[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Paul Sture]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:53:13 +0000, Simon Clubley wrote:

> One of the beautiful things about the current Unix/Linux infrastructure
> is that anyone can just take the code and port it to a new architecture
> or CPU range without having to ask anyone's permission or having to pay
> a large amount of money to a vendor to do the job for them.
> 
> Also, once you have support for a new architecture, it's easy for a
> third party to get Unix/Linux running on various random boards/CPUs
> implementing that new architecture without having to go back to a OS
> vendor to do the work for you. (This is especially important in market
> areas such as smartphones/routers/etc with their product/application
> specific boards.) VMS would need this capability as well, even if the
> source code was not available.

This works the other way around too.  Don't like the software that comes 
with your router?  You have a variety of offerings to choose from.

Don't like the O/S that came with your computer?  The same applies, with  
many flavours of *nix to choose from.  Don't like the one you chose? 
Simply zap it and try another...

You can nowadays buy a system without an O/S.  Yes, even HP will sell you 
a budget system without an O/S.  I am thinking of the HP Microserver 
here, but I have come across beefier Xeons from HP at attractive prices, 
which also come without an O/S.

-- 
Paul Sture