adidas wrote:
It is ridiculous to go through installation of windows/linux just to play
movies/videos and voice/video chat.
http://www.opensolaris.com/learn/features/whats-new/200906/#1 says it is for
[b]users [/b]also (Toshiba laptops, that are sold, are not used as production
servers I think!!!). Very few things need to be done to use a server as a
desktop. No good business person denies the huge desktop market.
Yes, plenty of "good" business people deny (i.e. avoid) the desktop
market. It *sucks* for revenue for everyone except Microsoft.
While it's certainly a worthy goal to support concepts like the SunRay
and other corporate-style super-managed thin clients, going after the
traditional home user/corporate desktop market is a Massive effort. And
one which pays very, very, very little dividend.
Right now, both Linux and Windows make reasonably good desktop OSes.
From the OpenSolaris standpoint, what good does it bring the project to
attempt to compete with them? Having a modestly-usable system for
development is good, which is what we currently have by simply
recompiling apps from Linux and *BSD land. What benefit would we gain by
spending a whole lot of effort trying to improve the "business/home
user" experience? Right now, OpenSolaris is targeted at the Enterprise
and Technical User communities. What reason is sufficient for
OpenSolaris to try to move beyond those communities?
OpenSolaris is a niche OS - highly robust, highly scaleable, highly
manageable servers and appliances. It's a rather broad niche, but it's
a niche nonetheless. Given the more limited resources available for its
development, I can't see any cost-benefit to trying to expand it out of
that niche. OpenSolaris works very well in conjunction with other OSes,
so there's no need for an "OpenSolaris-everywhere" strategy.
All that said, it's an entirely worthy goal to continue to port over
those Linux & *BSD userland applications which require little effort,
and enhance the user experience. I'm just not in favor of any serious
effort at the OS level to accommodate more "desktop-ish" features at the
expense of server features/improvements. For instance: I don't
particularly care that OpenSolaris's firewire support isn't that great.
ObDisclaimer: All statements and opinions are my own, and do not
represent in any way that of my employer or anyone else.
--
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop: usca22-123
Phone: x17195
Santa Clara, CA
Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
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