Comments on: When is OpenSolaris != OpenSolaris

By: Trust To Email Marketing

Trust To Email Marketing — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:59:22 +0000

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By: People Over Process » links for 2007-11-07

People Over Process » links for 2007-11-07 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 07:14:43 +0000

[...] When is OpenSolaris != OpenSolaris Cynical take: We both want the same thing, but because we came to it separately, we’ll get nothing. (tags: opensolaris solaris unix brand opensource redmonkclients sunw via:meangrape) [...]

By: Mads

Mads — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:30:05 +0000

Great post! I couldn’t agree more.

By: Rafael Vanoni

Rafael Vanoni — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:47:52 +0000

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 ?

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:45:32 +0000

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.

By: Stefan Parvu

Stefan Parvu — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:28:35 +0000

By: Jim Grisanzio

Jim Grisanzio — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:14:36 +0000

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.

By: BrianG

BrianG — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:00:00 +0000

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?)

By: OpenSolaris? It’s what we say it is, dammit! < meangrape

OpenSolaris? It’s what we say it is, dammit! < meangrape — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:38:57 +0000

[...] haven’t left me much time to blog (or breath). I have to point out Stephen Lau’s excellent post. So many of the people in the OpenSolaris community owe their livelihood to Sun that it’ [...]

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:29:51 +0000

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.