Fwd: Re: [SunHELP] Solaris 9 released

[Lionel Peterson]

Note: forwarded message attached.

Forgot to include maillist - sorry...

Lionel
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  Sat, 25 May 2002 08:14:56 PDT
Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 08:14:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [SunHELP] Solaris 9 released
To: Josh Greenberg <mustard_greens at yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20020525141227.2103.qmail at web13308.mail.yahoo.com>
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Well, the big picture had StarOffice as a comercial
product by a third-party, which Sun bought and turned
around and offered free licenses/downloads. Now Sun
has made an additional investment in improving the
product they bought (assumed),a nd the only way to get
it is as a purchased piece of software. That older
versions used to be free is really just an interesting
piece of information (in my opinion).

In looking at the included items with Solaris 9 "Full
Media Kit" ($95) - I noticed that Forte Developer 6 is
included - isn't that Sun's Compilers for C, C++ and
Fortran? That is a non-trivial change in the included
software in a "free" OS from Sun (Solaris hasn't
included a C compiler since SunOS 4.1.4 +/-)...

Downloads will be free, but couple the StarOffice
application, C, C++ and Fortran Compilers, as well as
all the new server tools, and I think $95 is
reasonable - but of course, YMMV.

It was not that long ago that there was no "free"
version of Solaris, that there was once a version that
supported multiple CPUs is, agian, just an interesting
piece of information (again, just my opinion).

Things change, Solaris 9 looks better than Solaris 8
for a lot of people, and in my opinion the price is
justified.

U60s still run Solaris 8 fine, and if you want Solaris
9, it looks like a full legal copy is about $250 a
significant, but not unreasonable alternative in my
opinion. Compare OS pricing with other "desktops" and
it is not so bad - how much is a fully licensed copy
of MacOS X? WinXP Pro? HP-UX?  IRIX? Linux and it's
pricing model is the exception, not the rule...

(oh, in reviewing the above, I was answering questions
posed on the Reader Reaction pages Bill Bradford
opened up about legal pricing, switching to Linux,
etc. Sorry for the off-topic wander... Josh only
discussed pricing for StarOffice...)

Lionel
  
--- Josh Greenberg <mustard_greens at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't want to nitpick, but the irony of the
> statement that StarOffice is an $80 value doesnt
> escape me -- let us not forget where Sun got that
> one... If my memory serves me correctly, that was a
> freebie a couple of years back.

> > BTW, the $95 "full" kit includes StarOffice 6 - an
> > $80
> > value, if you were thinking about getting that,
> then
> > the full kit looks to be a bargain (in my
> opinion).
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com