Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 20, 2003 01:05 AM
Fact: Not every user is a "power user". Not everyone who sits at a computer and types is capable of finding and fixing the problems that may (will) creep up. And not everyone is a programmer who can Use the Source, Luke(tm).
I don't believe that this was asserted by the person you responded to.
As the desktop landscape for Linux improves, as new features are implemented and integrated, we need a serious integrator for tying it all together. Sun Microsystems has been a major contributor for usability, not just for Mom and Pop, but also for those who must use the system in a "different" way.
Sorry, are you talking about the same company that shipped the JavaStation and is presumably still shipping CDE? Besides, the "Mom and Pop" market is the ultimate usability challenge and Sun has never come anywhere near tackling it.
They have assisted in the development of GNOME as well, by porting it to Solaris. This process has helped weed out incompatibilities in the source code, making it more robust and portable overall.
Sun have contributed to GNOME, but you've just highlighted arguably the most insignificant of those contributions.
Sun Microsystems has been a true pioneer (think Sun SPARC), unlike a lot of pre-Linux companies.
What? They adopted the Berkeley RISC architecture and commercialised it (eventually). There are plenty of companies who did very similar things that are now just footnotes in history.
(IBM has been a pioneer as well.) While they do care about their bottom line, we want them on our side. Without Sun Microsystems, we would be less well-off today, and Linux and GNOME would be considered "fringe" systems, hackers' toys, by more people and companies.
Oh yes, all those people running those mainstream Solaris desktops! Sun needs to crack the mainstream real soon because even their expensive servers' bizarre cases don't turn the suits on any more.
IBM has helped bring Linux servers to the enterprise, while Sun Microsystems has helped put Linux on the desktop.
I would suggest looking at KDE and those distributions that adopted it, then Ximian and Red Hat before even thinking about what Sun has done for Linux on the desktop.
Both have shown that Linux is a real operating system, capable of supporting nearly any purpose between microbiology and rocket science. Kudos to both Sun Microsystems and IBM for their immense help.
You overstate Sun's contribution to Linux. Perhaps yours is an ivory world.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 20, 2003 01:05 AMI don't believe that this was asserted by the person you responded to.
As the desktop landscape for Linux improves, as new features are implemented and integrated, we need a serious integrator for tying it all together. Sun Microsystems has been a major contributor for usability, not just for Mom and Pop, but also for those who must use the system in a "different" way.
Sorry, are you talking about the same company that shipped the JavaStation and is presumably still shipping CDE? Besides, the "Mom and Pop" market is the ultimate usability challenge and Sun has never come anywhere near tackling it.
They have assisted in the development of GNOME as well, by porting it to Solaris. This process has helped weed out incompatibilities in the source code, making it more robust and portable overall.
Sun have contributed to GNOME, but you've just highlighted arguably the most insignificant of those contributions.
Sun Microsystems has been a true pioneer (think Sun SPARC), unlike a lot of pre-Linux companies.
What? They adopted the Berkeley RISC architecture and commercialised it (eventually). There are plenty of companies who did very similar things that are now just footnotes in history.
(IBM has been a pioneer as well.) While they do care about their bottom line, we want them on our side. Without Sun Microsystems, we would be less well-off today, and Linux and GNOME would be considered "fringe" systems, hackers' toys, by more people and companies.
Oh yes, all those people running those mainstream Solaris desktops! Sun needs to crack the mainstream real soon because even their expensive servers' bizarre cases don't turn the suits on any more.
IBM has helped bring Linux servers to the enterprise, while Sun Microsystems has helped put Linux on the desktop.
I would suggest looking at KDE and those distributions that adopted it, then Ximian and Red Hat before even thinking about what Sun has done for Linux on the desktop.
Both have shown that Linux is a real operating system, capable of supporting nearly any purpose between microbiology and rocket science. Kudos to both Sun Microsystems and IBM for their immense help.
You overstate Sun's contribution to Linux. Perhaps yours is an ivory world.
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