[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“If you click on www.sun.com, you get redirected to
www.oracle.com. Sun is no more. The network is no longer the
computer. The “Dot” in .COM is now a database. I’m really sorry to
see Sun go. I have a long and varied history with Sun. What went
wrong?“I joined Sun in 1989, fresh from a System Administration job at
Manchester University. I was so excited. Finally, I was going to
get the chance to see the inside of “real” UNIX ! No more Minix
hacking for me, I was finally going to get the chance to see and
work on the source code for a real UNIX operating system. I wasn’t
disappointed. It was incredibly sophisticated, with a virtual
memory system, a working network file system (NFS) and a state of
the art graphical user interface (SunView). It was one of the most
advanced systems available at the time.“The difference between Sun systems and everything else out
there in the late 1980’s (mostly Novell Netware or Microsoft Lan
Manager networks) is that Sun networks “just worked”, all the time.
I remember visiting remote Sun offices in the UK, and just being
able to log in wherever I was and have all my files and work
environment automatically available via the Network File System
(NFS) auto mounter and directory services available via Sun’s
Network Information Service (NIS/Yellow Pages). One morning I was
outraged when Sun network operations informed me my home directory
and work environment wouldn’t be available until that afternoon due
to a network outage. I was so spoiled, I didn’t even realize such
things were extremely rare outside the cozy world inside Sun.”