When I started working with computer in college, we used various mainframe and mini technologies. As I went through my coursework, I learned in various environments, but at some point we started to us SunOS, a Unix variant from Sun Microsystems. Over the years, I worked with different variants, but a friend actually got me interested in the BSD Oses, primarily FreeBSD. Before Windows, there was a time I installed this on a few PCs and even a couple laptops. When SQL Server on Linux became a reality, I was somewhat excited that this would open up SQL Server to all platforms, but this was only Linux, not other OSes.

I'm glad to see that SQL Server is going to support Unix in the future, with an on-premises install, as well as in BSD containers. While those platforms are less used than Linux, there are a lot of companies that still run various Unix variants, and providing support for them allows them to take advantage of the incredible SQL Server platform, while also reducing the licensing costs associated with Oracle and Db2.

The longer I am in my career, the more I find that SQL Server is a better platform for most data operations than the other major RDBMSes. I also find that April 1 jokes become harder to come up with, mostly because Microsoft keeps building things I'd make big jokes about. ICYMI, this is a joke, though I am impressed with the directions the platform has taken and the additional features added.

This isn't to say that I wouldn't like to see existing items enhanced and improved, or that I think they shouldn't press into new areas. I don't think Unix is used that much anymore. There are legacy systems, but most of the measurement from clients, from web servers, shows that Unix is just a tiny fraction of the market. Likely not worth porting SQL Server over and maintaining it. At least, I don't think it's worth it. Maybe this joke will come true at some point in the future.