Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 22:08:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ADRIAN Filipi-Martin <adrian@ubergeeks.com> To: Alastair Rankine <alastair@cia.com.au> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: solaris is free. Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980812220439.9616B-100000@lorax.ubergeeks.com> In-Reply-To: <359F0E1C00000331@clarence.progmatics.com.au> (added by clarence.progmatics.com.au)
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On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Alastair Rankine wrote: > At 06:08 PM 12/08/98 -0400, you wrote: > >> My guess is that Sun is beginning to feel the heat from FreeBSD and > >> Linux. Last time I looked very few people we running Solaris on X86. Mayby > >> they are starting to worry about all those older Sparc's running NetBSD. > > > > I'd like to think so, but IMHO solaris x86 has never been a winner > >for SUN. I doubt they have much to loose by this move. SCO has and > >continues to dominate the commercial intel unix world. SCO also has had > >the same type of offer open for both UnixWare and OpenDeathtrap for a year > >or so now. They have much more to loose in the intel market. > > I think we're seeing a trend emerging here. Company has commercial Product. > Due to commercial pressures, Company is unable to make profit from Product. > In the past Company would simply announce "maintenance mode" for Product. > Now, Company simply releases source code or makes it free or something > along those lines, and reaps the benefit in good PR. > > I'm still waiting for the other shoe to fall: Company drops Product. Sun never said that they were giving away the soruce code. Neither is SCO. They are just using the same approach that has worked so wel in the past. i.e. If I use X operating system at home, I'll probably want to use X at work if given a choice. > Netscape is really out on a limb, not just for it's own survival, but for > the credibility of open software. Again, Netscape isn't throwing out the baby with the bath water. Basically the revenues for the particular product became insignificant with respect to their other products. If you don't expect to make any money from a particular product, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have greater strategic value. Adrian -- [ adrian@ubergeeks.com -- Ubergeeks Consulting -- http://www.ubergeeks.com/ ] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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