Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on February 01, 2004 05:44 AM
Easily. It's fine for them to be a UNIX vendor if they choose. But to finance the attacking of an entire community--folks who write Free Software and license it under the GPL--yet still employing folks who do exactly that (the OO.o team) and even distributing GPL/LGPL software with Solaris (GNOME, to name but one), is total hypocrisy.
Sorry, but Sun is today a hypocritical, psychotic company who appears ready to go whichever way it thinks the wind's blowing that particular minute. We applaud Sun for financing the OpenOffice.org project the way they have and continue to do; that project is what lets me have true choice both at home and work and is an exceedingly beneficial contribution. Same with their sponsorship of GNOME. If only their general corporate strategy were consistently in line with that same idea! If only they as a company were consistent! If only they would stop funding SCO's legal battle against the entire GPL legal infrastructure, not to mention our way of making Free Software!
IBM is also a UNIX vendor, don't forget--but their message is much more consistent and clear than is that of Sun Microsystems. To get at Sun's, you have to decipher it, and that message seems to be, "We *really* want to sell expensive SPARC systems (we get fatter margins than with Opterons, so to hell w/ the Opteron), but we'll do 'Linux' to look good. Oh, BTW, we still hate Microsoft, but we like SCO."
These are the bases for our criticism of Sun. They clean up their act, we won't criticize.
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Re:stop being so reductive!
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 01, 2004 05:44 AMSorry, but Sun is today a hypocritical, psychotic company who appears ready to go whichever way it thinks the wind's blowing that particular minute. We applaud Sun for financing the OpenOffice.org project the way they have and continue to do; that project is what lets me have true choice both at home and work and is an exceedingly beneficial contribution. Same with their sponsorship of GNOME. If only their general corporate strategy were consistently in line with that same idea! If only they as a company were consistent! If only they would stop funding SCO's legal battle against the entire GPL legal infrastructure, not to mention our way of making Free Software!
IBM is also a UNIX vendor, don't forget--but their message is much more consistent and clear than is that of Sun Microsystems. To get at Sun's, you have to decipher it, and that message seems to be, "We *really* want to sell expensive SPARC systems (we get fatter margins than with Opterons, so to hell w/ the Opteron), but we'll do 'Linux' to look good. Oh, BTW, we still hate Microsoft, but we like SCO."
These are the bases for our criticism of Sun. They clean up their act, we won't criticize.
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