4 ms·

Solaris support ends in November, 2034. Yeah, 17 years from now. No need to hurry ;-)

by severino 9y ago

pjmlp 9y ago
Given that they fired everyone, who do you think is going to give that support and fix bugs?
- severino 9y ago
  My comment was a joke, obviously. However, it's not that difficult to provide that kind of support and bugfixing. It's not like developing something new.
- mrpippy 9y ago
  They didn't quite fire everyone: Alan Coopersmith (https://twitter.com/alanc/status/904366563976896512 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/904366563976896512) is still present. I'm sure lots of support and bug fixes will be neglected and probably moved offshore though. Also, it certainly seems like Oracle Solaris 11.3 (released in fall 2015) will be the last publicly available version. Between-release updates (SRUs) have always been for paying customers only, but now it seems like there will never be another release.
tannhaeuser 9y ago
Hm, when was the next Unix timestamp range overflow again?
- severino 9y ago
  I think it was 2038... so Solaris won't need a patch :-D
  - emmelaich 9y ago
    That may well have been the motivation for that 2034 date and the canning of most of the Solaris crew.
yourapostasy 9y ago
It will be interesting to see if the Osborne Effect [1] repeats itself with Solaris. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
- mrbill 9y ago
  People started moving away from Solaris/SPARC in droves as soon as Oracle acquired Sun. An example: the "old" Sun gave me a loaded T1000 system to run SUNHELP.ORG on. The "New" Sun wouldn't even give me Solaris patches / security updates (which used to be free) without a support contract. I had to eventually move the site to being hosted on a Debian box because I couldn't afford the hundreds of dollars they wanted every year for patch access. It really chapped my hide. I'd even been part of the external OpenSolaris release team.
  - mrbill 9y ago
    The "old" Sun recognized and encouraged the hobbyist community - that if people played with older gear at home, they were more likely to recommend/spec it at work... Solaris and patches/updates, software suites (LDAP server etc) "free unless you want/need a support contract". "New" Sun after the Oracle acquisition: "Unless you're a business paying us money for support, we don't care, and you get NOTHING." So, people stopped using and playing with Solaris/SPARC at home, and eventually stopped using it at work too.

Solaris support ends in November, 2034. Yeah, 17 years from now. No need to hurry ;-)

pjmlp 9y ago

Given that they fired everyone, who do you think is going to give that support and fix bugs?

severino 9y ago
My comment was a joke, obviously. However, it's not that difficult to provide that kind of support and bugfixing. It's not like developing something new.
mrpippy 9y ago
They didn't quite fire everyone: Alan Coopersmith (https://twitter.com/alanc/status/904366563976896512 https://twitter.com/alanc/status/904366563976896512) is still present. I'm sure lots of support and bug fixes will be neglected and probably moved offshore though. Also, it certainly seems like Oracle Solaris 11.3 (released in fall 2015) will be the last publicly available version. Between-release updates (SRUs) have always been for paying customers only, but now it seems like there will never be another release.

tannhaeuser 9y ago

Hm, when was the next Unix timestamp range overflow again?

severino 9y ago
I think it was 2038... so Solaris won't need a patch :-D
- emmelaich 9y ago
  That may well have been the motivation for that 2034 date and the canning of most of the Solaris crew.

yourapostasy 9y ago

It will be interesting to see if the Osborne Effect [1] repeats itself with Solaris. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

mrbill 9y ago
People started moving away from Solaris/SPARC in droves as soon as Oracle acquired Sun. An example: the "old" Sun gave me a loaded T1000 system to run SUNHELP.ORG on. The "New" Sun wouldn't even give me Solaris patches / security updates (which used to be free) without a support contract. I had to eventually move the site to being hosted on a Debian box because I couldn't afford the hundreds of dollars they wanted every year for patch access. It really chapped my hide. I'd even been part of the external OpenSolaris release team.
- mrbill 9y ago
  The "old" Sun recognized and encouraged the hobbyist community - that if people played with older gear at home, they were more likely to recommend/spec it at work... Solaris and patches/updates, software suites (LDAP server etc) "free unless you want/need a support contract". "New" Sun after the Oracle acquisition: "Unless you're a business paying us money for support, we don't care, and you get NOTHING." So, people stopped using and playing with Solaris/SPARC at home, and eventually stopped using it at work too.