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milhous · Sep 17, 2005, 11:43 PM

While browsing through Jon Schwartz's Blog, I noticed a post he made back in June that asked Steve to make Solaris10 the foundation for the next generation of Intel Macs. Quite an amusing comment.

It seems that he completely dismisses the notion of OS X as a legitimate and viable UNIX.

Read for yourself.

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jon...#an_invitation

An Invitation to our Friends at Apple

Steve,

Glad to see you're considering a new platform for the Mac - seems like together we have a big opportunity.

As you know, we recently unveiled Solaris 10, the world's highest volume and most secure UNIX, running on all volume platforms - SPARC and both AMD and Intel x64. We've seen a huge rush of downloads (topping 1.5 million licenses) - and as you continue exploring the x64 platform as an alternative for your users, the opportunity to join forces on an operating system seems readily at hand.

So I'd like to personally invite you to adopt Solaris 10 as the underpinning of the next generation Mac. We both respect Unix, both respect innovation*, and both clearly see volume opportunities in extending choice to developers. We'd love to work together.

And while we're on the topic of developers, I'd also invite your folks to take a good look at the latest NetBeans - which offers features and performance that leaves its competitors in the dark. By offering a truly "Write Once, Run Anywhere" platform, you can simplify development and deployment without leaving any customers behind - even as you shift the underlying binary instruction set. Your developers can get it here.

Have a great keynote! You know where to reach us.

Jonathan

___________

* it also seems we both respect the rotating window effect we implemented in Project Looking Glass, and you in Dashboard.

Salty · Sep 17, 2005, 11:54 PM

I don't think this is a call to ditch OS X, but rather a call to ditch Darwin. Which to be honest in some ways might be nice. That is if it were necessary. Which really it isn't. I mean sure it might be nice to team up with someone on a common code base and what not. But really... I imagine there would be a LOT of work in porting the non Darwin parts of OS X to rely on something other than darwin. I don't know that Apple wants to make that big of a shift only because Sun thinks it'd be fun.

besson3c · Sep 18, 2005, 03:52 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

I don't think this is a call to ditch OS X, but rather a call to ditch Darwin. Which to be honest in some ways might be nice. That is if it were necessary. Which really it isn't. I mean sure it might be nice to team up with someone on a common code base and what not. But really... I imagine there would be a LOT of work in porting the non Darwin parts of OS X to rely on something other than darwin. I don't know that Apple wants to make that big of a shift only because Sun thinks it'd be fun.

Why should Apple ditch Darwin? Many companies run BSD servers. Many (probably more) also run Solaris servers, but I'm wondering why you think it might be nice to ditch Darwin?

willed · Sep 18, 2005, 09:17 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

I don't think this is a call to ditch OS X, but rather a call to ditch Darwin. Which to be honest in some ways might be nice. That is if it were necessary. Which really it isn't. I mean sure it might be nice to team up with someone on a common code base and what not. But really... I imagine there would be a LOT of work in porting the non Darwin parts of OS X to rely on something other than darwin. I don't know that Apple wants to make that big of a shift only because Sun thinks it'd be fun.

Think _BEFORE_ typing.

rickey939 · Sep 18, 2005, 01:31 PM

Salty · Sep 18, 2005, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Why should Apple ditch Darwin? Many companies run BSD servers. Many (probably more) also run Solaris servers, but I'm wondering why you think it might be nice to ditch Darwin?

I said it MIGHT be nice. I don't know how the features of Darwin compare with Solaris 10. Yeesh. If Solaris 10 had more features and would work well with the rest of OS X then it MIGHT be smart to switch. That said I didn't say Apple SHOULD switch. I imagine though Apple's already considered it and has probably rejected it. Besides they control Darwin, Sun controls Solaris, I don't think Apple would really wanna tie their future to a dying server company.

yukon · Sep 18, 2005, 01:41 PM

It's an interesting idea. Apple made it possible, OS X opened up a lot of possibilities for them (not the least of which, a port to x86). I don't know much about Solaris 10, just that I can download it (IIRC) by agreeing to some EULA, and the mainly negitive things others have said about Solaris over the years. I don't see why Apple would want it now that Darwin is doing pretty well....unless they've changed their minds on the whole microkernel thing, realized they don't like developing the OS anymore, or something drastic like that.

The claim for "most secure UNIX", I'd doubt it, I'd look to OpenBSD and Trustix.

besson3c · Sep 18, 2005, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by Salty

I said it MIGHT be nice. I don't know how the features of Darwin compare with Solaris 10. Yeesh. If Solaris 10 had more features and would work well with the rest of OS X then it MIGHT be smart to switch. That said I didn't say Apple SHOULD switch. I imagine though Apple's already considered it and has probably rejected it. Besides they control Darwin, Sun controls Solaris, I don't think Apple would really wanna tie their future to a dying server company.

Solaris is not a dying server company. Solaris drives most of the Fortune 500 websites. Solaris 10 is open source, just like FreeBSD (although probably with a different license).

I don't think this is a call to ditch OS X, but rather a call to ditch Darwin. Which to be honest in some ways might be nice

I was just asking you to elaborate on your point. I didn't realize you were just thinking out-loud to a forum.

besson3c · Sep 18, 2005, 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by yukon

It's an interesting idea. Apple made it possible, OS X opened up a lot of possibilities for them (not the least of which, a port to x86). I don't know much about Solaris 10, just that I can download it (IIRC) by agreeing to some EULA, and the mainly negitive things others have said about Solaris over the years. I don't see why Apple would want it now that Darwin is doing pretty well....unless they've changed their minds on the whole microkernel thing, realized they don't like developing the OS anymore, or something drastic like that.

The claim for "most secure UNIX", I'd doubt it, I'd look to OpenBSD and Trustix.

I think most of the things you may have heard might have been about Sun. Solaris is a workhorse - drives many sites/servers.

Salty · Sep 18, 2005, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Solaris is not a dying server company. Solaris drives most of the Fortune 500 websites. Solaris 10 is open source, just like FreeBSD (although probably with a different license).

I was just asking you to elaborate on your point. I didn't realize you were just thinking out-loud to a forum.

Of course Solaris isn't a dying server company, that's it's owner Sun.

besson3c · Sep 18, 2005, 01:57 PM

Originally Posted by Salty

Of course Solaris isn't a dying server company, that's it's owner Sun.

I guess I'm confused with your overall assessment here. Because Sun is not selling as much hardware, they would be a bad choice to work with? Or, are you saying that their software division is dying too (i.e. Sun is dying as a whole?)

Salty · Sep 18, 2005, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I guess I'm confused with your overall assessment here. Because Sun is not selling as much hardware, they would be a bad choice to work with? Or, are you saying that their software division is dying too (i.e. Sun is dying as a whole?)

I'm saying Sun as a whole is dying.

besson3c · Sep 18, 2005, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by Salty

I'm saying Sun as a whole is dying.

And what do you base that on?

yukon · Sep 18, 2005, 05:50 PM

I think most of the things you may have heard might have been about Sun. Solaris is a workhorse - drives many sites/servers.

Most of it was from the earlier days, back when they called it SunOS and the early versions of Solaris. It was sometimes incompatible, different, drove a lot of people nuts (ie. "compiles on everything but Solaris."). I have heard things about Solaris 10 being impressive, especially with the Athlon64, maybe I'll download it and check it out in a bit. As I said, this is just from what I've heard said, I've never owned a Sparc.