Re: OS/400 on a Sun unix -- MIDRANGE-L

Brad Stone wrote:

They would generate sales from the OS. Look how quickly linux became "popular", and then look at it's roots. If I could sell hardware with software, and software alone, I would think it would be advantageous.

I don't understand the quotes around popular. Linux is popular, whether or not that means anything is debatable.

But looking at it's root is interesting. Linux came to be because Linus Torvalds said, "Hey, I want to do this and this so I think I'll code it up." He shared his work with others in a way that guaranteed the work would stay shareable. People thought it was interesting, and decided to work on it too. Linus wanted a unix system but couldn't afford one, and didn't like windows 3.1. So he started coding something that was interesting, and others thought it was also interesting, so they pitched in. No one thought, "Hey, I want to make money, so I'm going to work on this linux thing." Business reasons meant nothing, and by and large still don't.

I understand as is OS400 is quite proprietary, and that's
the platform's biggest problem.  Remove that problem and I
believe it would become more revenue.  A little work, yes.
 But you don't get anything for nothing.

I don't think it's proprietary nature is really the problem you are addressing, rather the limited hardware on which it runs.

I think you don't necessarily want to change OS/400 to not be proprietary, but rather you just want an OS/400 for PCs. There is a parallel that can be looked at to see how well that might work. Sun Microsystems sells a version of Solaris that runs on Intel architecture. But most people still buy Solaris on SPARC, even though it is more expensive. Solaris for Intel is not very expensive, but it's demand is still low - even before linux starting eating away at Sun's marketshare.

The example of Solaris on Intel shows that putting a big time OS on a commodity architecture may not give the results a company hopes for. I believe Sun has sold more machines than IBM has sold AS/400's, and there are probably more UNIX-trained people than AS/400-trained people. So it seems unlikely that an OS/400 for Intel would do any better than Solaris for Intel.

In fact, the only people for whom OS/400 on Intel makes sense are the few hundred or so developers on this list. Most other OS/400 users need the big time hardware that comprises an iSeries.

But business reasons are only meaningful to businesses. Perhaps some person will say to themselves, "Hey, this looks interesting and I need something like this. I'll just code this up and see what people think..."

James Rich

"As for security, being lectured by Microsoft is like receiving wise words on the subject of compassion from Stalin." -- mormop on lwn.net