[SunRescue] Suppprt for Sunhelp.com (long)

[nick at ns.snowman.net]

Sgihelp.org used to exist.  I do not know it's current status (I belive
it's offline).
	Nick

On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Kurt Huhn wrote:

> I know a lot of people have expressed support before me, and some will
> follow after.  Instead of regurgitating what has already been said by folks
> more eloquent and knowlegeable than myself, let me offer my experiences with
> Sunhelp instead.
> 
> About two years ago I cam across a SparcClassic in the back room of one of
> my clients during a junk-tossing session.  Mixed in among the broken
> monitors, cracked LCD screens, abandoned Intel 386 boxen, various unused
> cables and cords, and trashed office furniture, was this neat little gem
> that was obviously a computer of some kind.  Not being one to let this get
> tossed even if it was broken, I sat it on my desk.  I was proud of my find
> and even mentioned it to a couple of freinds who, being Intel/MS/Novell
> engineers like myself, had no idea what it could be.  Just the fact that it
> had the Sun logo on it made me think it was something special though, so I
> kept it.
> 
> As it sat on my desk I couldn't help but wonder, does it work?  However, not
> having the knowledge to find out, it continued to sit there for about 6
> months being admired only for it's design ingenuity and not for it's more
> palpable merits as a computer.  I wanted to learn about it though and
> performed a search on the Internet using Altavista (then
> altavista.digital.com), and found only one site with enough information to
> satisfy me - Sunhelp.org.  A directory of information, housed both on the
> Sunhelp website and other websites including Sun itself.  Sunhelp.org also
> had mailing lists!  Imagine my luck!
> 
> Through careful study of the information on this site I learned all about
> the Sparc Classic, the Free Solaris program, Sparcstation 1s (which I also
> managed to pickup in the meantime), and the illustrious SparcBook from
> Tadpole Technologies.  It was through this site that I learned about Ross
> Pennington and his "clearance sale" of sparkbooks.  Saints be praised, I
> managed to convince my wife to let me buy a 3GS - and it quickly became my
> mobile workstation leaving the Intel laptop at home.
> 
> The information housed at Sunhelp helped me weed out the flotsam from the
> information stream and provided me with real, useful information concerning
> Sun and Sun equipment.  Because of this site I found myself becoming not
> just a NT engineer, but a passable Solaris sysadmin - whou would've thought
> it?  The information at Sun.com was sorely lacking in information on older
> Sun equipment - of the type I could afford at the time.  Without Sunhelp's
> help, I never would have been able to learn as much as I did.  Without
> Sunhelp that Sparc Classic would never have been turned on, had Solaris 2.6
> installed, and taken it's rightful place as my primary Unix workstation.
> 
> Not being an Internet "surfer" I appreciated the fact that all of the
> information I needed most was accessable through Sunhelp - including links
> to another site containing pictures of older Sun equipment that helped me
> identify such beasts at swap meets and flea markets.
> 
> Thanks to Bill Bradford and the time he spent on Sunhelp, I also learned
> about Sun's low-cost Sparc systems - the Ultra5 being the most prominent.
> Now I knew that Sun also built a viable alternative to Intel based systems,
> which were beginning to disgust me with thier daily ABENDs and outages.
> Before I learned of these systems I thought that Sun was primarily producers
> of high-cost equipment accessable by only large, multinational corporations.
> A little more research, using Sunhelp.org, and I realized that this wasn't
> the case at all.
> 
> Now I suggest Sun Microsystems equipment as an alternative to clients who
> need high-availability solutions.  NT has it's place, but in mission
> critical enterprise applications, you need a Unix system to ensure
> high-availability.  Granted, I don't consult with companies that would place
> orders in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I do promote Sun
> equipment and it's merits to anyone who will listen.
> 
> Now, allow me to say that my feelings about Sun may be in jeopardy.  In the
> course of two days I've learned things about Sun's legal department that
> bring tears to my eyes.  I can't imagine a company with roots such as Sun's
> would threaten legal action against the very website that helped me learn
> about them.  These actions are unconscienable and tarnish Sun's image in my
> mind. They also threaten my, at times aggresive, promotion of Sun and thier
> ideals, equipment, and values.
> 
> Perhaps overprotective lawyers are to blame for this episode - lets hope so.
> I can't imagine the management of Sun saying "Let's take action against this
> site.  They're clearly helping us out by promoting our products and services
> for free.  We simply can't have that, free advertising will hurt our image.
> Besides, nobody uses the old equipment anymore, anybody we really care about
> will be buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of new stuff and,
> support contracts to go with it since nobody can possibly learn how to use
> this stuff right.  To hell with these folks, do you think we can get this
> site shut down? Get me the legal department."
> 
> Suffice to say, I've put my reccomendations of Sun equipment on hold for the
> time being.  I won't stoop to the level that Sun's legal department
> apparently has by asking my clients to put a hold on thier orders from Sun,
> but I am saddened by the whole mess.  Perhaps it's time I really started
> looking at Silicon Graphics systems as an alternative to Sun.  I hear the
> I/O system, that which is most important in server solutions, is superior to
> Sun in some fashoin.  I wonder if there's a SGIhelp.org site out there....
> 
> Kurt A. Huhn
> kurthuhn at k-huhn.com
> Network Engineer, Systems Consultant
> 
> The text of this email may be reproduced in part, or in whole, in any
> fashion that helps alleviate the situation curently affecting Sunhelp.org
> and affiliated websites and the administrator of said websites.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>