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Linux and .Net to trounce Unix

By Tony Hallett, ZDNet.com.au on December 5th, 2002 

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linux, unix, butler, .net

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The future is anything but bright for proprietary Unix operating systems. According to a new report, flavors of Unix from the main vendors--hardware heavyweights HP, IBM and Sun--will lose out to Linux, and even Microsoft's emerging .Net.

In its Server Operating Systems--Winners and Losers in the Open/Proprietary OS Market report, Butler Group backs the two-pronged Linux and Microsoft market. Linux is "the long-term winner by a knockout", with .Net "outperforming between 2005 and 2008".

Over the next three years Linux will rapidly penetrate file and print servers, typically replacing Windows NT, low-end servers will move to Linux, and high-end servers will eventually move to .Net and Linux.

Butler Group believes there will a move away from proprietary operating systems towards open environments where IT managers can have more control.

The forecast is arguably most worrying for Sun. Out of the large server companies it has given the least backing to Linux. Most hardware companies are hedging their bets with the open source OS, a single flavor of Unix and often Windows too.

Butler Group concluded: "In the long term, 2009 onwards, Linux is the winner with .Net runner-up."

In other research, from analysts at IDC, Microsoft's Windows OS was judged to have a lower total cost of ownership to Linux.

Talkback

How can a non-existent (in production form), mis-understood (I've yet to have anyone tell me they understand it,) untested and single architecture platform (i.e x86-only!) like .Net usurp Unix?

conzconz December 5th, 2002
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Jason Green,

firstly, SOAP is the open standard here, not .Net It is SOAP which is being ratified by W3C, not .Net. Jason, I presume you know that SOAP was _not_ developed by Microsoft? I presume you also know that XML was not developed by Microsoft; that XML-RPC was not developed by Microsoft; nor RPC.

Secondly, Microsoft is the last firm to espouse open standards in our industry, and actually follow through with interoperable technology. No monopolisty gains from open standards; quite the reverse. How do you know exactly what patent enumberances lurk in .Net which run counter to the open standards? So, whilst Microsoft may claim that it wants to adhere to open standards, it's 27 year history shows something else entirely. In fact, they go out of their way to break otherwise known, open and widely used standards. They claim 'de-commoditisation of protocols' as a core tactic to ruin sideline platforms. Do you understand what this means, Jason?

Lastly, this doesn't answer the question of how anyone could possibly claim that .Net will trounce Unix. There is nothing that ,Net can do (or can be claimed to do) that Unix cannot. However, there are _many_ things, such as:

- Real security,
- 99.999% uptime-level stability,
- 30-year cutting edge development,
- Support 15 different CPU architecures
- Support upto 512-way SMP CPU
- Supplied from various vendors

that Unix can claim that .Net does not, or ever.

Care to take my point I raised earlier about telling me how .Net will trounce Unix, and respond with some useful input?

I'll wait...

conzconz December 5th, 2002
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Jason,

both your posts seem to devolve into belittling and insulting the opposing party, rather than respond to the specific concerns I've raised. Who exactly is being juvenile here, hmmm?

I placed on the discussion table a number of points on why I think it a futile excercise to claim that an entirely non-existent (in serious production environments) platform (.Net) can trounce a platform (with a 30+ year pedigree) which is used by almost every major organisation in the world (Unix). If you're not willing to reply with some well reasoned and articulated counter-points, then I'll wait for someone else who is, to continue the discussion with.

Just to re-iterate to anyone else out there who can assist with my queries:

1) .Net is not even shipping, so how can this analyst group claim it will be able to overtake Unix?

2) There is nothing that .Net can do that Unix cannot,

3) There are a myriad of things that Unix does now, and in the foreseeable future (10 years) which give it enterprise-strength.

...so where is the supposed value-proposition that .Net brings to the table which will give it the necessary market leverage to overtake Unix?

conzconz December 6th, 2002
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Jason,

firstly thanks for a retort focussing on the issues.

I completely understand the 'surface-level' detail of .Net, i.e SOAP, the standard directory services (WSDL) and XML communications protocols.Backending this, is Microsoft's variation-on-a-theme-Java (C#) and CLR. In effect, it is just a simple implementation of CORBA over HTTP/SMTP etc. except using text-stream XML rather than binary-RPC.

I presume that you know all this is technology is fully implemented and available on all main Unix platforms? What isn't on Unix is C#/CLR, but Unix has the far-more-widely used and enterprise-respected Java/JVM instead. Java has nearly 6 million developers. All these developers are able to develop apps on Unix/Linux as well as Windows.

Whethere or not there will be a .Net implementation on Linux is irrelevant. Linux already has all the core technologies needed by web-services. See above.

In answer to your question, many of our customers own and continue to buy non-x86 systems. We have many large firms as clients. Thus, technology like Java, Perl, PHP and Python is a must, as it is all multi-platform technology.

Unix, due to the major surge in Linux, which is an implementation of Unix, is not a 'faltering platform'. In fact, in terms of total compute-power, Unix+Linux sells as much, year-on-year, as Windows servers.

In time, it is likely that Unix may be eclipsed totally by Linux. It will not be eclipsed by Windows, as Windows cannot reach the architecures and target platforms that Unix does.

I don't dispute that Microsoft is able to produce 'top-notch' developer software. They have enough of a cash-stash to buy a lot of coders, so one would presume they can produce something worthwhile.

Rememeber however, the point of contention is that the article claims that .Net will trounce Unix. My counter-claim is that it is impossible to make this supposition based on a platform (.Net) which is not even shipping.

Now, if .Net had some immensely-obvious structural, technical or market leverage that in the eyes of many observers, would allow it to dominate over Unix, then this might be possible. We would need to wait to see how the implementation of .Net pans out. But .Net patently has no substantial technical advantage over Unix; I've given examples of how Unix has every-single-one of the technologies you indicated that .Net has; that Unix has many qualities which are of utmost imprtance in enterprise settings that Windoes is not likely to ever have.

Doing the sums, I can't see how the analyst firm can make the prediction they have.

For your reference, I _am_ a software developer. I started coding with Microsoft's developer tools in 1979. I started developing for Windows (2.0) in 1989, and for Unix in 1985. I have used msot of Microsoft's developer tools upto the more recent versions of Visual Studio. By choice, I would choose to develop on Linux (RAD with Kylix, PHP/Python and C++ with KDeveloper) anyday. Have you actually used any of these tools under Linux?

What was your point?

conzconz December 6th, 2002
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Jason,

in all your posts you do almost nothing except attack me personally.

Not once have you seriously rebutted a single one of my points as to why I think the 'technology research company' is mistaken in claiming that Windows will ever trounce Unix.
If you have nothing concrete to add to the discussion of the topics at hand, I'll wait for someone with whom I can debate properly.

conzconz December 23rd, 2002
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