Re: The future of Solaris?

Damian Carey wrote:

> I understand and accept that this is just your opinion, but its sheer
> dripping passion tends to highlight its lack objectivity!
> "and make Solaris completely, utterly obsolete in the not too distant future".

For what it's worth, I really like Solaris. I wish Linux had dtrace
(last time I checked systemtap still had a long way to go).

> For what it's worth ..
> 1. Solaris and Linux are both fine pieces of technology

No doubt.

> 2. In the most general sense, I suspect Solaris (in general) will
> survive longer than your next Ubuntu instance, so you would be safe
> using Solaris instead of Ubuntu.

Well, the way I see it Ubuntu is really just a specialized version of
Debian. If it were not for Debian, Ubuntu would definitely be weaker
than Solaris in terms of long term viability. Not to mention it would
suffer from the same centralized point of failure. Debian on the other
hand is a different story. It's been around for 15 years and I'll wager
it'll still be alive and kicking 15 years from now. I'm not sure you can
say the same for Solaris though...

> 3. Sun is struggling, but it is made up of profitable and unprofitable
> areas. The Solaris and Server areas would seem to be relatively
> profitable, so even if Sun as a whole failed, the profitable areas
> would likely march on into the future.

The trouble with Solaris is that it's fleeing into the high-end while
Linux is constantly eroding it's position from below. Sure, Solaris
still has a profitable edge in some high-end applications but there is a
huge amount of momentum behind Linux, which seems to be catching up. In
other words, even if Solaris is profitable now that doesn't necessarily
mean it will be profitable 5 years from now.

> 4. As anyone with a little life experience could tell you, things
> don't just disappear. That is true in computer or other areas of life.
> Cobal aint going away. Baddies aint going away. Religion aint going
> away. There are plenty of Solaris fan boys to keep Solaris going.
> Even if all your friends tell you it is bad and as god as dead.

I agree. "Old" technologies never seem to die off completely, but many
of them do seem to retire into archaic pockets of isolated, neglected
obscurity.

> 5. Ubutu is generally an excellent choice for a desktop, and Solaris
> is generally an excellent choice as a server.

No argument.

> Did I tell you I currently use MS-Windows exclusively! Not because of
> the technology, but just because all my customers do.

Network effects will do that to you. :)

I'm thinking maybe it was a mistake to bring up the subject. It's
certainly off topic, and I suspect continuing the discussion will
generate more heat than light, so let's just agree to wait and see.

Putting my intuitions aside, I personally would very much like to see
Solaris survive over the long haul. It's always been a source for
technical excellence and innovation in the "boring" systems space and
having competition will be good for our ecosystem.

(That wraps it up for me)

Cheers,
Liraz