Universities in the country, the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I don't know where you are, but there are ridiculously far more Mac OS X users here than Linux users. Linux is probably used for server applications more than Mac OS X Server, but on the desktop, it's so laughably not even close. Walk up and down the halls of our life and biomedical sciences buildings, phy

        • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by WillerZ ( 814133 )
          He goes to Durham University in the UK, and his comments fit in with what I saw when I was at Imperial College. Maybe it's a UK thing.

          Maybe, though, it's a non-US thing. You have to remember that apple outside of the states is at best a sales and aupport franchise. Jobs and co don't care about europe, and consequently europe doesn't care about apple the way the states seem to.

          Phil
        • Well, I can't speak for every University, but mine (Purdue university) has one lab that is half filled with Macs (out of the 30 or so available labs). All the rest of the labs use PCs, except for the one used by Electrical and Computer Engineering, which has three rooms - one half filled with Solaris boxes, half with Windows boxes, one filled with Windows boxes, and one filled with Linux boxes (PCs).

          I have a friend who goes to MIT. I don't think it's true for them either. From all the conversations I've
    • If we are to be technical it is BSD-based, but this is is an excellent point. I get the feeling, though, that he's not talking about the desktop market, because I don't imagine Solaris has a large desktop share (but I might be wrong about that... if somebody knows more, please correct me. :-) ).

    • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:2, Funny)

      by SCSI-Wan ( 168595 )
      Apparently Mac OS X is the Switzerland of Operating Systems in this context.
    • Tell that to the Unix group. It is Unix by their definition. :)

    • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by avdp ( 22065 ) *
      You may be right, but in Jonathan Swartz Sun's world, he's probably refering to the server market and/or enterprise workstations (Solaris is just not a contender for consumers). The 12 million Mac OS X are probably mostly consumer home PCs, possibly with a niche in some businesses and school.

      So I think Jonathan's statement is probably right.

    • Re:Mac OS X? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by IntlHarvester ( 11985 )
      > According to Apple, this eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors.

      The problem with this argument is that only a small percentage of Mac systems are used in the "Unix Market" (where Sun and RedHat live). [For the sake of argument, define Unix Market as application servers, financial systems, high-end RDBMS, web hosting, engineering workstations, etc.]

      The vast majority of Mac systems are still in Apple's traditional markets of creative and home desktops where the users run Mac prog

  • I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CMiYC ( 6473 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:48AM (#11017176) Homepage
    I don't agree what he is saying is that Linux belongs to Red Hat. He said Red Hat's Linux. Meaning, the distribution of Linux Red Hat sells. If I say "Bob's HTML is the best", does everyone assume I'm implying that he created HTML? No. They know I am referring to the HTML Bob writes.
    • Perhaps not, but if you said, "There were only three major technologies used for displaying webpages, XML, CSS, and Bob's HTML." then you would be saying that. And that's exactly what he did. If he wanted to say "Red Hat's Red Hat Enterprise Linux" or some shit, that'd be different. But Linux is NOT the exclusive name of Red Hat's product. Notice how he said "Microsoft Windows", because windows is a generic term that does not belong to Microsoft and the name of their product is "Microsoft Windows" not "

  • Grammatical ambiguity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:49AM (#11017186) Homepage

    "Red Hat's Linux" could be parsed as:

    "Linux, which belongs to Red Hat"

    or

    "That Linux which belongs to Red Hat"

    In this case the latter is accurate and is probably what was meant.

    ---

    Side note -- another way to express the second choice is:

    "The Linux that belongs to Red Hat"

    By adding the article, you clearly indicate that you refer to one of many linuxes. To me, this control of definite/indefinite and countable/uncountable is one of the strongest and most unusual features of English -- although other European languages have it to some degree.

  • Market Share (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gregarican ( 694358 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:49AM (#11017187) Homepage
    Everyone should admit that for North America at least Red Hat has the major market share for Linux distribution. From what I have read it sounds as if SuSE has a foothold in Europe, but from Sun's North American perspective it's pretty much true. I'm sure (as others have pointed out) he probably meant Red Hat's version or distribution of Linux, but even if he didn't he's pretty much on target.

    • Re:Market Share (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Soylent Moose ( 222480 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:08AM (#11017372) Journal
      Okay, think about it from an IT manager's perspective. Say I'm an IT manager at a medium-sized bank and the applications we use are based on Oracle. I'm about the buy a bunch of machines so I can run Oracle on them. This is a production environment, so I don't want to just download some random Linux build without support -- I need to pick someone who will sell me real support, with guaranteed response times, etc.

      What are my choices? Oracle on reliable hardware is a huge market for Sun, so that's obviously one choice. Which Linux would I pick? Probably RedHat to get their support offering. Oh, and yea, I could always go the Microsoft way.

      I don't know, Jonathan's comment doesn't seem that bizzare to me.

      • You would look at the compatibility matrix which would give you the choice between the enterprise versions of Suse or Redhat.

        Now, Oracle is a rather peculiar beast because it's in the fairly unique position of commanding a 60K per cpu premium. At this point, you listen to the vendor more than anything else.

        If they say Sun, you'll probably buy a Sun.
        If they say Redhat, you'll probably buy Redhat.
        If they say Suse, you'll probably buy Suse.

        The support apparatus of Sun or Redhat are pretty much irrelevant. Y
  • As much as I don't like Schwartz, he's talking about sales, not who owns linux. The use of "Red Hat's Linux" is used to distinguish which version of linux he's referring to, not to whom it belongs.
    • You guys are all missing it, or Schwartz is the biggest fool this side of John Romero. He said "Microsoft Windows", the name of the product, "Sun's Solaris", which is in fact belonging to Sun, and "Red Hat's Linux", which is neither belonging to Red Hat nor the name of their product. They neither own Linux nor the rights to the name and thus saying "Red Hat's Linux" in that context is not only misleading but inaccurate. Given Schwartz's history there can be no doubt that it was intentional.

  • So... (Score:2)

    by ndogg ( 158021 )
    Why is this news? Such "tech digeratis" do this all the time. Why is he an exception? Is it because he works for Sun? That doesn't make him a technical person.

  • Perhaps he meant something else (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oexeo ( 816786 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:50AM (#11017209)
    He said:

    "it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux."

    Did it occur to anyone, that perhaps he just believes the Red Hat distro to be the only distro of any real threat to Windows, and Solaris (of course, doesn't mean he's correct). Why is that statement taken as him attributing the Linux kernel to Red Hat?

    • Re:Perhaps he meant something else (Score:4, Funny)

      by WillerZ ( 814133 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:58AM (#11017290) Homepage
      I just find it amusing that he thinks Solaris is a threat to anything.

      The only damage solaris is going to do to any other OS is if you snap the CD in half and use the sharp edge to go on a killing spree among the target developers.

      Phil

    • Re:Perhaps he meant something else (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:00AM (#11017301) Journal
      Thank You.

      It amazes me to no end what passes as "news" these days on Slashdot. One person misinterpreting something automatically becomes news, and not just any old news, "OMFG the sky is falling" news.

      Of all the distros out there, Redhat easily holds the market share on the corporate end. It makes sense to bundle Red Hat in a corporate statement than Slackware or Debian. Sure, they're fine distros, but when it comes to market share in the corporate world, it's hard to deny that Redhat has the biggest piece of the pie.

      At any rate, the sky is not falling, and Sun's COO is NOT implying that Redhat owns linux.
    • Did it occur to anyone, that perhaps he just believes the Red Hat distro to be the only distro of any real threat to Windows, and Solaris (of course, doesn't mean he's correct). Why is that statement taken as him attributing the Linux kernel to Red Hat?

      Because if that were the case, he would have adopted his usual tack (which I find somewhat insulting) of spelling "Linux" with a lowercase L.

      Look at the rest of his blog, and you'll see what I mean.

  • Semantic niggling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:51AM (#11017221)

    Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux

    It appears people may be reading too much into this. To my eyes it looks like a listing of commercial OSs along with their vendors: Windows from Microsoft, Solaris from Sun, and Linux from Red Hat. Yes, there are other commercial Linux distros. Yes, there are a lot of other Linux distros, period. The question is this: how many of these are viable contenders in the market[s] shared by Solaris and Windows? And of those, how many are as easily recognized as Red Hat?

    The statement above just clarifies that Red Hat's Linux is the particular distro under consideration. I don't believe it is a plot to assign ownership of all things Linux to Red Hat.

  • Novell? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kingpin ( 40003 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:52AM (#11017225) Homepage

    What about Novell? They bought Suse which was a strong distro, and Ximian which holds the track-record for providing cool UI's for Linux.

    What are their ambitions? They have a couple of very nice cards to play - why don't they?

    On another, but related, note, what made FreeBSD (as OS X) the success it became once Apple added UI? The Apple brand and hardware? What does it take for Novell to get the same level of recognition?

    A worried shareholder.. ;-)

    • Re:Novell? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lxy ( 80823 )
      The Novell/Suse acquisition is still new. Novell just released their first version of Novell linux a few weeks ago, it's going to take some time to get momentum in the market. Suse didn't have a stronghold in the marketplace, so it's up to Novell to make that happen.

      Novell is able to use their kickass server software and their existing customer base to launch their linux campaign. They are bundling their top notch support on top of their linux products (desktop for now, server to be released in the near

  • Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri@@@gmx...net> on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @09:53AM (#11017233) Homepage
    Hello?

    Has everyone forgotten that Sun produces their own Linux distribution, Java Desktop System?

    It seems rather clear to me that he is referring to the Linux distribution created by Red Hat.

  • No it doesn't (Score:2, Insightful)

    by demon_2k ( 586844 )
    "it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux."

    It could be taken that way...But did anyone for a second stopped and thought that that just means that redhut is considered as the only major player that is worth considering, the biggest most commercial distribution?

    That statement doesn't immediately mean that redhut owns linux. They just own hajority of the of the linux market share.
  • How is the slashdot crowd so desperate for anti-SCO news that it would sink low enough to post such non-news such as this?

    Everyone says that blogs are the news of the future, the new wave in journalism. However, one idiot who wasn't trained in English usage--unlike trained journalists--makes some mistake like this, and it is taken up by the "blogsphere" and repeated.

    Sure, blogs are the news source of the future, but only because the general level of intellegence of North American is falling at an ala
  • Is it possible that he's merely referring to Red Hat's distribution of Linux? Maybe that's the only distribution he considers a real threat, eh? Maybe you should just relax and focus on the subtle nuances of the English language instead of running off into the sunset with your torches and pitchforks?

    Or we can form a rabble, if you want. I'm always up for a good riot.
    • The problem with that theory is he never even alludes to the word "version" when referring to "Red Hat's Linux". He is implying, and probably fully aware of what he is doing, that Red Hat is either a) the only Linux distro out there and or b) that Red Hat somehow owns the linux kernel.
  • ... as he did in an earlier blog entry [sun.com].

    Or maybe we're both misreading things?
  • Leaving aside the fact that he probably (may have) meant 'Redhat's version of Linux', he's still wrong to ignore other distributions, such as Novell/SuSE.
  • "it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux."

    The main mistake is calling it an OS war while it is more of an OE (Operating Environment) War. Microsoft Windows is actually 2 different core OS DOS and NT, Solaris is an OE of Sun OS which is Unix, and Red Hat is an OE of Linux. But putting the OS vs OE aside because OE is not as popular as OS in usage. So Red Hat's Linux the guy was talking about Red Hat's Distribution or OE of Linux n

  • based on numbers of desktops running them... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by constantnormal ( 512494 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:07AM (#11017357)
    ... I'd have to say that the "Big 3" are Microsoft Windows, Linux, and OS X. I don't think that the number of Solaris installations is even close to being a player ... and one more thing -- I believe the above statement holds true even if you count servers.

    This is clearly just a Sun bigot wishing they were more successful in the marketplace.

    I think that a more interesting comparison is between *nix-derived systems and Windows. That would lump Solaris, Linux (all flavors), BSD (all flavors, including OS X), and AIX into one pool, which is sizeable enough to make a definite presence on Microsoft's radar.

  • IIRC, IBM recently partnered with Novell/SuSe, and that alone would make a pretty convincing case to look at that particular distro, in either a SOHO or Enterprise environement. Coupled with IBM's services group, server hardware products the SuSe's enterprise class distro is a robust a complete product. And, IBM, after all has one of the largest services group in the industry.

    Me, I switched away from Red Hat when they did away with their RHL9 support some time ago. I have never looked back and see no re
  • "Red Hat's Linux" sounds like it's referring to their distro of it to me. Linux is a generic term--I think the author intended to pair them rathern than make them mutually inclusive. And he's right--in the enterprise, Red Hat's version of Linux is pretty damn strong. Cheer. It's a good thing.

    Spin, marketing, or whatever you call it. Welcome to the world of business. If you haven't noticed, the best product doesn't win--the marketing does. VHS vs Beta. Fight the battles you can win--the ideological battle

  • Churchill... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vexler ( 127353 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:15AM (#11017449) Journal
    would have referred to SCO's reason behind its repeated attempts to co-opt Linux as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma".

  • Blogs (Score:2, Troll)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 )
    I will confess that the blogosphere is a largely unknown entity to me...although if the blog's contribution is representative of puerile line noise such as this, it would seem I'm not missing very much.

    Schwartz has simply declared himself to be just another corporate lapdog...this is the sort of garbage that gets churned out on a routine basis by ZDNet in particular...Maybe he should work for them, if he isn't already.

    As for his moronic and completely oblivious assertion...I've been telling the sheep here
  • he's just "whistling past the cemetary" to ignore OSX and the BSDs. If yesterday's /. discussion of the potential of an IBM/Apple alliance were more than talk of rumors, there would definitely be a "final four" with OSX gaining customers and not lacking for longterm funding.
  • If he was refering then, to Red Hat's distrobution of linux, he's incorrect. Doesn't SuSE have more installs world wide?

    So it's down to Microsoft ( Default Choice )
    Sun ( Server only )
    SuSE ( Best god damn operating system ever put together )

    I'm not bias
  • What kind of crap metaphor is this? can somebody explain to me: "He's the Winston Churchill of technology - he mobilizes the English language at least once a week, and sends it into battle against Sun's rivals."

    Somebody break this one down for me and explain it... this guy is similar to a UK First Lord of the Admiralty and war time prime minister because he a> 'mobilizes the English language at least once a week' and then b>talks about how his company is better than another computer company..

    err..

  • 1.) With regards to the Churchill references, Winston was not above rhetoric that served his purposes, which is pretty clearly the case here.

    2.) Within context, I think he can claim to be correct in referring to "Red Hat's Linux". Not, as anon. reader so reactionarily supposes that he means that Red Hat owns or *is* Linux, but that the "OS wars" are down to those three vendors.

    3.) If Schwartz is to be condemned for anything, IMHO, it's for putting Solaris in the mix. Solaris, is relegated to serving
  • I agree with others and don't necessarily believe he meant "all your Linux are belong to Red Hat." I thnk the more interesting story is that he thinks the 3 players are Sun, M$, and Red Hat. I think this is more a way of distributing propaganda than anything else. Sun has seemed to be in campaign mode and if they can burn into the psyche of the public Sun, Microsoft, and Red Hat (oh my!) then they keep themselves in the mix. Negating Novell in this is a huge mistake but it's outside the scope of what they a

  • The community will upbrade the dipshit submitter (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:29AM (#11017629)
    disingenuously describing Linux as "Red Hat's Linux" - the community will upbraid him, for certain.

    "Red Hat's" Linux simply distinguished it from "Suse's Linux", Mandrake's", etc, etc. The only implication is that Schwartz sees RH as the most important brand/distro or whatever, according to his commercial criteria, which may be debateable, but hardly insulting to "the community".

    Why didn't the submitter link to the actual blog, instead of someone else selectively quoting from it? Schwartz's blog is here [sun.com]:

    Confidence, commitment and execution are the three things every Sun constituent should expect from us. We'll deliver the systems, the innovation, the partner models, the services and ultimately the results that represent the best source of opportunity for everyone involved. We have never had a stronger product line to solve the problems faced by the developers, deployers and operators of network services. And with another UNIX falling by the wayside, it's increasingly evident the OS wars are down to three - Microsoft Windows, Sun's Solaris, and Red Hat's Linux. Not surprinsgly, I agree with the aforementioned HP customer. Enough is enough. We're happy to help all HP's constituents move on in life - better you walk away from the football, than have it walk away from you.
    And he followed it up with an explanation [sun.com]
    ps - I guess I did a miserably poor job of communicating with George Colony. And he didn't take me up on reading my blog. Red Hat does not equal linux, and linux is not evil. But, linux in the enterprise datacenter (that is, not your basement or startup or dorm room or gamebox) does equal Red Hat - and competing against a company is what we do for a living. Competing against a social movement we helped to found is a waste of energy, George. My fault for not more effectively communicating. (2004-09-30 22:48:07.0)

    How about the fucking submitter, or editor, RTFA before wasting everyone's time with a beatup like this?

  • Reading the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by akaina ( 472254 ) * on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:33AM (#11017674) Journal
    You guys are really reading into this the wrong way.

    All that he's asserting is that it's Red Hat's flavor stands the best chance of taking marketshare.

    That's actually MORE tech-savvy than just saying the L word like everyone else. When you read the quote, think in terms of the COO and marketshare, not in terms of Richard Stallman.

    (puts on fire resistant suit)

  • The guy is a clown. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 )
    I'm tired of reading "JS said this, wrote that". The guy is obviously speaking out of his ass and the only way he knows to attract attention is "to be controversial". I distinctly remember that Sun's BoD or shareholders tried to gag him several times because he costs the company too much, not only in public reception.

    While SCO stories have some value as entertainment, JS seems to be more boring each time. How can I filter my Slashdot front page to remove stories about Schwartz?

    Robert

  • Churchill Was A Politician (Score:3, Insightful)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @10:42AM (#11017781) Homepage
    > But Churchill would never have tried to pull a
    > fast one by disingenuously describing Linux as
    > "Red Hat's Linux"

    Of course he would have had he thought he could get away with it. A statesman is just a dead politician.

  • Oh come on! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by robinthecandystore ( 65190 )
    We all know that Schwartz's blog just isn't aimed at geeks! He's aiming at suns critics on wall street, analysts and some of suns customers. He's using that wonderful marketspeak which he does so well.
    He seems to be doing a good job of it too as people keep reporting what's on his blog on various news sites :-)

    Schwartz is keeping up the company's marketing blitz on Red hat, as they were (and probably still are) losing sales to RHEL. This is a Solaris Vs RHEL thing not a Solaris Vs Linux thing. :-)

  • JDJ is a "SYS-CON Media Publication"
    Also, this asshat's earth-shaking statements have generated a grand total of 9 comments in 2 days.

  • Misunderstanding the english language (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mihalis ( 28146 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @11:03AM (#11018023) Homepage

    • Redhat's Linux
    • My Wife
    • My Lawyer
    • Microsoft's competition
    • My Lord
    • My God

    Hint : these are not posessions

  • Duchy of Grand Fenwick Linux rises up in revolt (Score:4, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Tuesday December 07, 2004 @12:05PM (#11018967) Homepage Journal
    Seriously - if we need to soothe the ruffled feathers of every Eskimo language Linux distro that runs on my espresso machine then Microsoft has already obiterated us.

    The Bigger Picture, people, the Bigger Picture.

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