Just to reinforce the point I was making in my previous blog entry, take a look at IT Manager's Journal | Why distribution -- not low cost -- is real advantage of open source.
(And it's predecessor.)
Sun could learn from this. OK, so they've notched up some pretty impressive statistics for Solaris 10 so far. But they're stil very restrictive and in control of the distribution channel, which hurts them (for all their software - not just Solaris, but Java too).. You can't get Solaris from mirrors, you can't get it from the torrent, you can't get it on Magazine covers. And, because you can't redistribute it, Sun can't use other people to promote its software.
2 comments:
A large part of the problem there is US export regulations. If Sun is perceived as breaking them it loses the right to sell goods abroad, and consequently has to be extremely careful about redistribution. It's not (necessarily) cluelessness, it's oppressive legislation that's mostly to blame.
Simon,
Yes, I'm familiar with the idiosyncracies of the export regulations. I once had a Solaris pencil holder (one of the freebies from a beta program) impounded by customs here in the UK as a munition. I couldn't believe how hard that was to sort out...
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