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When is OpenSolaris != OpenSolaris

Wednesday, Oct 31. 2007 – Category: OpenSolaris

When the name is usurped by a group of individuals at Sun who, for some reason or another, have decided to bless Indiana with the name OpenSolaris.

In case you missed it, here is Ian’s announcement

To be clear and up front. I agree with the long term view of Indiana, and its goals. I think Indiana is a great idea, and I wish it the best success.

What I dislike is how Sun has gone about the naming issue. Contrary to what Ian said:

Let’s continue working together as a community to develop a set of branding guidelines so that other distributions may also use the

Correction: We haven’t been working together. Sun has solicited feedback, which has been duly ignored. Sun has, instead, gone ahead and unilaterally made the decision to name their distribution OpenSolaris without a community vote.

While I respect Sun’s right to do so as the trademark holder, I again think this shows poor faith in not allowing the community a say in how their name is applied and used.

However, it is the right thing to do for the community and, yes, for Sun too.

No offense – but who are you, or the people who made this decision, to say what is right for this community to do?

Again, just to be clear – I happen to agree. But I don’t think it’s right that Sun made this decision without the broader community vote, or without any OGB consultation.

It’s been a poor show on Sun’s part.

As always, this is my own opinion – I can’t speak for the other OGB members – but this action leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

2 Trackbacks to “When is OpenSolaris != OpenSolaris”

13 Comments to “When is OpenSolaris != OpenSolaris”

benr Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 17:38
Finally, an OGB member that sounds like an OGB member ought to!
nacho Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 17:53
thanks! i couldn’t have written it better. but i guess it’s too late now to change the name?
JohnS Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 18:54
+1

This just shows why a non-Sun foundation should own the trademarks, so that certain elements inside Sun can’t abuse the community like this.
Arthur Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 19:52
Quote : ” we need to have a better answer to the question, Where do I download OpenSolaris? “

I think OpenSolaris is the only right name for the reference distribution – when a user looks for OS then he should find it quick, that’s it. Giving it another name would have been a huge mistake.
Stephen Lau Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 20:14
arthur: did you even read my post? I said i fully agree, i think OpenSolaris is the right name too… But that’s not the point. In a true community-driven open source project these sorts of decisions should be made with some community input.

NOT by the arbitrary decision of some Sun executive.
Louis F. Springer Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 20:15
I have to agree with this perspective. It sounds somewhat like marketing folks asking you to blog on a product, even if you do like it: definitely not cool.

However, isn’t it sad that if the name wasn’t OpenSolaris, this would have led to Sun being even more obscure than it is? Don’t we deserve better than that?

I guess I have to choose between relevant and unknown, or well-known but irrelevant, I’d rather be relevant, but I’m not a marketing guy or an executive with stockholders. Long live JAVA!
Jay Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 21:29
My rather unexpected move to San Francisco has left me a lot less time to spend on OpenSolaris things than I would like.

WIth that said, I agree 100% with you, Stephen. There was no community consensus about this — suddenly the ongoing discussion is derailed by “Hi! I’m Sun, this is OpenSolaris! Shut up!”

It will be interesting to see if the non-Sun members of the community will ever feel like first class citizens — doing Linux in reverse (from corporate to individual) is definitely something that we’re not familiar with.
BrianG Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 22:00
You know I was on the fence about this issue. I thought maybe, it’s ok if we select a distro to be a reference. Indiana has no track record yet, but maybe they can win the community’s trust down the road.

This latest episode leaves me with a bad taste, and has left me with the impression that the biggest problem facing the community is not the lack of a distro named OpenSolaris, but rather the lack of any self determination or independence from Sun’s whims. (Foundation anyone?)
Jim Grisanzio Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 22:14
I agree, Steve. Well said. That first quote you cite is most important. That’s what jumped out at me right away. That’s how the community can get involved and assert itself. As the conversation progressed, it became clear to me that Sun was going to ultimately make this decision. I’m not sure that’s wrong, per say, but it certainly is complex given the context of building an open community. I go back and forth on where the lines are. I just don’t know. However, the community does need to share in the use of the name and brand. If that doesn’t happen, then this will have been a bad decision. I have confidence, however, that this will work out to everyone’s benefit. If I’m wrong, I’ll certainly have learned.
Stefan Parvu Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 01:28
+1
Jason Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 09:45
The problem is, Sun has by its own actions, sacrificed two very importants of OpenSolaris — trust in the community (by marginalizing the community), and the strong legacy of compatability inherited from Solaris, even when everyone involved said they would not. I feel decieved.

Had Sun not unilaterally decided to break compatability AND then decreed that ‘this IS opensolaris’, I think the critism would be significantly more muted. The OpenSolaris community is now left with two choices: – In march, make it compatible with SXCE (which to date has been the de facto OpenSolaris distribution). This means it must break compatability with the developer preview. If it does this, OpenSolaris (since Sun has decreed Indiana and OpenSolaris are now one and the same), breaks compatability with itself. This means it is no better than the many Linux distros, and Sun has (without community input) thrown away the legacy of strong compatability we inherited from Solaris.
- In march, stay compatible with the October release. This means now OpenSolaris will always be incompatible with SXCE as well as Solaris. Again, the legacy of compatability is gone.
The damage is done, while it cannot be undone, now the focus needs to be on how to clean up the mess and minimize the fallout.
Rafael Vanoni Says:
November 2nd, 2007 at 09:47
I agree and I think your post sums things up in a very clear way, specially after the flood of emails going around these last days.

I’m somewhat fearful of what effects this will have on the community. The main goal IMO still is to drive awareness of OpenSolaris and its technologies, if the community takes too long to sort this out, we might loose the great momentum we’ve gained.

I’m failing to understand why the hurry in getting Indiana out there. The community has been growing positively for the last two years, why rush it ?
Mads Says:
November 2nd, 2007 at 15:30
Great post! I couldn’t agree more.