Is Solaris Dead? Let's ask Paul Krill

Recently, there seems to have been an attack on Solaris being dead. Two articles here and here make such a claim.

While everyone is entitled to there own opinion, I have a hard time with these articles. Why? because the Authors ask a single person, Who works for the Linux foundation, and takes his word as the truth. There are no facts presented in the articles. Jim Zemlin spends his career talking up Linux. That's his job.

The first big issue I have with the articale, is that he distances Linux from Unix. Last time I checked, when working in Linux, you use ls, chmod, chown, ps, just like every other unix does. So why the distancing? What's wrong with Unix?

Issue two.

Sun officials believe the 16-year-old Solaris platform remains a pivotal, innovative platform. But at the Linux Foundation, there is a no-conciliatory stance; the attitude there is to tell Solaris and Sun to move out of the way. "The future is Linux and Microsoft Windows," says foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. "It is not Unix or Solaris."

In the above paragraph, Mr. Krill, states that Sun officials beleive the Solaris is Pivotal and innovative, but the LF sais it's not. No facts, No number, no studies, he takes the words of Jim Zemlin, over the words of Sun's executives. WHY?

Issue Three.

Linux also is less costly to run, Zemlin claims. Sun, he declared, should just move over to Linux. Zemlin also held out little hope for other IBM's AIX and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX Unix platforms. "It's certainly true that Unix is on the decline," he says.

Less Costly to Run Linux...HMMMM. Let's take a look at that. From here we see a 3+ socket box costs $3,600 dollars list to support for 3 years for solaris x86. I searched for support from the Linux Foundation's website, but couldn't find any. HMMM...Ok so let's use Red Hat's support. From here for 3+ sockets would be $4,047 dollars for 3 years. So, where is the Cheaper part? I'm confused.

Issue three:

Thanks to its strong support of the x86 hardware architecture, "in terms of overall volume, Linux is just a much higher volume product than Solaris ever was," says Al Gillen, an IDC analyst. IDC data show that worldwide Linux shipments in 2006 were about 2.4 million in 2006 and nearly 2.7 million in 2007. By contrast, Solaris shipments totaled 376,000 in 2006 and 371,000 last year.

Where do these people come up with this information? Why did this go down, because we give it away for free so people don't order it anymore. They just download it from the site.

I could go on, but why? Three strikes and your out in my view. Does this make you mad? Do you want your voice heard?

Discredit Paul Krill here and here. Don't let these onesided stories live on...Comment on them!