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That C compiler unbundling was probably the largest mistake Sun ever made and very likely the reason Linux rose to relevance and later world domination. In the

by jjav 6y ago

That C compiler unbundling was probably the largest mistake Sun ever made and very likely the reason Linux rose to relevance and later world domination. In the early to mid 90s SunOS (prior to Solaris it was SunOS) was in the place where Linux has come to be - it was the default assumed by most software. When one ftp'd any src tarball and typed make, it was almost certain to work on SunOS and very often require extensive tweaking on other platforms. On the nascent early Linux it was a huge pain to get any open source to compile. Unbundling the C compiler in Solaris changed this dynamic. Suddenly it was no longer a given that everything could be trivially compiled on those SPARC box everyone had.

pjmlp 6y ago
There was no Linux when Sun took that decision. Linux rose to relevance because BSD was stuck in a legal fight, and while Windows was starting to eat the UNIX workstation market, Microsoft did not considered worthwhile to actively pursue their POSIX support. Had Windows NT offered POSIX standard support to the level I could do my DG/UX work assignments at home (minus traditional UNIX wars issues), and I would never cared for Linux. I bet many would have done the same.
- jjav 6y ago
  > There was no Linux when Sun took that decision. True, but initially Solaris (and the compiler unbundling) had no impact on the Sun user base. The initial release of Solaris was... not that great. I remember universities and research labs (entities which provided a lot of the open source effort) held out upgrading for a long time and stayed on SunOS for years. So by the time most organizations finally upgraded to Solaris, Linux was established but not very strong. The timing was just right (or wrong, depending on POV) for the compiler unbundling to start pushing people (me included) to Linux. (Although then I joined Sun and lived happily in the world of Solaris for many years.)

by jjav 6y ago

pjmlp 6y ago

There was no Linux when Sun took that decision. Linux rose to relevance because BSD was stuck in a legal fight, and while Windows was starting to eat the UNIX workstation market, Microsoft did not considered worthwhile to actively pursue their POSIX support. Had Windows NT offered POSIX standard support to the level I could do my DG/UX work assignments at home (minus traditional UNIX wars issues), and I would never cared for Linux. I bet many would have done the same.

jjav 6y ago
> There was no Linux when Sun took that decision. True, but initially Solaris (and the compiler unbundling) had no impact on the Sun user base. The initial release of Solaris was... not that great. I remember universities and research labs (entities which provided a lot of the open source effort) held out upgrading for a long time and stayed on SunOS for years. So by the time most organizations finally upgraded to Solaris, Linux was established but not very strong. The timing was just right (or wrong, depending on POV) for the compiler unbundling to start pushing people (me included) to Linux. (Although then I joined Sun and lived happily in the world of Solaris for many years.)