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I used to work for Sun back in the days when things were going great. I can tell you a very small percentage at Sun actually worked on SunOS/Solaris system internals. However, there were a lot of Unix and C people at Sun (at least when I was there) who worked in both systems and application software products. I don't know what it is like there now but I would think the Unix/C people at Sun are a now a small minority. I agree that the transition to Linux is easier for folks who were experts in SunOS/Solaris in the 1990s like me, but there is more to the Linux community than those companies that are directly involved in Linux development. I.T. departments are slowly switching from proprietary Unix to Linux, and I just happened to get my foot in the door at one of these places. Want to know how I got hired? I had previous Solaris experience AND I was a Linux hobbyist. This company was a publishing house that had its legacy stuff on Solaris, but the new application development was on Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Server 9). Therefore, even though I had no professional Linux experience, the Solaris experience got me my first Linux job. It can be done, but not the way you suggested. Recruiters weren't standing by waiting for my phone call. For those brilliant Sun Unix internals developers they might be, but not everyone does that kind of work! For the rest of us who want to break into Linux, it's a different story. Look for the I.T. departments at companies (even non-I.T. companies) that have replaced proprietary Unix with Linux. Think of all those Web servers that used to run Solaris and now run Linux. You don't have to be a kernel hacker to have a career in Linux - I stopped programming in C 10 years ago (I now do PHP/LAMP and Java/J2EE Web development). The impression I get from your post is that the best Sun engineers should be recruited over while the rest of us should just go to hell. You make the Linux community sound like a bunch of snobs! I got into Linux because I have a passion for it. People normally don't go into Linux because it's a good career move. The best and brightest will come voluntarily, but this attitude of being an elite bunch who won't let everyone in is wrong.

Sun is not doomed. SPARC is not doomed either. Proprietary Unix is doomed and will eventually fade away like VAX/VMS. Unix has been fragmented for decades, and Linux has become a viable alternative to the other proprietary *nixes. As an ex-employee of both Sun and IBM, if IBM can come back from near death so can Sun. They have a lot of smart people left (also Andy B. is back), and any company that invented Java can't be all that bad. Companies can do incredible things when the future starts to look bleak; I don't think Sun will become another SCO and litigate its way to pay the bills. Don't write them off just yet. As for the Sun engineers, leaving Sun is an individual choice, whether they leave now or later. I've also worked for companies that tanked. Believe me - they'll know when it is time to call up the headhunters. You don't have to coax them.

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