From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 30409 invoked from network); 20 Jan 2023 18:39:28 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 20 Jan 2023 18:39:28 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4326342534; Sat, 21 Jan 2023 04:39:07 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7C5B74252D for ; Sat, 21 Jan 2023 04:39:00 +1000 (AEST) Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-173-48-120-46.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.120.46]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 30KIctgE010352 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Fri, 20 Jan 2023 13:38:55 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1674239936; bh=BNzLPRtHsJ5mCvusXC/6dBL7VpnT1WsHOll3rAnyoVU=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=NR23qOKKMJ63u0Vdref80ECKariy/lrwfJ2g3Om4RqXiTLTKItng/5eVQZI6z3jTV mWcVliMiONmIZbj7uuB2ElTAzcUnbq0YEuRbtjx9pHCszGk7Xv46+L0KPNlplzd8ag 0n0lYU2Ax0+DN5NTnmK7YhjlicnYsRy5L8aX+Ao/mdhZGqB1b5CUAmPGX5DaWbZ9yi blaIz9yKFvYTIKJueG8vVkyb+nJUJSsLt/lAQfkKsWHRhTQGJPnnzvv7qHnqYBejV+ TITDmeCmbEQVaR9L1WBfg6gE6ARB0k0zYnzmQaScvwxx0Nlo3Ujy7a9ixAVzWrCVot u89O8BFS2FQhQ== Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id F0EC315C469B; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 13:38:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2023 13:38:54 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Larry McVoy Message-ID: References: <202301180943.30I9hrOw030485@freefriends.org> <202301181513.30IFDDUJ015224@freefriends.org> <20230118151446.GD2964@mcvoy.com> <20230118161959.GE2964@mcvoy.com> <20230119010938.GH28004@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20230119010938.GH28004@mcvoy.com> Message-ID-Hash: 5ARUG6GHT2MQNUA4UMK3SPQOTIX4URGG X-Message-ID-Hash: 5ARUG6GHT2MQNUA4UMK3SPQOTIX4URGG X-MailFrom: tytso@mit.edu X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 05:09:39PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > > I was the person nominally in charge of the OpenSolaris port to z (Neale > > Ferguson did most of the heavy lifting) when Sine Nomine built it, having > > read the tea leaves and believing that IBM would buy Sun. And then IBM > > tightened the screws a little too far and Larry Ellison grabbed it > > instead. Dammit. > > Yeah, I'm not a Solaris fan (because SunOS) but there was some good > technology in there. Would have been cool if IBM kept it going. I > never really understood why Sun was up for sale. >From my understanding, Sun was up for sale because of competitive challenges with the high-end servers (due to delays in their high-end Sparc chips, such as Rock) against products such as IBM's Power (pSeries) machines. These systems had a much better margin, and so if you're making money primarily off of hardware, this segment is super important. The x86 servers don't make as much money, which is why IBM would end up divesting their xSeries business to Lenovo. IBM was primarily interested in Sun for the Java business; it was super important for IBM Software side of the business, since all of its major products (Webshere, Tivoli, etc.) were written in Java. IBM didn't really care about Solaris or the Sparc business; after all, IBM's pSeries with AIX was doing quite well from a sales perspective in the customer segments that were most important for IBM. When I was part of the IBM Linux Technology Center, I participated in an IBM-wide study about whether or not it made sense to invest in file system technologies. What was interesting about it was that it was *purely* from a business perspective; would it drive business to IBM? Would IBM customers find it useful enough to pay $$$ for it? IBM's decision to not try to invest in some of the cool technologies like those that ZFS was pioneering was purely made as a purely cold-hearted business decision. Whether it was cool technology or not didn't enter into the evaluation and decision function. I'm not going to say that this way of making technology decisions is perfect; it definitely has downsides. But I *am* sure it reflected what IBM was willing to pay for Sun Microsystems the company --- and Sun was hoping for more $$$ for its shareholders, which is a completely fair attitude. Was Sun Microsystems worth more to Oracle? I'm not sure, especially since Oracle has mostly treated Solaris as a program loader for Oracle Enterprise Database. But at the end of the day Larrison Ellison was willing to pay more, whether or not it was a principled business decision, or just a desire to take home the Sun Microsystems trophy. And at some level, it really doesn't matter. Realistically, I'm not sure Solaris would have fared that much better under IBM's stewardship. I'm sure IBM would make Solaris available to those customers who wanted to use it, and IBM would have maintained Open Solaris as a open source project. But the decision on how much to invest into new technologies like DTrace and ZFS would have been made the same way that IBM *declined* to try to create a next generation file system for AIX or Linux. And the DTrace and ZFS technologies would have been integrated into Linux (under the GPL license) and AIX, thus adding Solaris technological distinctiveness to those OS's. And while Sun's existing customers might still want Solaris, IBM's customers would very likely stick with the AIX and Linux that they knew. So that would leave Open Solaris competing with Linux as an open source project, without necessarily IBM investing much into Open Solaris except from a hardware enablement perspective, and with the best Solaris features getting cherry-picked into Linux. So it would ultimately depend on how much external investment from other companies might make into Open Solaris versus Linux. And there, a lot of Linux investment came because its use in the embedded and mobile space. (Linux's ext4 encryption and fsverity features was for Android and ChromeOS; it was *not* developed for the data center use cases, although there are now some use cases starting to pick up the data center world.) Would Open Solaris been flexible enough to fit on wrist watches and handheld phones? It's definitely an interesting question, especially, given Linux would have a head start in those worlds. - Ted