RE:Afara, Multi-Chip Modules, Linux #
Hi Jesper,
Jesper posts, "So you are saying that you don't feel that one of more of Itanium, POWER, Xeon or AMD based servers are not general purpose servers ?"
(I think one would be hard-pressed to suggest Itanium VLIW as General Purpose. I think I would be willing to make the case for AMD as bring truly general purpose, but it is REALLY far off the original topic of OpenSPARC and TPC-C benchmarks!!! LOL! Another day, perhaps!)
I am saying that the different architectures do offer different advantages and I am quite happy with the competition on a heterogeneous computing environment based upon standards. A general purpose computer is not optimal for all situations. An optimized architecture is not optimal for all applications. Good applications, however, are not always available for the architecture that may suit it best. The market takes care of the latter situation, over time.
David earlier posts, "I don't think I made fun of multi-chip modules, at least I didn't try to. I merely said it was a business-man's approach. MCM's require less engineering, get faster to production, uses older technology effectively, reduces risk, but does not perform as fast if engineered it onto a single piece of silicon."
David later posts, "Doubtless, there are many benefits to multi-chip modules, as well as drawbacks"
Jesper posts, "And the drawbacks are ?... I suspect that the only reason you say it's not innovative is cause SUN doesn't do MCM's."
I covered the main drawback above in a previous quote. I can add additional arguments (production line manufacturing of a single-chip solution is normally less expensive than an MCM - the consumer market size drives the most profitable implementation.) The AMD-Intel battle for quad-core illustrated it best, in the most recent near-term. If I need me to explain this, I can. I am really not trying to pick an argument - technology is what it is and I appreciate it as it is.
Jesper posts, "But it still doesn't change that the original innovation was done by another company."
Sun worked the Majc architecture a decade earlier successfully with similar concepts and was productized. Afara brought another (i.e. SPARC) implementation where the former multi-core and multi-threading implementation lessons were leveraged. To suggest that the innovation originated solely from the external company (Afara) would incorrect.
Jesper posts, "My problem is that when people say things like this, it treated as a sacrilegious act, by the followers of the SUN. Sometimes I feel like Solaris and SPARC are religous icons, when speaking to the followers of the SUN."
Sacrilege is not the issue, accuracy is. Also, Solaris and SPARC are historically based upon community efforts, as Open Communities, which have been guided by Sun, external companies, and external organizations - so inaccurate information used in a slanderous way offends many people who invested their university, research project, masters, phd, and/or life works into it. Offense is to be expected when inaccurate information is used to slander large groups of people.
Jesper posts, "And I can say {various slang terms}. It kind of softens things up between the different fractions."
Some would suggest that the behavior merely objectifies a group of supporting individuals and slanders their life work. There are lots of people who feel they can slander groups of people calling them "blood sucking..." (fill in the blank) - it is just the same behavior. It shuts down inter-group dialog instead fostering healthy inter-group competition and later teamwork.
Jesper posts, "So it's not like SUN has invested a great deal of effort in Linux...Still doesn't stand. It is simply not true, period."
Top 30 is pretty good to me... out of thousands of companies benefiting and billions of possible contributors. I bet Intel Linux people are not terribly interested in IBM Mainframe POWER contributions (actually, the bloat may upset more of them - Linus is very concerned about kernel bloat!) Top 30 out of thousands or billions sounds like pretty good investment to me, I would expect that many others would agree, even if you don't.
Linux is more than the kernel. The kernel must have a surrounding ecosystem to be viable. When you look into the areas where the Linux community benefits, Sun is also top-tier. (i.e. OpenOffice, VirtualBox, NFS, Lustre, Xen, etc.) When you consolidate it all together, Sun contributes a lot.
Jesper posts, "I think it's very sad that SUN has to let more people go."
I agree. I don't like it when any company (i.e. HP, IBM, etc.) has to do this. I prefer a lot of companies driving innovation in the market.
Nice chatting with you Jesper!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
