Ben Higginbottom wrote:

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Yes, but! Sun would love to see Linux marginalised or disappear so that Solaris could come back into its own.

<snip>

I dont see this at all, Sun do not want linux on high end servers obviously because it will cripple their solaris buisness, however they (well at least some parts of the company, this is Sun afterall) are very enthusiastic about linux on the desktop; hence JDE (based on SuSE), the suport for OOo and so on.

My point precisely, they have a vested interest in Solaris they need to protect against Linux on the high end servers, or on any Sun servers for that matter. IBM on the other hand took a different view, if they don't sell AIX or OS/390, they still ship iron with Linux and services, money in the bank for IBM whatever, to lose to Linux is a win for them. When large customers move to Linux from Solaris, Sun loses, though we may see that corrected, if they evaluate a customer as a switcher, perhaps they will offer AMD 64-bit and Linux. Sun's Linux strategy up to now was win with Linux on the "edge of the network" and later convince them they ought to upgrade to SPARC and Solaris. SPARC will eventually suffer on grounds of cost alone, they even approached Fujitsu to do the manufacturing as their SPARC chips and systems design lag behind ours. FJ are developing Linux for SPARC and also have an agreement to jointly develop with Intel, Linux for a new line of servers using the Intel 64-bit chips.

As for them being in bed with SCO, well I dont see Darl and Scott walking hand in hand or any licensing agreements for JDE. The only license and seemingly buisness Sun have had with SCO is the purchase of a one for the use of the SYSV code in solaris.

Regards,

BenH

NO WAY! I would never suggest such a thing, I can't even imagine Scott wishing Darl a nice day. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer Linux Only Shop.