Interesting view of how Linux would have worked out, had Sun done the right things with x86 processors. But this strikes me as denying Sun's position, as per C

Interesting view of how Linux would have worked out, had Sun done the right things with x86 processors. But this strikes me as denying Sun's position, as per Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma". Sun passed on a number of opportunities for disruptive innovation. For example, the folks who started Auspex came from Sun, I think (and in turn, Auspex missed the boat that took Network Appliances away). Sun had a processor that was pretty darn good, when intel released the 80386. Let's face it, SPARC architecture still makes a lot more sense than x86. And Sun kept up for a surprisingly long time. How many people did Intel have squirrelling away at the x86 architecture? How many people did Sun have on SPARC? I imagine it was 10x less. I think suggesting that Solaris could have taken the place of linux in the market is very much wishful thinking. Now, if Sun had listened to Larry McVoy's Sourceware Operating System Proposal in '93 (http://www.bitmover.com/lm/papers/srcos.html http://www.bitmover.com/lm/papers/srcos.html), that might have made a big difference.