How many big Unix players are there left apart from Sun?

Why does Linux need to be big? it's already creeping in. Three years ago people I know never used it. People at work are installing it, friends are installing it.

Linux doesn't need Novell, Novell needs Linux. I don't hear of much Netware business in the news these days?

The only card Novell has up its sleeve is some Unix patents.

I was a little surprised to discover today that Linux has replaced Unix. And I took a quick look to check it out, sure enough all our HP-UX servers now magically run Ubuntu! And our aging DG/UX boxes have had slackware installed!

Seriously though, in an enterprise, I need to be able to put my hand on my heart and say "sure, we can run application X on ABCD linux". And it needs to work, and we need a number to call if it doesn't because it costs money. That's why vendors like RedHat and Novell are attractive to an enterprise.

So let Linux creep in to my place and your friend's place, it all helps. But enterprises don't generally like risks. So for Linux to be embraced, it needs to minimise risk. Novell seem to think that they have to 'work with the enemy' in order to achieve this, and they might be right.

Basically Linux has eaten through most of the low and mid-range Unix server market, as most of the old Unix players have disappeared (Digital Unix, IRIX), shafted themselves (the new "SCO"), or fused/morphed into something else (NeXT).

Hardware goes old, and substituting them costs $$$. With the rise of the el-cheapo x86 "bad-but-cheap" architecture in serverland, Linux became a pretty viable option when switching, or even a good option on the original hardware (one of few OSes that can run in almost anything out there, even PDAs).

Though still in the high-end market, Solaris and AIX seem to still be the undisputed kings, at least where I work.

Oh, by the way, the UNIX/Linux servers easily outnumber 5:1 (or more) the Winbugs server population...

Ummmm... so a few people you know use it so it has replaced UNIX?

I don't think so. UNIX sales may be flat but UNIX is still what runs most enterprise back ends. I choose Linux for web, file serving, DNS and DHCP. I choose UNIX for the real heavy workloads. It is a good price/performance/realibility mix.

Ummmm... so a few people you know use it so it has replaced UNIX? I don't think so.

While UNIX sales may be flat they still are a significant chunk of IBM,HP and SUN sales. UNIX is still what runs most enterprise back ends. I always choose Linux for web, file serving, DNS and DHCP. I choose UNIX for the real heavy workloads. It is a good price/performance/realibility mix (even with the Oracle tax).

As for Novell .... Novell is dead without Linux. That is why they are betting their business on it and do seem to be starting to get it. they need to remember that Open Source means giving back to the community if you don't give back clean non patent encumbered code then they will have a real hard time selling those binary blobs that hook in and make them money.

Linux was little more than a twinkling in Linus' eye when Novell were busy selling off Unixware to SCO, and Gartner were proudly announcing the death of Unix with the release of Windows 2000.

Giles was dead right. Linux is where it is today because jerks like Novell and Microsoft have had nothing to with it. If Novell's Homosapien cared at all about Linux, he'd stop sullying the name by rubbing "Novell" all over it.

Ubuntu represents the true spirit of community Linux ... proving that innovation isn't about riding the coat tales of those who've come before you, and charging a premium for it.

Tell me what 'linux' (and by that I mean the kernel, not all the FSF/GPL software that sits on top) has inovated during it's lifetime?

Long live OpenSolaris and ZFS.

AIX for anyone???

"Tell me what 'linux' (and by that I mean the kernel, not all the FSF/GPL software that sits on top) has inovated during it's lifetime?"

The most obvious is loadable modules (with full load/unload/autoload) for a non-microkernel.

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/23/77

Just because no one has above, what about Apple's OS X - which will be an actual certified Unix come 10.5, rather than Unix-compatible as now. (No idea what that means for the underlying Darwin BSD). That's a growing Unix distribution, although it's not exactly growing the market for Unix'03 software.

And to concur with the above - still plenty of AIX, HP-UX and Sun boxes out in the Enterprise. Expensive, but typically peanuts compared to the software running on them.

"How many big Unix players are there left apart from Sun?"

Apple, for one–OS X 10.5 now meets UNIX 03 certification.

So, I was hallucinating the "load on first open, unload on last close" drivers that were part of RT-11 from at least the early 1970s? Right, they weren't named "modules" and they didn't have nifty features like modprobe.conf _silently_ overriding options, but then RT-11 ran in 32K of memory, so that should count for something. :-)

Pace - I am not saying that Linux doesn't offer many more services than a 32K PDP-11 without memory-management did almost 40 years ago, but "the first time I ever saw" is not the same as "the first time it ever happened"

Does he mean standardize like the way Microsoft does or by the usual definition?

The Microsoft way is where you pay them money to use some proprietary piece of crap they own and that they used their monopoly to force into the market.

Just because they paid him a wagon load of money doesn't mean he can force the GPL to comply to what billwg wants. I wonder if Darl M. got a better deal?

On UNIX there is BSD, HPUX ( if only on Itanic ) AIX, OSX (BSD), Irix is doen but not out, Solaris, etc.

Microsoft should be made to come to Linux not the other way around no matter how much graft they pay executives from other companies.

"So, I was hallucinating the "load on first open, unload on last close" drivers that were part of RT-11 from at least the early 1970s?"

loadable kernel modules != loadable device drivers

loadable kernel modules > loadable device drivers