Solaris isn't "free" in the same respect as Linux is. Sun has recently started
to grant non-commercial licenses to end users for a small fee, but the source
code itself is still restricted, and technically you shouldn't be using that
copy of Solaris for commercial endeavors. Neither of these is the case with
Linux, for which the GNU license grants free redistribution AND permission for
commercial usage at no additional charge.
Be careful not to confuse "binary compatible from version to version" with
"cross-platform compatible". Solaris binaries are *not* compatible across
different platform architectures (in this case, SPARC processors vs. i386
processors). Source code for Solaris programs may be highly portable with little
or no modification, and your Solaris libraries may be functionally identical,
but you're still going to have to recompile when you move from SPARC to i386 and
vice versa. This is the main reason why there are so few commercial security
products available for Solaris x86, to the extent that it requires a separate
port, there has to be a sufficient market to sustain such port. (Of course, this
isn't nearly as much a problem in the shareware/freeware community, where
distributions like FWTK can be recompiled by users directly).
Use the "file" command to examine the same binary (ls, for example) on two
different Solarises. On the SPARC machine, you're going to see:
/usr/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit MSB executable SPARC Version 1
and on the Intel machine, you're going to see
/usr/bin/ls: ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1
See the difference?
Regards,
Christopher Zarcone
Network Security Consultant
RPM Consulting, Inc.
#include <std.disclaimer.h>
My opinions are completely my own and based on no useful knowledge whatsoever,
and in fact should not be considered by anyone.
>Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 06:36:54 PDT
>From: "peter pajak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Solaris-on-Intel Firewalls
>
>i would say yes, since it's now free more people will start to use it and
>along with its linux run stuff it may gain more and more market. another
>bonus in that is that sun's os-es are binary compatible from version to
>version.
>
>peter
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