At least it wasn't ritual disemvoweling

February 4, 2010 3:33 PM

"Financial crisis
Stalled too many customers
CEO no more."

Sun Microsystems chief executive Jonathan Schwartz resigns via twitter haiku.
posted by Artw (62 comments total)

Well, if he wanted to go full-Japanese in response to his failure, he could commit seppuku.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:36 PM on February 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

February 4th, the first day of the New Century.
posted by The Whelk at 3:38 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is this buck passing?
It sure sounds like buck passing.
No surprise, really.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 3:40 PM on February 4, 2010 [11 favorites]

Ugh, Oracle changed all the old sun pages over to their but ugly red-white-black color scheme as soon as the sale went through look at this ugly crap. People use blue accents all the time for a reason.
posted by delmoi at 3:41 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is this buck passing?
It sure sounds like buck passing.
No surprise, really.

Eh, Sun had like $3 billion in cash reserves. But their share price got so low that their market capitalization dropped below their asset value, meaning, people could buy shares with the intention of liquidating the company, and making a profit. So that's what people tried to do. With a bunch of liquidators on the board, of course they went looking to sell themselves rather then straight up liquidation. IBM was going to buy, but Oracle ended up doing it, since Oracle didn't sell hardware.

Oh fun fact: Oracle now owns MySQL.
posted by delmoi at 3:43 PM on February 4, 2010 [10 favorites]

Easy to make light
of crisis when you have a
golden parachute
posted by eggplantplacebo at 3:43 PM on February 4, 2010 [38 favorites]

Huh. It's funny because he used the art-form of the Empire of the Rising Sun, but this particular Sun isn't rising at all!
posted by qvantamon at 3:49 PM on February 4, 2010 [11 favorites]

Take this position
and shove it as I am not
working here no more
posted by mazola at 3:51 PM on February 4, 2010 [19 favorites]

Full-Japanese? Everybody knows you never go full-Japanese.
posted by BaxterG4 at 3:52 PM on February 4, 2010 [8 favorites]

hang from rafters
the bastards who lent it all
when we asked
posted by Elmore at 3:54 PM on February 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

Won't be home later
I have to post on twitter
withdraw all my funds
posted by Elmore at 4:03 PM on February 4, 2010

From Fake Steve Jobs:

too busy blogging
lose billions on open source
CEO no more
posted by benzenedream at 4:05 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Everybody knows you never go full-Japanese.

Unless you're David Fenton.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 4:07 PM on February 4, 2010

Or Wolverine.
posted by Artw at 4:08 PM on February 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

select ceo
from sun microsystems inc
where employed is 0
posted by Babblesort at 4:09 PM on February 4, 2010 [46 favorites]

Oh, there would be a haiku thread the day I write a villanelle about sloths.
posted by darksasami at 4:10 PM on February 4, 2010 [10 favorites]

as poetry it's
extremely inelegant
try again buddy
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:11 PM on February 4, 2010

one of the best words
to use in a haiku is
refrigerator
posted by subbes at 4:13 PM on February 4, 2010 [9 favorites]

Oh, there would be a haiku thread the day I write a villanelle about sloths.

I don't know how many times a day I hear this complaint.

[not sloth villanelle-ist]
posted by Babblesort at 4:21 PM on February 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

Engulf'd and devour'd
Thrown under Oracle's bus
Kinda my own fault
posted by mosk at 4:21 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

I cannot resist
Adding the customary
Snark: tl;dr.
posted by swift at 4:24 PM on February 4, 2010

Yeah! Rich people suck!
posted by stevenstevo at 4:25 PM on February 4, 2010

Some mates of mine who were involved in Sun product training (directory servers and the like)said it dried up to almost nothing once Oracle was known to be taking over. I found it fascinating how corporate IT responded to the takeover so quickly (my mates were less fascinated because they lost their source of income). If only they'd respond as quickly to events in the client side space and stop using Internet Explorer.
posted by juiceCake at 4:36 PM on February 4, 2010

Huh. It's funny because he used the art-form of the Empire of the Rising Sun, but this particular Sun isn't rising at all!

Plus the fact that Larry Ellison is a huge Weeaboo.
posted by delmoi at 4:36 PM on February 4, 2010

class SunCEO {
  void myJobSecurity() {
    throw new Throwable();
  }
}

Yes I know it doesn't compile. Java is a poor language for implementing haikus.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 4:39 PM on February 4, 2010 [11 favorites]

I like Gruber's take.
posted by threetoed at 4:47 PM on February 4, 2010

A couple weeks ago I got called into my boss's office. I had been having "dependability issues" for a while and thought this was the end. So I pulled out my phone and turned on the camera so I would be ready to live-blog my own termination. Complete with pictures of the boss, security, the paperwork and everything.

It turned out that they just needed to talk to me regarding a different situation with a different employee. So the situation was averted for the time being, but that final meeting can't be too far away.

Part of me is still kind of pissed off that this jackass got to do it first though.
posted by sambosambo at 4:47 PM on February 4, 2010

Appropriately,
Jonathan Schwartz exits Sun
with BeOS error
posted by ardgedee at 4:48 PM on February 4, 2010 [5 favorites]

Goodbye Oracle
The winter of discontent
Makes me need to quit
posted by bwg at 5:12 PM on February 4, 2010

The Nikkei Shimbun gave this concise translation of the haiku (well, more like a senryū) in Japanese for it's readers:

金融危機　kin'yū kiki (5)
顧客停滞　kokaku teitai (7)
職失う　　　shoku ushinau (6)

The jiamari at the end was a nice touch.
posted by armage at 5:15 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Senryu, goddammit, senryu. Why is that so hard for people to fucking understand?
posted by box at 5:16 PM on February 4, 2010 [5 favorites]

Leaving Sun Microsystems
With the Geekiest of Tweets
Virginity I Bear
posted by PunkSoTawny at 5:19 PM on February 4, 2010

Yeah! Rich people suck!

...at poetry!
posted by vibrotronica at 5:25 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sun, who sells PC hardware for 4x the going price to install a sub-par Linux-workalike¹ and has also "blessed" us with the twin abominations of Java and Java programmers? Nah, no idea why they are sinking.

¹If you are trolled by that, consider my work done here.
posted by DU at 5:27 PM on February 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

Horse and Buggy, Inc.
No plan for coping with change
Crisis? Good excuse.
posted by Flunkie at 5:32 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Oh fun fact: Oracle now owns MySQL.

Yeah, and they've made quick work of hiding all reference to the free version. www.mysql.com now has no links to it at all; you have to manually go to dev.mysql.org.
posted by bonaldi at 5:34 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

If he did go out by seppikou, he really would have been OpenJonathan.

And a geeky point or two of clarification - BeOS had the browser NetPositive that had "haiku" errors, and the effort to make a new Be-like OS is called Haiku.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:48 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Academic ideals
Network is the computer
Now enterprise crap
posted by Nelson at 5:55 PM on February 4, 2010

I guess that tweets are
too short to contain sonnets.
English gets shortchanged.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 6:04 PM on February 4, 2010

ain't no need to discuss
it, take this job and shove it,
right 'tween your buttocks
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:20 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Okay, thanks for letting me know.
posted by Eideteker at 6:25 PM on February 4, 2010

Can somebody please
nuke twitter from space with big
ass space nukes right now?
posted by jefbla at 7:27 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

there is no trying
there is do and not doing
so Sun set on Jon
posted by humannaire at 8:42 PM on February 4, 2010

Bill Joy's resignation letter from Sun was more concise --

:q!
posted by JackFlash at 10:01 PM on February 4, 2010 [9 favorites]

Yeah, and they've made quick work of hiding all reference to the free version. www.mysql.com now has no links to it at all; you have to manually go to dev.mysql.org.

Those sleazy bastards. I don't know why anyone believed them when they were all like "OH YEAH WE BELIEVE IN OPEN SOURCE FREE MYSQL FOREVA! *wink wink*". The chintzy bastards are doing exactly what they said they wouldn't and are slowly killing off Free MySQL.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:20 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Next time it'll be
A high-up from Toyota
(Accelerators)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:39 PM on February 4, 2010

If they really hated MySQL they'd do the most horrible thing in the world that can possibly be done to a database to it - and integrate it with SAP.
posted by Artw at 11:45 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sun, who sells PC hardware for 4x the going price to install a sub-par Linux-workalike1 and has also "blessed" us with the twin abominations of Java and Java programmers? Nah, no idea why they are sinking.

favoriteFactory.makeFavoriteEventListener(new Favorite(
  new AbstractAppreciation("favorite") { 
     public void executeFavorite() throws FavoriteException { 
       // TODO auto-generated method stub
     })})) // FIXME indentation

posted by Maximian at 11:47 PM on February 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Sun, who sells PC hardware for 4x the going price

As an expert on PC architectures and a connoisseur of computer chassis mechanical design, I must defend for Sun's PC hardware. I own a Sun X4200 and it is the best-designed PC I have ever used. It is better than Apple's recent Nehalem Mac Pros. If you ever have the chance to disassemble one, you'll see what I mean. They're absolutely top-notch machines.
posted by ryanrs at 12:24 AM on February 5, 2010

Bill Joy's resignation letter from Sun was more concise --

:q!

You know, as a rule, UNIX jokes stopped being funny around 20 years ago: but there are exceptions to that rule. Well played.
posted by DecemberBoy at 1:00 AM on February 5, 2010

...slowly killing off Free MySQL.

MySQL isn't GPLd? *google* Sure it is. From Wikipedia:

In response to the acquisition by Oracle, members of the MySQL community have created several forks such as Drizzle and MariaDB in fear that Oracle would hurt the development of MySQL because MySQL competes with Oracle Corporation's other database products.

Looks like the GPL is working perfectly here.
posted by DU at 2:58 AM on February 5, 2010

I would be surprised if the major MySQL developers don't pool all their efforts into a fork by the end of the year.

I would also not be surprised if Oracle goes "screw it" and starts including non-GPLed libraries in MySQL.
posted by amuseDetachment at 3:45 AM on February 5, 2010

In a haiku, I think each line is supposed to exist independently of the others.
posted by anniecat at 5:04 AM on February 5, 2010

I would also not be surprised if Oracle goes "screw it" and starts including non-GPLed libraries in MySQL.

This seems a little doubtful to me. Oracle wants to be the upgrade path from MySQL to a "real" database. They have to close the gap between "big iron" and "toy" a little, but they already have Oracle Personal Edition (or whatever it's called) so I think that's done already.

The only people they want using MySQL are DB virgins. They want everyone else to pay $10k/seat for Enterprise.
posted by DU at 5:09 AM on February 5, 2010

All CEOs quit
Follow this guy's lead now, please
All no talent, hacks
posted by stormpooper at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2010

Everybody knows you never go full-Japanese.

Even Jad Fair
only went
Half-Japanese.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:39 AM on February 5, 2010

twin abominations of Java and Java programmers? Nah, no idea why they are sinking.

As opposed to what, non-multithreaded toy languages like Python?
posted by delmoi at 6:53 AM on February 5, 2010

Oh fun fact: Oracle now owns MySQL.

Yeah, and they've made quick work of hiding all reference to the free version. www.mysql.com now has no links to it at all; you have to manually go to dev.mysql.org.


I've been in a MySQL training course by SUN all week. My instructor has constantly been halting class to take phone calls from new Oracle bosses. After this tweet it was pretty amusing in class.

One thing he claimed (no idea if it's true) is that now that Oracle is hosting the MySQL websites, they moved the code and man pages to dev.mysql.org because inter-oracle personnel don't have access to www from work, but the MySQL Oracle employees wanted access from work to the stuff now on dev.mysql.org. The two (www.mysql.com and dev.mysql.org) are placed on different servers so that one is available at work to the Oracle employees and one is not.

Sounds fishy, but plausible.
posted by jermsplan at 7:14 AM on February 5, 2010

The last workstation I ever used that never crashed, never hung, never did anything but exactly what I instructed it to was a Sun Blade. This was about four years ago. It cost the company I work for as much as a new car but God it was beautiful.

I wish I had a lot of other people's money to build a computer like that one was.
posted by bukvich at 8:33 AM on February 5, 2010

I will continue to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep my Sun Blade 2000 running.

WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Just wished OpenSol ran on UltraSPARC.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 9:07 AM on February 5, 2010

I would be surprised if the major MySQL developers don't pool all their efforts into a fork by the end of the year.

They are forking left right and centre - MariaDB, Drizzle et al.

Yeah! Rich people suck!

When the rich person in question drove what was once the premier Unix server company into begging to be bought by its old competitors, and appears to have determined who to be purchased by based on the size of his personal bailout package, cost tens of thousands of people their livlihoods, and left thousands of customers with a mess instead of a bunch of supported hardware and software then, yeah, rich people suck.

From Fake Steve Jobs:

too busy blogging
lose billions on open source
CEO no more

Yeah, like Open Source was the problem here. I guess that's why, beofre Sun shut up shop, RedHat were beating them out.
posted by rodgerd at 10:33 AM on February 5, 2010

The chintzy bastards are doing exactly what they said they wouldn't and are slowly killing off Free MySQL.

The forks will be good though so I don't see it as a major problem, and maybe PostgreSQL will get more traction for hosting plans everywhere but the more popular open source CMS's will need to address the change to a fork or to support PostgreSQL and that may be indeed painful.
posted by juiceCake at 1:37 PM on February 5, 2010