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Sun's CEO response to Microsoft patent claims

blogs.sun.com — "You would be wise to listen to the customers you're threatening to sue - they can leave you, especially if you give them motivation. Remember, they wouldn't be motivated unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

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  • JNando, on 10/11/2007, -8/+63Nice response hope Ballmer can read :-)
    • fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -66/+8Listen to the customers you're threatening to sue?

      Since when are linux users Microsoft customers?
    • bjweeks, on 10/11/2007, -2/+64"Since when are linux users Microsoft customers?"

      "Customers" are large business. Do you really think any large business uses one OS everywhere? Do you think if they try to switch to Linux it will happen overnight?

      When Mircrosoft hurts Linux, they hurt their large customers that use it.
    • sinatosk, on 10/11/2007, -9/+23fkr3 said "Listen to the customers you're threatening to sue?

      Since when are linux users Microsoft customers?"

      since when some Linux users like myself use both Windows and Linux and ontop of that some user Mac OSX
    • OssiRosten, on 10/11/2007, -14/+12I'm using Linux in home. My home is totally M$ free zone.

      But, still I'm M$ customer as I buy all computer stuff to our work! There is now 300(this is quite small company, I know) Windows XP machine running every day, but how long, if M$ does what it's doing. There is only ONE program left that requires M$ Windows left. After that we do not have to use Windows anymore.

      It's about same to our users that will they learn Vista or Linux. Very many of them uses anyway Linux in their homes all ready, some of them longer than 1 year. (I made huge free Ubuntu order to our workers couple of month ago, and it was really success. Hint! ;)
    • AlexFerny, on 10/11/2007, -10/+5@bjweeks - actually I can name a company with over 10k employees that exclusively uses Windows based things :)
    • flag564, on 10/11/2007, -26/+7"Remember, they wouldn't be motivated unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

      Meanwhile here some news from the company who's products are "missing the mark"


      "Windows Vista sells 40M licenses in 100 days"
      http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/15/news/companies/microsoft_vista_sales.reut/index.htm?section=money_latest
    • SVPirate, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6I'm very impressed. Trust J.S. to sum it up perfectly. Hear, hear, John.
    • isosceles, on 10/11/2007, -11/+8I wouldn't wish a Windows PC on my worst my enemy.
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8It is also a nice writing for newbie Linux/Ubuntu people who doesn't know what would have happened if Sun really crashed. They love to attack Sun for some reason.

      Even on OS X Leopard (10.5), there will be dtrace and Mac OS coders will make use of it in unimaginable ways for good of end user. It won't change the fact that dtrace is a Sun thing and we should be thankful to them for offering their technology for free in competing operating systems.

    • Novagenesis, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9@AlexFerny

      Do tell.
      Microsoft itself doesn't solely use MS software OSes. Their routers and back-end are not solely Windows-based, or at least weren't last I looked.
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7@ilgaz
      do not forget that sun also worked with apple in porting the sun's zfs filesystem to mac osx, and is rumored to be in leopard.
    • Theli, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1@fkr3
      "Since when are linux users Microsoft customers?"

      Since dual boot was invented.
    • justo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2not when his testosterone has got him all riled up...
    • Nok1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Quite well written open letter, and I agree.

      I can tell you all firsthand that Microsoft encourages its programmers to use "whatever environment they feel comfortable in", and "whichever one they feel that they will be most productive in"
  • Phocion55, on 10/11/2007, -10/+72"In essence, we decided to innovate, not litigate."

    Read that sentence a few times, Microsoft.
    • Trister0, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23Ahem, Riaa and Mpaa. Listen up too!
    • jasz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16that was (IMHO) the best line in Jonathan's post...
    • SVPirate, on 10/11/2007, -2/+22Microsoft litigate because they are functionally incapable of innovating becuase of the way they work. Schwartz is right, the only way out is to think your way out. Their anti-FOSS outburst is desperation in extremis...
  • mori2001, on 10/11/2007, -3/+34Brave man -- how many F500 CEO's admit their companies mistakes like this?
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6If we use the lame term like Web 2.0, this guy is Fortune 500 CEO 2.0. Not just posting a real blog written by himself, he even offers free comments under his entries.
    • GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2No one can really disagree that Sun ***** up. They used to call them 'the dot in .com'. Then they never adapted after the .com crash. They were right to assume that the web would recover but they missed the part where they placed themselves to benefit from that.
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1What a co-incidence that Post-Dotcom crash successful sites all run Sun servers even if they are pure Windows based businesses.
      To call Sun crashed you should be admining a server farm running dozens of Blade/Mixed environments and 40-50.000 connected users. That time, I could credit you.
  • sirlancelot88, on 10/11/2007, -42/+4Come now, this is coming from Sun. The makers of Java. I think that's all the proof we need to not listen to them.
    • Narwaffle, on 10/11/2007, -3/+33Alternatively, I think that's all the proof we need *to* listen to them.
    • sams2100, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23@narwaffle: agreed! I dont see microsoft doing anything new and I dont see them open sourcing anything they copied from other companies either.
    • Hoov, on 10/11/2007, -4/+32Why is everyone always harping on Java? It may not be the do all end all language, but it's pretty damn versatile.
    • arjie, on 10/11/2007, -3/+28And it's open!
    • williamdyer, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2@lance-a-fluff

      GWTs for AJAX ftw.
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7yeah I do not get why every one keeps picking on java, yeah the memory management kinda sucks, and java apps tend to hog your ram, but every release has been getting better, and of course the big plus is something written in java can run, in windows, linux, osx, bsd, and anything else with a jre.
    • GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Java is the most used language on the planet by a large distance and the memory management problems are perception over reality. It's been shown multiple times that GC actually saves clock cycles by stacking up memory and making thousands of deallocations at once, this way you need only call most of the routines once instead of once per deallocation. Also it only wastes memory under low load (for the same reason, lazy deallocation), this is disastrous of course because that memory sitting idle isn't being wasted at all. When under high load the JVM will scale back memory usage nicely.

      Of course the exception to all this is Azureus where they use SWT without deallocating the unmanaged code properly. This seems to be solved recently though.
    • saranagati, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0like you said, the resource management of java is horrible. It's not necessarily java itself thats the problem, it's that the programmers tend to not know what they're doing. Java is the 'easy' language, the one that schools use to teach their students to program (which is really the only reason its such a widely used language today, everyone out of college knew java, so java developers could be hired for cheap). So now that students didn't change majors from CS because programming was too hard, it didn't weed out the bad programmers and now we have many of these bad programmers creating bad programs that hog so many resources.
    • GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Because when everyone was using C/C++ there were never any problems with memory leaks. Wait a minute. Idiot programmers have gone from blanking references without deallocating to not blanking references at all. Same problem different time period, lets not make this an issue of false superiority. I learned C/C++, Pascal, x86 ASM and a bunch of other languages before Java. I prefer to use Java because it is a more productive language and is efficient under high load, I don't care how much memory it wastes when the system isn't doing anything since it isn't relevant. Idle resources are a waste by definition, thank god we finally have systems that will utilise those resources under low load rather than ignore them.

      Any drop in standards is nothing to do with Java though. There are much easier languages out there. If ease of use was the only consideration they'd use Python or one of the other scripting languages that move compile time errors to run time. I'd actually say that people code better now when they actually undertake some form of education than they did when they went into a job straight out of compulsory education.
  • asaone, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17Smart man, hope someone will read it to Ballmer
  • JasonCox, on 10/11/2007, -39/+4I call BS on Sun.
    • brufleth, on 10/11/2007, -22/+5Well a story was posted yesterday in which MS representatives stated point blank, "We aren't going to be suing users/customers." So this story is moot. And besides, who the F cares what the head of Sun says? I use various Sun systems at work along with Windows and Linux. I could not care less if MS decided to defend their IP in court.

      I can make dark sounding warnings too but I'm pretty sure MS wouldn't give two ***** about that either.
    • jtp51, on 10/11/2007, -4/+20You're a fool.
    • pgouy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2... and a tool!
  • ElectricSoup, on 10/11/2007, -4/+18"You would be wise to listen to the customers you're threatening to sue ..."

    They're highly unlikely to sue. The threat itself is what it's really about -- Roughly Drafted has this right:

    "If Microsoft had any ideas to protect, it would simply lay them out and insist that Linux and other FOSS projects stop using them improperly. Instead, Microsoft is keeping its patent details a secret, while working to generate panicked headlines about the dangers inherent in using open source software.

    "Microsoft doesn’t want results, it wants to incite a climate of fear."

    http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/878F362F-2BF5-4C86-84E7-9C976F7BDDD4.html

    Linus has just said the same:

    "... 'they're probably happier with the FUD [fear, uncertainty, doubt] than with any lawsuit,' Torvalds predicted."

    http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199600443
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4They want their new buddy Novell seem to make actual success by their lame patent deal to look nice to their shareholders while every admin in enterprise looking ways to switch to some other enterprise Linux (Redhat) which isn't sold out to MSFT.

      I was trying so hard not to write this basic fact as a previous Novell fan (Netware ages) but sadly it is the truth. Novell could be the new MS Virus in Linux scene along with their new employee who ports every MSFT evil agenda technology to Linux.
    • BlackAdderIII, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"""I was trying so hard not to write this basic fact as a previous Novell fan (Netware ages) but sadly it is the truth."""

      You and me both - that's one company that's left its core support (old and new) dumbfounded.
    • GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@ilgaz

      Not likely. The deal only lasts 5 years and has masses of benefits to OSS that tend to get over looked in the hysteria. I suspect the deal will accelerate adoption of Linux drastically (it already has to an extent) and then Novell will say 'Thanks but no thanks' 5 years from now when MS ask for more protection money. This would then be fantastic since we will have made Linux mainstream as a corporate workstation under a patent pact trojan horse.

      Remember it's only the end result that matters. If long term we are in a more ideal position from taking some poison now we should do it. Sticking purely to principles is not always the best course of action in the long term. GPLv3 should lead to the outcome above and then honestly what have we lost. People should be less panicky about this IMHO. It was a desperate move by MS and will come back to bite them.

      Not to mention that MS has actually become a distributor under this deal and is now subject to the GPL.
  • segaze, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16Oi! fkr3 you should realize that all customers are potentially Microsoft's customers. By suing those potential customers Microsoft is guaranteeing that they will never come back. Suns approach was to innovate, and by not suing everyone you don't see sun getting hate spam like we all see Microsoft getting day to day.

  • ict4ngo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12I remember a saying from my last boss (probably basic chinese philosophy)

    "If your enemy does a mistake don't tell him"
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Sun servers also run Windows 2003 in some environments such as pure ASP/.NET.

      MS is not Sun's "enemy", it is far more complicated in server scene. Everyone is everyones enemy and friend same time or something.

    • williamdyer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Bah. Won't listen anyway. Ballmer's skull is smooth and seamless all over. Nothing gets in.
    • Chandon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2That's an excellent basic strategy, but the trick with rules of thumb like that is that very skilled people know when to break them. In this case, it's entirely possible that the correct strategy is "When your enemy makes a mistake, tell everyone about it".
  • Cussons, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4Steve Ballmer is living on another planet. why did Bill Gates retire to do something better. Innovation is our route survival it has nothing to do with anything else. Steve Ballmer unfortunately only see's $ what a waste....
    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -4/+4You talk like Bill was the innovater of the century. While his antics on stage were slightly less apalling, Microsoft is hardly being run any different now than it was when Bill was still in charge. I don't know what it is, but people seem to act like Gates writes every line of code in every Microsoft application, when in actuality, with the exception of some legacy tools that are vestiges of the DOS days, there are probably very few lines of code that gates actually did write in the latest versions of Windows.
    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6I agree that Ballmer is a meathead, but MS isn't being run any differently now than it was, it's just that the frontman is more apelike.
    • williamdyer, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7billg was, at least, a demanding technologist. XP didn't suck, compared to other stuff available when it came out. People stood in line all night to get it.

      The 40M Vistas includes all the OEM copies that get deleted to install Linux or XP, and all the enterprise customers that have site licenses, whether or not those licenses are installed.
  • databoy, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9The Microsoft use of patents on Linux has a deeper overtone. The Linux kernel is scale-able. This allows it to be used in clusters. At the moment anyone can build a Linux cluster for any application using off the shelf components. The growth industry is in movie and graphics manipulation and parallel processing in mainframes. Project yourself five years into the future. One of the mainframe manufacturer's has decided to release a motherboard the size of a CD-ROM case. On the motherboard is a CPU, memory, a Linux boot bios and a high speed daisy chain serial port. The CPU heat sink contains an L bracket which can be bolted to a cooling heat sink. Picture a 1000 cluster built inside a cabinet the size of a domestic refrigerator and using refrigerator cooling. That is one mean computer. Put 10 of them side by side and you have a relatively affordable supercomputer. Give users creative access to that computer to design an animation movie. Market that movie through retail channels and you have a potential of generating billions of dollars at relatively low production costs. No wonder Microsoft is using patents to stop Linux. You can afford to give away the operating system because the real income is in creativity. Large computer corporations have probably seen the light and the dollars. With open source software if a problem occurs, there will be someone somewhere on the planet that has replicated the problem and found the solution at no cost to the computer companies. It is a win win situation. Give away the software and market a person’s creative services.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6"It is a win win situation. Give away the software and market a person’s creative services."

      It's the same old story; everyone wins *except* the software developer. Try as you might, it's hard to logically justify why everyone else deserves to be paid except the guy who writes the code. What makes the developer's effort less valuable than the graphic artist or animator?
    • prammy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5@jqp123:

      Just because the software is given away, does not mean that the developer does not get paid. In many cases of free software, this does end up being the case, but for stuff like the linux kernel, apache, samba, php, people do get paid to work on these things. The company paying them to work on these things charge for services rendered. For example, Red Hat does charge for their support service even though RHEL in essence (through source rpms) is freely available, they charge for the updates and professional services. And they pay their developers to work on Gnome, the linux kernel etc which are given away for no cost, and usable by everyone including the competition.

      Noone is suggesting that developers always work for free. That would be unfair. What I gather from his post is the company's services and creativity in using the freely available software to do amazing things makes the money which pays the salaries of the developers as well. Which is fine, since it forces vendors to actually provide some value in their services. :-)
    • BlackAdderIII, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3"""It's the same old story; everyone wins *except* the software developer"""

      You missed the point. It applies to software development too.

      Instead of using secrecy as your main source of revenue, with OSS your services become the chargable goods.

      In the future, a good software developer will be paid on an hourly basis like a lawyer is now for their skills, and production costs will have to be met by the client in full.

      Most software developers now get paid something like a fifth of their value while someone else stands over a secret binary. For developers it will work very nicely thank you.

      I work like this now, it works well.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2@prammy
      "What I gather from his post is the company's services and creativity in using the freely available software to do amazing things makes the money which pays the salaries of the developers as well."

      In other words, the revenue stream moves away from the developer and his work. Instead of an income source, the developer's work is viewed as a cost item; subordinate to and subsidized by some other money making function such as service. And business being what it is, costs (i.e. developers) are to be controlled and minimized as much as possible.

      Like I said, any way you look at it, everyone wins *except* the developer.

    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1OSS should eventually force all software development into a sort of modular layout, where the consumer, instead of a monolithic beast like Microsoft gets to decide what tools are best for him/her. Imagine a cube, each with a proprietary plug into which you only have the option of plugging in one specific thing. That's no good. Now imagine that there is a similar cube somewhere else, only this cube has a sort of universal plug on each side, and you get to choose which tool from a plethora of options, that you would like to plug into each port. Say, Exchange for e-mail, Open Directory for DC, Apache for Web Development, mySQL for your Database, and whatever else you wanted to plug into the modular system. That's the basic difference between a modular kernel, linux, and a monolithic kernel, NT. There are a thousand and one linux distroes because there are innumerable combinations and variations on how to plug various tools into the modular linux kernel, while there are only a few MS Sanctioned versions of Windows, because there is only one version of the monolitic kernel, and MS just chooses what to and not to enable. Eventually, and it may be many, many years from now, OSS will force all developers to design software in a very modular manner, and this will all be good for the consumer.
    • prammy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2"In other words, the revenue stream moves away from the developer and his work. Instead of an income source, the developer's work is viewed as a cost item; subordinate to and subsidized by some other money making function such as service. And business being what it is, costs (i.e. developers) are to be controlled and minimized as much as possible."

      The developer is still integral to the company, the only difference is that they not the only income generating source. After all without someone developing the software, it does not really matter how great the services division will be if they don't have any software to service. Red Hat makes most of its money from services, yet they pay a lot of developers to work on code which is provided under a free license. IBM paid a lot of employees to work on things like JFS, SGI's paid developers worked on XFS and continue to do so to this day.

      What do you want to consider the developer to be a winner? A red carpet wherever they go? Any way you look at it, the developer is still a cost to the company. But so is a CEO. And a CFO. And the receptionist. But they are all integral to the company. And I still don't think you understood his opinion. The company develops software for which they need developers. They also provide services to install, configure and provide support services for that software, and they make money from it rather than selling+services. In an open environment, they tend to _gain_ developers from outside the company who also contribute, for example different companies/developers contributing to the linux kernel. Everyone helps everyone else. What he said was the company who can be creative in providing for the client's needs will make money. The companies who don't provide what the clients are asking for will not. And this is true regardless whether you are selling proprietary software or providing services for free software. Just that in the case of the latter, you can work with more options.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4@prammy
      "After all without someone developing the software, it does not really matter how great the services division will be if they don't have any software to service."

      You shift seamlessly back and forth between Open Source and proprietary views as it suits your argument. With Open Source, everyone gets the software that you develop, even competitors providing the same services as you. Where's the incentive to develop in this situation?

      "Red Hat makes most of its money from services, yet they pay a lot of developers to work on code which is provided under a free license."

      Yes, and Oracle is starting to exploit this by servicing the code that Red Hat develops. Doesn't seem quite fair does it? If Oracle succeeds, Red Hat will have less money. Wonder what they'll cut back on to compensate? My guess --- development.

      Again, any way you look at it, it's a win win situation for everyone *except* developers.
    • prammy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2@jqp123

      "You shift seamlessly back and forth between Open Source and proprietary views as it suits your argument. With Open Source, everyone gets the software that you develop, even competitors providing the same services as you. Where's the incentive to develop in this situation?"

      Ask Red Hat. They seem to have found an incentive in providing value solutions to their customers with excellent service. Are you telling me that the only incentive to produce software is to keep software rare and expensive? The monetary incentive for the _COMPANY_ to develop software is in being able to provide a valued solution to the customer. The customer likes the service and thus the revenue. Of course this means that you have to hire good developers, good service personnel, good sales people to push the product. If you make a great product and regardless if you keep it open or proprietary and have a ***** support system for it, you will lose your customers. The incentive to develop is to give your customers what they want. Hell, so many linux distributions use the software Red Hat has developed and even give it away for free. Hell CentOS is almost 100% binary compatible. But businesses still go through Red Hat because they provide excellent value, which includes their services in addition to the product.

      And how am I going back and forth between open and proprietary?

      "If Oracle succeeds, Red Hat will have less money. Wonder what they'll cut back on to compensate?"

      For Oracle to succeed, they have to provide a better service than Red Hat currently provides. If they do, then Red Hat will have to adapt to counter it. Its competition. And cutting developers, support people is not the only way to compensate.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2@spuy767
      "Eventually, and it may be many, many years from now, OSS will force all developers to design software in a very modular manner, and this will all be good for the consumer."

      But first, the dis-incentives of OSS will force lots of people to consider a career path other than software development. Drawing from the viewpoints in this thread, it's looks like tech support or graphic arts may be better choices. In fact, most reliable sources report that computer science enrollment is already in rather severe decline. Eventually, and it may be many, many years from now, people will be forced to accept the fact that OSS is a self-limiting concept.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2@prammy
      "And cutting developers, support people is not the only way to compensate."

      No but it is the most logical response to a successful Linux support program at Oracle.

      The development that Red Hat pays for, Oracle gets for free. This gives Oracle's support program an inherent cost advantage. Eliminate the development costs at Red Hat and this advantage goes away --- their respective services must now compete on an equal basis.

      In other words, there's a big hole in the middle of the Open Source services model popularized by Red Hat and Oracle aims to be the first to drive a truck through it.
  • petepete, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9"now account for in excess of 25% of all lines of code within your average Linux distribution"

    Even Jonathan Schwartz admits that OO.o is bloated :)
    • williamdyer, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Bloat is relative. Are we talking Courtney Love (OO.o) bloat or Starr Jones (Office Vista) bloat?
  • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1Well, Torvalds pretty much issued an open invitation to MS, Saying that the Linux kernel was mostly complete before windows was so much as a twinkle in Bill's eye. And considering that Torvalds, I believe by his own admission, has a copy of every major build and its source since Day 1, I think he's probably got the prior art to back up up his claim should Microsoft engage in the anti-competitive act of litigating Linus, Linux users, or any of the given OSS supporters.
    • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8"Saying that the Linux kernel was mostly complete before windows was so much as a twinkle in Bill's eye."

      Windows 1.0 was released in 1985. The first version of the Linux kernel was released in 1991.
    • nnolasco, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1...and was dumped and rewritten from scratch every 3-4 years.

      :-)
  • WKStone, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Brilliant.
  • pantsbandit, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3"unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

    And how many desktops is Sun OS software on? That's what I thought.
    • SVPirate, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Not many, but it's one of the most popular Server OSs around, including a good lot of what is running the internet, a good lot of banks, and large corporations.
    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4I run Solaris 10 at the house. By far the most stable and usable flavor if you know what you're doing.
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Java. Go check download.com and versiontracker.com top 10 lists, you will notice some Java destop apps. I hope you/people aren't forgetting the fact that OpenOffice is Staroffice source donated to opensource community.

      If we speak about devices, servers, Java is far more essential feature of them.

      If we speak about Solaris, whatever Sun says, it is still an ultra secure/reliable/modern (kernel wise) workstation environment suits to Science,Military professional high end multimedia more than home users.
    • dogfurnace, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4pantsbandit: Not really sure what you mean by that statement, Java is installed on millions of desktops the world over. And if by desktop you mean your favorite Linux distro, as the article states: "Our contributions, from Java to OpenOffice to Gnome and Mozilla, now account for in excess of 25% of all lines of code within your average Linux distribution".
  • isosceles, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Really, now who would you rather work for?
    • GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Sun aren't over run by management. When you heard company x has 1 manager for every 3 people involved in actual work which company was company x. That's right, it was MS. QED.
  • nirvanix, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I guess people are moving to Ubuntu instead of Vista, hence the threats. There is just no level that the megalomaniac and his bald-headed henchman won't stoop to apparently.
  • slapthemonkey, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Sun is moving in the right direction...
  • killdashnine, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3Sun should be applauded for NOT being yet another steam-rolling company trying to get their digs in Open Source. The problem with Microsoft is that they have thousands of spoiled brats driving too expensive cars and living off free meals to support to realize that the efforts of "starving artist-type programmers" can kick their asses any day of the week.

    Still, MS has nothing to worry about until most video games (Counter-Strike, etc.) can run natively on any Linux box. Once that happens I don't need them anymore.
  • Herolint, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5To me, the most brilliant wisdom shared in this article is, "Remember, they wouldn't be motivated unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

    How I wish it were possible to pound that wisdom into the heads of those at Microsoft, the RIAA, MPAA, etc., who want to litigate to protect an archaic business model rather than create a compelling product.

    I have used Linux since 1994. It's a great OS and it is all free. However, in spite of how great Linux is, I still purchased a MacBook Pro about 2 months ago. Yes, it was quite expensive, but Apple hit the mark with me so I'm willing to pay. If Microsoft could hit the mark, I'd use their products again too. Microsoft's problem isn't that Linux is infringing their patents, it is that their software simply isn't good enough, or compelling enough, for me to want to buy it.

    I'm not saying their software is crap, but when OpenOffice does 95% of what I want from an office suite, for example, I'm more inclined to alter my computing habits a bit than fork over hundreds of dollars for MS Office and Windows to run it on. Microsoft needs to make their stuff compelling so people will want to buy it instead of going with cheaper alternatives. It certainly worked for Apple; at least as far as I'm concerned.
  • BobOki, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I got out of that article, "We were forced to change, and did. Glad we did it!" That says two things, one it was NOT their idea, two they were smart enough to listen. When one fails as long as they listen, they will still win.
  • billwbateman, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Love Sun Solaris / Linux and Open source. MS can go take their washed up OS and do something with that suits it, like burn it. Go sun for sticking to your guns...i love those guys!
  • alchemista, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Microsoft's CEO response to Sun's CEO:
    Check out the stock price.
  • GarrettAtreides, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0I love how even though MS came out and said that they were not going to sue anyone everyone still keeps saying things like "threatening to sue." There is no way that MS is going to sue Linux users. They don't need the money, and they would only win perhaps a fraction of the cases that would be brought up. You might not agree with their software, but they are a top notch business and they wouldn't make a dumb decision like suing Linux users. I cant believe people wont just drop it. NO ONE IS GETTING SUED! Get over it!
  • jetcopter, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2"Remember, they wouldn't be motivated unless your products were somehow missing the mark."

    Hmm, sounds like Sun should listen to their own advice.
  • kildurin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Sun actually is innovating. ZFS and Dtrace are examples. And, they are patent free. Would M$ ever release NTFS even as old as it is to the Open Source community?
  • samsara1981, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"now account for in excess of 25% of all lines of code within your average Linux distribution"

    Sun has only contributed 5% of ALL code, because it contributed 26% of all code contributed by companies, which in turn is only 19.22% of total code - see Figure 28 at the top of page 50 in the document he cites, http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=27255

    Get your numbers right, Mr. Schwartz!
  • gthrank, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Here's a challenge, MS: tell us what patents the open source community is apparently infringing, and we'll write our way around your intellectual property, with original code, and it'll be rock solid stable. And it'll take us 1/10th of the time it would take you.

  • Geekiest, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0FINALLY! Someone who gets it!

    - The old business model is dead
    - A community is powerful than a company
    - Don't make your customers your enemy *cough* RIAA *cough*
  • l2digg, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1everytime someone used "M$" to represent Microsoft, I'm digging you down. the "$" symbol is used for currency, not an out-dated lame joke. Use an "S" lest you look like a tool-ass-fanboy-jock-frat-boy.
    • Kyan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Just ignore them. This too, shall pass.
    • Anonyblessed, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$
    • ilgaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1MSFT is much better than M$, it represents a struggling to keep to date company living sort of panic.
  • Kyan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2OK, this is a totally random post, but here and now seems as good a time and place to say what I'm going to say as any other - with full expectation of being dugg down, of course.

    Has it ever occured to software coders, and programmers in general, that they are today's answer to the ancient Egyptian scribes?

    Many long moons ago, there was a civilization in which few could read and write. The powerful were mighty because of thier strength, but they relied on scribes to communicate with distant friends and foes as they pursued matters of state.

    The role of reading and writing could not be kept a secret and in fact was no secret. But the masses were not educated. Soon some scribes themselves began to gain power as they used their skills to rise to the top. Soon it was clear that reading and writing were keys to a better life and everyone began to learn the tricks of paper and pen. Now everyone could write and a new civilization arose.

    Today's world seems much the same. It's all technology and the things forth graders do today are still beyond my ken. The world is changed from even just ten years ago and there is no particular reason not to think that some day every educated person will be a competent programmer.

    Open source gaining ground and territory is a perfect fit in such a world. And in a world where everyone can read and write, the alphabet is open source.

    What am I saying? I'm predicting a day when there will be no software patents, because everyone will be educated enough to see that patenting something as easy as code is ridiculous.

    So, yeah, programmers should live it up now, while most of the rest of the world cannot read and write. But programming doomsday is coming...soon programmers will be like today's secretaries - necessary, but only because the boss is not going to waste his time writing his own memos, not because the secretary knows something the boss doesn't know.
  • Stonekeeper, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1This actually makes me want to buy sun stuff!
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