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I run a community-oriented Sun/SPARC site, since 1997 (and was invited to be part of the private prerelase testing/eval of OpenSolaris) and it's really sad what

by mrbill 12y ago

I run a community-oriented Sun/SPARC site, since 1997 (and was invited to be part of the private prerelase testing/eval of OpenSolaris) and it's really sad what Oracle has done to the enthusiast community. The "old" Sun gave me a loaded T1000, gratis, to run the site on (I'd actually asked for one for a review, and they said "Keep it for the site."). The "new" Sun/Oracle gave me the finger. I had to move everything off the T1K and onto a Debian box hosted at home because I couldn't afford a support contract for it (required to get any patches/updates, even for the OS install that came on it). I've often likened Oracle's treatment of the hobbyist/enthusiast community as "they shot it in the face and said unless you're going to spend $XXXX with us, we don't care about you. Period." The "old" Sun recognized that if sysadmin types played with older gear at home and enjoyed it, they were more likely to recommend it for purchases at work, and they encouraged it.

dman 12y ago
The "old" Sun went out of business following the practices it did. I dislike Oracle as much as anyone else, but Sun isnt a great role model in terms of savvy business practices.
- tormeh 12y ago
  But in this case I think Sun was right. The marginal cost of making a processor is pretty low, I imagine, and it's not like enthusiast sites can be pumped for much money anyway.
jsprogrammer 12y ago
Larry's yachts don't manifest themselves.
- mrbill 12y ago
  I was able to, at different times, email both Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz directly, and got personal responses from both of them. In the grand scale of things, I'm a relative nobody, just a dude who runs a web site that talked about their products. I can't imagine being able to have a 2-3 message conversation with Ellison at all, as I don't spend enough with Oracle to be worth a microsecond of his attention.

by mrbill 12y ago

dman 12y ago

The "old" Sun went out of business following the practices it did. I dislike Oracle as much as anyone else, but Sun isnt a great role model in terms of savvy business practices.

tormeh 12y ago
But in this case I think Sun was right. The marginal cost of making a processor is pretty low, I imagine, and it's not like enthusiast sites can be pumped for much money anyway.

jsprogrammer 12y ago

Larry's yachts don't manifest themselves.

mrbill 12y ago
I was able to, at different times, email both Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz directly, and got personal responses from both of them. In the grand scale of things, I'm a relative nobody, just a dude who runs a web site that talked about their products. I can't imagine being able to have a 2-3 message conversation with Ellison at all, as I don't spend enough with Oracle to be worth a microsecond of his attention.