#UnixWar

Kevin Karhan :verified:kkarhan@infosec.space
2025-06-15

@ytc1 @DenOfEarth @aka_pugs I know.

And espechally in #ScientificComputing a lot of researchers loved working with #SunMicrosystems and when #Oracle took over that relationship got sour'd instantly due to #Oracle #CEO #LarryEllison...

-> infosec.space/@kkarhan/1146825

One of the big successes of #Sun was that they basically declared a unilateral "ceasefire" in terms of #IP & #Patents re: #OpenSource. Whereas Oracle didn't seem willing to honour that.

  • Without that cooperative atmosphere we saw #OpenOffice devs literally forking off into @libreoffice and projects like #illumos and @openzfs scramble to save what was OpenSource'd and also rescue that.

Obviously #Linux with it's #GPLv2only-Kernel and most of it's Userland could not get 'closed-sourced' like #OpenSolaris which instantly got stomped out by Oracle as they wanted to sqeeze #Solaris for profits and milk their clients in typical Oracle fashion...

Now granted, I do know someone who for most of their life made their money dealing with the intricacies of setting up #postfix, #sendmail and #courier #MailServers on Solaris and if I ask said person about that they give me a kilometer stare, so OFC like a #SysV - #Unix systems Solaris and #SunOS really are one of the reasons #WindowsNT won the "#WorkstationWar" and why - if anyone - #Apple won the last "#UnixWar"...

  • Still I do am sad that I declined that #sysadmin position at a leading research center I'm not at liberty to name and I do know there's OFC still some critical infrastructure running even older Solaris servers...

mastodon.sdf.org/@ytc1/1146893

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