Sun Microsystem Notes

CASE Noter:
Competitors:
  * Linux
  * Microsoft NT
  * Solaris 8

The
  * In the early 1990s, UNIX-based workstations comprised 85-90% of the workstation market.
  * In the year of 98, NT workstations outshipped UNIX-based machines by more than 1 million units, -> but UNIX still accounted for 54% of workstation market revenue.
  * OS market shares in 99
      * MS OS ran on 90%
      * Apple on 4%
      * Amiga and others
OS was in incompetible, => an app written for one OS could not run on another.
UNIX were developed by AT&T, but licensed any interested party for a minimal fee => several different branches were developed -> FX the BSD version (Berkeley Software Distribution).
Many of the hardware suppliers made their own version of UNIX whit competing features. (IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun) => different workstation and server manufacturers’ UNIX-based systems diverged in several characteristics.

Servers
  * servers = the backbone of networks (where printers , files and applications software are share)
  * “client-server” architecture.
  * servers could do many different task .> from serving files to users to more complex ERP functions.
  * servers relied on multiple microprocessors => more reliable and scalable than a PC or workstation.
The GNU project => The GNU public license, or GPL (nicknamed “copyleft”):
  * In 1984, Richard Stallman left his job at MIT’s -> to develop a reely available, UNIX-like operating system: the GNU Project
  * Stallman was frustrated in that he was not allow to improve source code of the program in his lap
  * Stallmen was concerned with the rise of proprietary software threatened the ability of programmers to share ideas and advance programming according to the norms of open science.
  * He was concerned that private sector firms might make proprietary modified versions of GNU software, -> defeating the purpose of his efforts, Stallman designed a new... [continues]

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