[geeks] Opinions on "A personal view of Sun Microsystems"?

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
>>>>     2003 (two "major" jumps), IBM released AIX 4.3.3 through 5.3 (two
>>> s/two$/one/
>> I'd call the 4.3.3 -> 5.1 jump major, and I'd call the 5.1 -> 5.2 jump
>> major.  In fact, I think going from 5.1 -> 5.2 is a bigger jump than
>> going from 4.3.3 -> 5.1.
> 
> Absolutely, but they pulled it off without calling it AIX 6 or breaking
> any compatibility.  Strictly from an executive point-of-view, AIX
> 5.1->5.2 was a point release, whereas Solaris 7->8 was a "major
> upgrade", even though there was very little code change between SunOS
> 5.7 and SunOS 5.8.  Hence, why I put "major" in quotes.

They didn't break any *software* compatibility, but they certainly broke 
a whole bunch of *hardware* compatibility.  I suspect there'll be 
machines running AIX 5.1 long after 5.2 and 5.3 fall by the wayside.

> Sun's re-versioning plan to leap ahead of all the other vendors to see
> more "up-to-date" came back and bit them because of the perception that
> running Solaris meant never being able to keep up.  I watched several
> companies dump Solaris because I couldn't convince them that it was
> -really- Solaris 2.7 -> 2.8.

People really care about version numbering schemes?  I guess there's no 
cure for stupid.

Just curious, but how much do you think it cost them to switch platforms 
vs. just upgrading to the latest Solaris?

Peace...  Sridhar