In a recent interview Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun systems for 22 years, said that he and his company were fully behind the promotion of open source software. Now that sounds like music to the ears of those who want something for nothing. It makes Sun sound like a quasi-charitable organisation, all for the people, a sharer in the competitive society.
McNealy is no romantic computer scientist. In fact he was trained in the business field at Harvard University where he graduated with a BA in Economics. So you wonder how he could head such a free download company.
A closer look reveals that Sun's principal product is computer hardware, especially servers. So what Sun is really promoting is free software to run on their expensive hardware. The more information and gratuitous software available the more hardware needed to run it. Google knows that - it manages information searches using server farms full of hardware. Sun's motto "The Computer is the Network" has a harder look about it, somehow.
However, what is hard can be dressed up to look like soft for the occasion.
Tom
McNealy is no romantic computer scientist. In fact he was trained in the business field at Harvard University where he graduated with a BA in Economics. So you wonder how he could head such a free download company.
A closer look reveals that Sun's principal product is computer hardware, especially servers. So what Sun is really promoting is free software to run on their expensive hardware. The more information and gratuitous software available the more hardware needed to run it. Google knows that - it manages information searches using server farms full of hardware. Sun's motto "The Computer is the Network" has a harder look about it, somehow.
However, what is hard can be dressed up to look like soft for the occasion.
Tom
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