No Man's Land

Last updated: Sun, 24 May 2009 00:56:00 GMT

This weekend, I stand a man between two employers. A day after terminating my contract with my previous employer, and the day before I begin work for my new employer, now seems like the ideal time to comment on the events that followed my last article. It seems clear that these words, more than any others I may have authored, can be no-one's but my own. I looked forward to this day.

How strange it is, then, that I find myself almost, but not quite, not caring. As if the cutting words of a bitter ex have melted away at the thought of a new lover's touch.

I promise: that's the floweriest thing I'll say today.

Through friends of friends of acquaintances of your mother, the content of my last article reached people at Sun. Famous people, at least in the circles in which I lurk. People who could be said, with some accuracy, to be at least in part responsible for Sun's recent patch history.

They contacted me.

They contacted me, asking questions. I, in my naivete, thought that if they were interested, I should at least back up my moaning with some honest attempt to help, to resolve the issue. I must admit, that I was expecting them to care.

Silly boy.

The sum total of Sun's response was this:

Firstly, to tell me that I had probably come across some bug or other that was to be addressed in a patch being released shortly. Excellent. That obviously excuses them from having shipped a patch that was known to break some systems for four months.

Secondly, to collar the field engineer who had been on site and attempt to give him a dressing down for distributing EIS DVDs to clients. I'm reading between the lines very heavily, here, because the field engineer in question did not use these words, nor did the mere suggestion of the possibility of the thought of a hint of such an implication pass his lips.

Lastly, Sun saw fit to issue an advisory note to my employer, pointing out that the contents of the EIS DVDs are considered intellectual property, and that licensing restrictions exist prohibiting us from installing them on unsupported hardware.

Technically correct. Morally right, though?

My employer pays Sun a lot of money for a lot of Platinum supported hardware, and I'd have thought that one single unlicensed workstation was still very much within the spirit, if not within the word of their law. Added to this, the broken patch in question is not for licensed customers only, it's openly distributed by Sun to all holders of a free Sunsolve account.

Still, it's always better to be in the right, than to do the right thing.

Needless to say, I was incensed. But I'll save you the spittle-flecked, foul-mouthed ranting, in favour of a good friend's summary:

"classy. i see how everyone wins there."

By a beautiful coincidence, all of this played itself out on the day I handed in my notice. My reaction to Sun's long-standing mismanagement of their products and mistreatment of their customers has been a long time in coming, and I've been looking for a new position, hopefully 50/50 Linux and Solaris, for some time.

I managed better than that. My new employer has very, very few Sun servers in house and very, very many Linux servers. I think that 1% Solaris would be an exaggeration.

I've no doubt that the effect of my departure will be none. I'm sure that no-one cares. Sun will rise or fall according to their own efforts, the efforts of their supporters, and the whims of the market. I know a number of those engineers and supporters, and many of them are fine people, talented and hard-working.

I have to wonder, though, whether every minute spent administering Solaris, reporting bugs, trying to improve the Solaris users' lot in some small way, is anything other than enablement; allowing Sun to treat people this way.

Yeah, me too.