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Replies:
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Last Post:
Aug 14, 2007 1:13 PM
by: carlsonj
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Posts:
9
From:
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Registered:
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An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 10:46 AM
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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To Ian Murdoch and the Open Solaris Community,
As a long-time follower of the open source community, I stumbled across this forum a week ago and was intrigued by the activity taking place on Open Solaris. I spent some time reading posts, and over the day some concerns became clear to me; concerns that I felt compelled to write about. I have written a letter that I hope will encourage discussion and bring about positive results. I thank you for your interest.
[b]Gaining a significant market share will attract developers. [/b]
Imagine with me that Solaris was the OS on 40% of all computers. Do you believe that it would have a large and vibrant developer community? Most certainly. Developers would miss out on 40% of the market if they ignored Solaris. Getting Solaris installed on as many computers as possible should be the first and main concern.
It is true that users alone will not make Open Solaris into a great product, but they are the final judge of its success. The Open Solaris community must remember who will use their software when the development is done: the user.
If a large number of desktop users should be the first priority, targeting the Linux developer’s community is a poor strategy. These developers are already a small subset of all developers, and hundreds of Linux distros compete for their limited time. In targeting them, Solaris has chosen the hardest possible target when much easier targets exist.
Where, then, will this imaginary 40% of users come from? From Windows, of course. Windows is where it must come from. Solaris [i]must [/i]take a large share from Windows, not Linux, to be successful.
Fortunately…
[b]There is a large group of Windows users who would use a FOSS alternative if it existed.[/b]
Wait. What about Linux? We already have an open source alternative. Not really. There are two kinds of people who currently use Linux. There are those who are good at programming, who understand computers and software at a deep level. These people enjoy the command prompt, know what “Vi” is and usually work in network administrator or other IT positions. I shall refer to these people as the Technical Elite. The Technical Elite use Linux.
The second group is the friends and relatives of this Technical Elite. Their moms and dads and roommates. These people rely upon the Technical Elite to help them get Beryl working, to figure out Grub, to re-compile the kernel to make their wireless card work. They are not power users, and use their computers to simply surf the web and write email.
The only reason this second group can even consider Linux is because it has become much easier to use. A lot of work has been done to hide the power, so that an average Joe can do most average things. But should something go wrong, should something advanced need to be done, anyone not a Technical Elite must seek the aid of one. There is no middle ground. The arcane syntax of the command prompt ensures this. In fact, I predict that Linux will continue to grow until the Technical Elite can “support” no more. Linux is too hard for the average user to fix or update on their own. There are too many gotchas, too many places where special knowledge is required. If any one doubts this, a simple visit to the Ubuntu support forum will confirm it. Post after post documents the trials and tribulations of average users wrestling with even the (seemingly) simplest of tasks.
Most people use Linux for a single reason. They use it because, at some level, they agree with the principles of Open Source. They take the time and energy required to learn Linux because of the strength of that belief. They are like people who have a dream of climbing Mt. Everest. They train and practice and spend a lot of money to fly to Asia and risk their lives to realize this dream. It is an expensive and dangerous process, but the view from the top makes it all worthwhile.
However, for every person who has the time and money to spend making their dream come true, there are hundreds of others who share the same dream, but lack the time and money. Climbing Mt. Everest will always remain a dream for millions.
It is the same with Linux and Solaris. It is a wonderful dream that thousands like myself have, but we lack the time and money to invest in the learning required to make it happen. I want the freedom that climbing Mt. Solaris offers, but I have a job and a wife and debts and not enough free time to spend years figuring out sudo or XFS or D-Trace. A truly Free operating system will always remain just a dream for me. I, and thousands like me, use Windows because we want more power than a neutered Linux, but we lack the knowledge of the Technical Elite to make Linux work.
It is unfortunate, because it doesn’t need to be this way. The…
[b]
Technical constraints that shaped the way we use computers no longer exist and must be rethought.[/b]
Some here remember a time when programs were punched in to cards. We have come a long way since then. There are still some relics of that era that continue in computing, particularly in open source communities. Developers have spent many years acquiring these skills. They have grown used to the command prompt, to Perl scripts. They are comfortable. Their knowledge gives them status. However, these relics are the chief hurdle that prohibits the mass acceptance of FOSS platforms. Until the command prompt (and all functions that rely on it) is replaced by a graphical, intuitive, easy-to-use interface, open source operating systems will never gain wide acceptance. The barrier of entry is simply too high.
The frustrating part is that it doesn’t need to be this way. We now have the technology to make the command line obsolete. Combo boxes and check marks and tool tips could open up a world of features to the general user. Simple, intuitive interfaces would also allow the best tool for the job to be chosen, instead of the most familiar. Making it simple enough for the non-Technical Elite makes it simple enough for all. Outdated and arcane software ideas that have been kept on life support for 30 years could be retired in favor of ideas that are the product of 30 years of learning.
An operating system, based on excellent technology, wrapped up in intuitive interfaces that allow the average user to utilize the full power of their computer would be extremely attractive to not only the current Linux community, but the much larger community of users who are attracted to the ideas of Open Source. For the thousands of us who will never climb Mt. Everest, it would be a dream come true.
[b]Open Solaris has a once in a lifetime opportunity.[/b]
Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a reality. With the support of Sun Microsystems, resources (no matter how insignificant) could be directed towards making fundamental aspects of Solaris “powerful AND easy” for all users: to replacing the command line with an interface that would allow many more users to enjoy and maintain their own computers, to rethinking the way people interact with their computers, to lowering the barrier to entry without resorting to baby-sitting. Should Solaris use sudo or RBAC? Users don’t care about which is better. They want the one they can use (Windows’ dominance demonstrates this), and neither of these technologies currently meet this criteria.
An operating system founded on Open Source ideals that allowed users to easily master their computers would be extremely attractive to a large group of people now laboring in Microsoft’s camp. The much desired developers would come of their own accord, should Solaris gain a significant majority of users.
Worry about the technology being used, but more importantly, worry about making the technology easily usable. In your debates and meetings and focus groups ask the question, “Could a complete newbie use this in less than 5 minutes?” Keep forefront in your mind that every time the answer is “No”, the barrier to entry just got raised a little higher, Solaris’ market share just got a little smaller, and a few more developers just picked a rival operating system to develop for.
Picture a future where Free Solaris is the world’s most popular operating system. Looks good, doesn’t it? The only way this can be is by appealing to users. Remove the barriers that keep this from becoming reality.
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Stephen Lau
stevel@opensolaris.org
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:00 AM
in response to: wussboy
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Korey Peters wrote:
> To Ian Murdoch and the Open Solaris Community,
^^^^^^^
nit: it's Murdock.
cheers,
steve
--
stephen lau // stevel at opensolaris dot org | http://whacked.net
opensolaris // solaris kernel development
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Anil Gulecha
anil.verve@gmail.com
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:08 AM
in response to: wussboy
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Hi Korey,
On 7/30/07, Korey Peters <koreyjunkmail at gmail dot com> wrote:
> The frustrating part is that it doesn't need to be this way. We now have the technology to make the command line obsolete. Combo boxes and check marks and tool tips could open up a world of features to the general user. Simple, intuitive interfaces would also allow the best tool for the job to be chosen, instead of the most familiar. Making it simple enough for the non-Technical Elite makes it simple enough for all.
FWIW, I agree with you, but this is where I would expect a lot in this
community to disagree with you..
Cheers
Anil
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Posts:
6,935
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:17 AM
in response to: Anil Gulecha
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Anil Gulecha writes:
> Hi Korey,
>
> On 7/30/07, Korey Peters <koreyjunkmail at gmail dot com> wrote:
> > The frustrating part is that it doesn't need to be this way. We now have the technology to make the command line obsolete. Combo boxes and check marks and tool tips could open up a world of features to the general user. Simple, intuitive interfaces would also allow the best tool for the job to be chosen, instead of the most familiar. Making it simple enough for the non-Technical Elite makes it simple enough for all.
>
> FWIW, I agree with you, but this is where I would expect a lot in this
> community to disagree with you..
Except for a few outliers, I doubt that.
I think I'm one of the command-line geeks this message refers to
somewhat indirectly. My idea of a "GUI" is still twm with xterms and
emacs windows, and I wouldn't really want to have it any other way.
Just the same, I think having an environment available that can hide
all of that away and that is robust enough that it's able to do so
when things are going wrong would be great. I just suspect that it's
far harder (read: expensive) to make that work in any reliable way
than most would suppose.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james dot d dot carlson at sun dot com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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Posts:
764
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:43 AM
in response to: carlsonj
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Just the same, I think having an environment available that can hide
all of that away and that is robust enough that it's able to do so
when things are going wrong would be great. I just suspect that it's
far harder (read: expensive) to make that work in any reliable way
than most would suppose.
Microsoft has already proven that it doesn't have to be done in a reliable way.
-Brian
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Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 4:19 AM
in response to: carlsonj
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On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, James Carlson wrote:
> I think I'm one of the command-line geeks this message refers to
> somewhat indirectly. My idea of a "GUI" is still twm with xterms and
> emacs windows, and I wouldn't really want to have it any other way.
>
> Just the same, I think having an environment available that can hide
> all of that away and that is robust enough that it's able to do so
> when things are going wrong would be great. I just suspect that it's
> far harder (read: expensive) to make that work in any reliable way
> than most would suppose.
This type of open thinking is good, because there's not a lot of Jim
Carlsons in the world. If we want to grow Solaris, we need to focus on
areas which can allow more users to use Solaris seamlessly.
This is exactly what our CEO has pointed out with Ubunto, and after last
weeks allhands, I installed Ubunto on one of my computers. I honestly
don't see Solaris as being too much different, albeit where Ubuntu has a
leg up is in getting the bits on your computer, and updating them.
First, during the install I selected some type of "Guided
partition/resize", thinking it would guide me through using fdisk or
equivilant...bzzzt, wrong answer, and turned the computer off as it
started to repartition the disk with whatever values were on a slider,
which one was evidentally supposed to adjust before continuing.
Next time around I did a manual install, and set the disk as I wanted (and
no, I didn't loose any of the data on the computer).
So, I get it installed, all the hardware was detected, and all is running,
but on DHCP, not how I wanted it configured, but running none the less.
So, one of the reasons I did want to install Ubuntu is that I have an
opensource library which one of the Ubuntu developers wants to putback to
Debian, and I am updating the name to prevent name collision with another
library. Ah, but Ubunto doesn't install automake/autoconf/libtool by
default, it's more user oriented. This is important, because I am similar
to you in the regard that I just want this command tool that I need to
use, and in this case I don't care about a GUI, but searching through the
update GUI, I can't find any of the tools to save my life.
Lucky for me, I am pretty familiar with Debian, which Ubuntu is based on,
and can open a terminal, edit my sources.lst, do an apt-get update, and
pull the packages down I wanted...including KDE/Kubuntu, and other
stuff...but those pieces are not available through the default GUIs,
AFAICT, with a default install. It's always kewl to see a large bundle
like KDE pulling down 297 packages to install all it's glory...
>From a developer perspective, Ubuntu is no better than Solaris, IMO.
Because even though it does get bits on the computer better, the bits are
focused for a simpleton. Yes, I think we do need to attract these
simpletons...so we have a double edge sword of adoption/attraction.
I do wonder why we need to have a different GNOME desktop? Well, I know
why we do it (i.e., JDS), but I'm not sure why we should. It only diverges
us from the mainstream, and makes things different. Seems better to
leverage the mainstream GNOME project to me, and be the same, the Ubuntu
uses a stock GNOME desktop, AFAICT. Would be nice to see our desktop folks
working on implementing solutions for out environment, rather than adding
lipstick to the pig, for instance...wouldn't it be nice to grab a context
menu and be able to get the information for "zfs list"? Well, for you it
wouldn't, but for me it might. It confuses me that zfs has been out for
about a year and a half and we don't see our desktop folks doing that type
of simple integration. Being able to take snapshots, list information on
zfs filesystems, or getting the status of a zpool, those are all things
that should be available for the user.
OTOH, we're making quite a bit of progress, we even have some wifi
solutions in place, a modern X server, native OpenGL drivers for nvidia,
and some basic power management, acceptable audio, much better x86 support
with Sun finally selling x86 based systems. This is quite a bit better
than we were a couple years ago, when S10 was released.
Unfortunately our power play is zfs, and we don't have the abiltiy to boot
and/or configure the system for it at install time. This will need to be
transparent to the user, and to the user there should be little if any
difference than using ufs, fat, ext2/3, <gasp> reiserfs, or other.
Long story short, we need to retain the Jim Carlson users of the
community, and be able to attract more of them, but at the same time we
need to attract the simpletons to really drive adoption. This will take
some jugglin', IMO, to keep all happy.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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Posts:
1,223
From:
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Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 6:46 PM
in response to: aland
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Alan DuBoff wrote:
> [...]
> So, one of the reasons I did want to install Ubuntu is that I have an
> opensource library which one of the Ubuntu developers wants to putback to
> Debian, and I am updating the name to prevent name collision with another
> library. Ah, but Ubunto doesn't install automake/autoconf/libtool by
> default, it's more user oriented. This is important, because I am similar
> to you in the regard that I just want this command tool that I need to
> use, and in this case I don't care about a GUI, but searching through the
> update GUI, I can't find any of the tools to save my life.
>
> Lucky for me, I am pretty familiar with Debian, which Ubuntu is based on,
> and can open a terminal, edit my sources.lst, do an apt-get update, and
> pull the packages down I wanted...including KDE/Kubuntu, and other
> stuff...but those pieces are not available through the default GUIs,
> AFAICT, with a default install. It's always kewl to see a large bundle
> like KDE pulling down 297 packages to install all it's glory...
>
>
I have also found the default sources.list in Ubuntu to be too
limited. You need to
download and install Automatix2 separately to get a juicy
sources.list. This IMHO
shouldn't have been the case.
Regards,
Moinak.
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Posts:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 8:36 PM
in response to: moinakg
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On Wed, 1 Aug 2007, Moinak Ghosh wrote:
> I have also found the default sources.list in Ubuntu to be too limited.
> You need to
> download and install Automatix2 separately to get a juicy sources.list.
> This IMHO
> shouldn't have been the case.
Agreed. I 'spose by stripping everything down it's easier for them to
maintain the distribution, for the folks it is intended to be for. I don't
think I am that person, but they are out there.;-)
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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Posts:
9
From:
UK
Registered:
7/30/07
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 10:17 PM
in response to: aland
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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You gentlemen have made some good points. One of my goals with my open letter was to encourage Solaris to find ways to allow users who are not in the technical elite to use the awesome power that is available. Ubuntu seeks to be friendly by "dumbing-down" the Linux system. This is a lowest-common-denominator solution. Regular users want the power that can be offered by the command line, but don't have the time to learn the (you must admit) archaic interface. Build them an intuitive, lean interface that explains the options so that the non-technical can use them in about 5 minutes, and you've got a smash-hit on your hands.
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 6:51 PM
in response to: aland
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On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 04:19 -0700, Alan DuBoff wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, James Carlson wrote:
>
> > I think I'm one of the command-line geeks this message refers to
> > somewhat indirectly. My idea of a "GUI" is still twm with xterms and
> > emacs windows, and I wouldn't really want to have it any other way.
> >
> > Just the same, I think having an environment available that can hide
> > all of that away and that is robust enough that it's able to do so
> > when things are going wrong would be great. I just suspect that it's
> > far harder (read: expensive) to make that work in any reliable way
> > than most would suppose.
>
> This type of open thinking is good, because there's not a lot of Jim
> Carlsons in the world. If we **** to grow Solaris, we need to focus on
> areas which can allow more users to use Solaris seamlessly.
>
> This is exactly what our CEO has pointed out with Ubunto, and after last
> weeks allhands, I installed Ubunto on one of my computers. I honestly
> don't see Solaris as being too much different, albeit where Ubuntu has a
> leg up is in getting the bits on your computer, and updating them.
>
> First, during the install I selected some type of "Guided
> partition/resize", thinking it would guide me through using fdisk or
> equivilant...bzzzt, wrong answer, and turned the computer off as it
> started to repartition the disk with whatever values were on a slider,
> which one was evidentally supposed to adjust before continuing.
>
> Next time around I did a manual install, and set the disk as I wanted (and
> no, I didn't loose any of the data on the computer).
>
> So, I get it installed, all the hardware was detected, and all is running,
> but on DHCP, not how I wanted it configured, but running none the less.
>
> So, one of the reasons I did want to install Ubuntu is that I have an
> opensource library which one of the Ubuntu developers wants to putback to
> Debian, and I am updating the name to prevent name collision with another
> library. Ah, but Ubunto doesn't install automake/autoconf/libtool by
> default, it's more user oriented. This is important, because I am similar
> to you in the regard that I just want this command tool that I need to
> use, and in this case I don't care about a GUI, but searching through the
> update GUI, I can't find any of the tools to save my life.
>
> Lucky for me, I am pretty familiar with Debian, which Ubuntu is based on,
> and can open a terminal, edit my sources.lst, do an apt-get update, and
> pull the packages down I wanted...including KDE/Kubuntu, and other
> stuff...but those pieces are not available through the default GUIs,
> AFAICT, with a default install. It's always kewl to see a large bundle
> like KDE pulling down 297 packages to install all it's glory...
>
> >From a developer perspective, Ubuntu is no better than Solaris, IMO.
> Because even though it does get bits on the computer better, the bits are
> focused for a simpleton. Yes, I think we do need to attract these
> simpletons...so we have a double edge sword of adoption/attraction.
>
> I do wonder why we need to have a different GNOME desktop? Well, I know
> why we do it (i.e., JDS), but I'm not sure why we should. It only diverges
> us from the mainstream, and makes things different. Seems better to
> leverage the mainstream GNOME project to me, and be the same, the Ubuntu
> uses a stock GNOME desktop, AFAICT. Would be nice to see our desktop folks
> working on implementing solutions for out environment, rather than adding
> lipstick to the pig, for instance...wouldn't it be nice to grab a context
> menu and be able to get the information for "zfs list"? Well, for you it
> wouldn't, but for me it might. It confuses me that zfs has been out for
> about a year and a half and we don't see our desktop folks doing that type
> of simple integration. Being able to take snapshots, list information on
> zfs filesystems, or getting the status of a zpool, those are all things
> that should be available for the user.
>
> OTOH, we're making quite a bit of progress, we even have some wifi
> solutions in place, a modern X server, native OpenGL drivers for nvidia,
> and some basic power management, acceptable audio, much better x86 support
> with Sun finally selling x86 based systems. This is quite a bit better
> than we were a couple years ago, when S10 was released.
>
> Unfortunately our power play is zfs, and we don't have the abiltiy to boot
> and/or configure the system for it at install time. This will need to be
> transparent to the user, and to the user there should be little if any
> difference than using ufs, fat, ext2/3, <gasp> reiserfs, or other.
>
> Long story short, we need to retain the Jim Carlson users of the
> community, and be able to attract more of them, but at the same time we
> need to attract the simpletons to really drive adoption. This will take
> some jugglin', IMO, to keep all happy.
One could argue that Cube at the best chance - for example, I remember
back when I was at an ISP a customer bought a copy of Microsoft Windows
Small Business Edition. After much frustration, following documentation
and trying to decrypt gooblygoop messages he asked for my help.
Using my contacts through a distributor I organised a Cobalt Cube for
him - happy camper since then. He couldn't how easy it was, it 'just
worked'(tm) out of the box - side note, the guy who set it up is a
lawyer who had no technical background.
9/10, things will work through the GUI; if 9/10 customers are happy -
then so be it; if people want to do weird **** with the operating
system, then the command line is there for them to tweak their life
away.
For a turnkey solution which they can plonk on the corner and forget
about; a GUI setup is the best option - its about Sun and the community
at large investing more resoruces into it rather than simply taking the
condescending approach I've seen around here of "you must earn the right
to use a computer!" as if it were some sort of right of passage.
Matthew
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From:
IE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 8, 2007 8:45 AM
in response to: aland
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On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 04:19 -0700, Alan DuBoff wrote:
> I do wonder why we need to have a different GNOME desktop? Well, I know
> why we do it (i.e., JDS), but I'm not sure why we should. It only diverges
> us from the mainstream, and makes things different. Seems better to
> leverage the mainstream GNOME project to me, and be the same, the Ubuntu
> uses a stock GNOME desktop, AFAICT.
It doesn't really, Ubuntu have a whole ream of local patches just like
we do, and other distros like SuSE have a lot more. They arguably do a
better job of getting theirs upstream, but they also have the advantage
of being Just Another Linux. It often takes longer to get the GNOME
community to buy into Solaris patches, particuarly if they also happen
to change the way things work on Linux.
> It confuses me that zfs has been out for
> about a year and a half and we don't see our desktop folks doing that type
> of simple integration. Being able to take snapshots, list information on
> zfs filesystems, or getting the status of a zpool, those are all things
> that should be available for the user.
I agree, and we have had people working on ZFS desktop integration
prototypes on and off over the past couple of years. But as always it's
a question of resources and priorities, and as yet it just hasn't been
made a high enough one for us to drive to completion. (There's nothing
that says Sun has to do the work, of course.)
Cheeri,
Calum.
--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum dot benson at sun dot com GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com +353 1 819 9771
Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 8, 2007 8:56 AM
in response to: calumb
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On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 16:45 +0100, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 04:19 -0700, Alan DuBoff wrote:
>
> > I do wonder why we need to have a different GNOME desktop? Well, I
> know
> > why we do it (i.e., JDS), but I'm not sure why we should. It only
> diverges
> > us from the mainstream, and makes things different. Seems better to
> > leverage the mainstream GNOME project to me, and be the same, the
> Ubuntu
> > uses a stock GNOME desktop, AFAICT.
>
> It doesn't really, Ubuntu have a whole ream of local patches just like
> we do, and other distros like SuSE have a lot more. They arguably do
> a
> better job of getting theirs upstream, but they also have the
> advantage
> of being Just Another Linux. It often takes longer to get the GNOME
> community to buy into Solaris patches, particuarly if they also happen
> to change the way things work on Linux.
Or some of the time the patches made are for components that are going
to be completely re-written :)
> > It confuses me that zfs has been out for
> > about a year and a half and we don't see our desktop folks doing
> that type
> > of simple integration. Being able to take snapshots, list
> information on
> > zfs filesystems, or getting the status of a zpool, those are all
> things
> > that should be available for the user.
>
> I agree, and we have had people working on ZFS desktop integration
> prototypes on and off over the past couple of years. But as always
> it's
> a question of resources and priorities, and as yet it just hasn't been
> made a high enough one for us to drive to completion. (There's
> nothing
> that says Sun has to do the work, of course.)
Hmm, thats assuming one doesn't want to actually make Solaris a success
either on the desktop or for the Sun Ray. Imagine, end user in 'very big
corporation of america' deletes file, then is able to roll back with a
click of a mouse - no interaction with the system admin needed. There
are a heap of scenarios I could possibly rectum pluck where the benefits
to Sun for 'customer selling points' would be alot higher than a sole
individual.
Mathew
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 8, 2007 3:26 PM
in response to: calumb
|
|
On Wed, 8 Aug 2007, Calum Benson wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 04:19 -0700, Alan DuBoff wrote:
>
>> I do wonder why we need to have a different GNOME desktop? Well, I know
>> why we do it (i.e., JDS), but I'm not sure why we should. It only diverges
>> us from the mainstream, and makes things different. Seems better to
>> leverage the mainstream GNOME project to me, and be the same, the Ubuntu
>> uses a stock GNOME desktop, AFAICT.
>
> It doesn't really, Ubuntu have a whole ream of local patches just like
> we do, and other distros like SuSE have a lot more. They arguably do a
> better job of getting theirs upstream, but they also have the advantage
> of being Just Another Linux. It often takes longer to get the GNOME
> community to buy into Solaris patches, particuarly if they also happen
> to change the way things work on Linux.
Actually this is one of our advantages, IMO, that we're not just another
Linux distribution. We're a Solaris/OpenSolaris distribution and that in
itself needs to carry it's own clout.
>> It confuses me that zfs has been out for
>> about a year and a half and we don't see our desktop folks doing that type
>> of simple integration. Being able to take snapshots, list information on
>> zfs filesystems, or getting the status of a zpool, those are all things
>> that should be available for the user.
>
> I agree, and we have had people working on ZFS desktop integration
> prototypes on and off over the past couple of years. But as always it's
> a question of resources and priorities, and as yet it just hasn't been
> made a high enough one for us to drive to completion. (There's nothing
> that says Sun has to do the work, of course.)
Well, to give them credit, the zfs filesystem is not your average problem
to solve, Jeff Bonwick went out on a limb and tried to design and build
the worlds best filesystem. It will mature over time, but there's a lot of
interest, and I consider this to be the best thing that has gone back to
Solaris/OpenSolaris since S10. Remeber that zfs went into S10u2.
The only thing I would have done different given the limited resources in
engineering, would have been to license under the BSD 3 clause so that
anyone, any system, could have taken the code to incorporate into their
system, even Linux. It seems that will happen if Sun does GPL2 and/or GPL3
the OpenSolaris sources, and I don't know if they will do that, just that
they have mentioned that in the press.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter to
the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 5:43 AM
in response to: aland
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Alan DuBoff writes:
> The only thing I would have done different given the limited resources in
> engineering, would have been to license under the BSD 3 clause so that
> anyone, any system, could have taken the code to incorporate into their
> system, even Linux.
I suspect that would have been much worse. ZFS (like many things in
OpenSolaris) has patented technology behind it. Among other things,
the CDDL provides users with grants for those patents, so that they
can actually *use* the bits provided.
The BSD 3-clause license does no such thing. Each user would be on
his own to negotiate a license for the patents or a retreat to some
haven where patents don't apply. I'm no lawyer, but I suspect that
means at least "non-free" treatment for it in Linux, and possible no
inclusion at all.
I realize that (as non-lawyers) we're all very fond of short-and-sweet
licenses on software, even if they're riddled with legal holes, and
treat IPR like Mizaru. The standard BSD license is that. GPLv2 is a
bit too stridently wordy but less ambiguous. The MPL and CDDL are
even harder to read by mere humans. That, though, is the nature of
the litigious world we live in.
As for whether Linux users can incorporate ZFS, that's really up to
them to figure out. Not only are we not lawyers, but we're not
*their* lawyers, so we can't tell them what's acceptable and what's
not. I don't think you should blame Sun for issues that are squarely
in their court.
> It seems that will happen if Sun does GPL2 and/or GPL3
> the OpenSolaris sources, and I don't know if they will do that, just that
> they have mentioned that in the press.
Oh, please, let's not have that discussion again. It hasn't been
nearly long enough for it to seem to have been fun in retrospect.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james dot d dot carlson at sun dot com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter
to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 2:58 PM
in response to: carlsonj
|
|
On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, James Carlson wrote:
> Alan DuBoff writes:
>> The only thing I would have done different given the limited resources in
>> engineering, would have been to license under the BSD 3 clause so that
>> anyone, any system, could have taken the code to incorporate into their
>> system, even Linux.
>
> I suspect that would have been much worse. ZFS (like many things in
> OpenSolaris) has patented technology behind it. Among other things,
> the CDDL provides users with grants for those patents, so that they
> can actually *use* the bits provided.
Possibly so, but ZFS is all new code. Are you saying that Sun couldn't
license that as BSD had they wanted?
Certainly the underlying system is CDDL and/or other licenses, but how
does that effect ZFS sitting on top?
> The BSD 3-clause license does no such thing.
Not directly, but the BSD is an accepted license for pretty much all of
the open source community, and considered to be one of the best open and
free licenses available. It is certainly one of the few to have stood up
in a court of law. For a non-lawyer type as myself, that seems pretty
good if you want your code to be accepted.
> I realize that (as non-lawyers) we're all very fond of short-and-sweet
> licenses on software, even if they're riddled with legal holes, and
> treat IPR like Mizaru. The standard BSD license is that.
I'm not sure how the BSD is riddled with holes, it has stood up in court.
AFAIK, no other popular license has gone through that, GPL included. Maybe
I'm wrong.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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Posts:
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From:
NL
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter
to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 11:15 PM
in response to: aland
|
|
>Possibly so, but ZFS is all new code. Are you saying that Sun couldn't
>license that as BSD had they wanted?
They could, but Sun's patents would get in the way of actually using it.
If you get Sun's code under the CDDL it comes with a patent license.
>> I realize that (as non-lawyers) we're all very fond of short-and-sweet
>> licenses on software, even if they're riddled with legal holes, and
>> treat IPR like Mizaru. The standard BSD license is that.
>
>I'm not sure how the BSD is riddled with holes, it has stood up in court.
>AFAIK, no other popular license has gone through that, GPL included. Maybe
>I'm wrong.
There are many more facets to source code's IP than just the license
Casper
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open
Letter to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 11:35 PM
in response to: casper
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On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 08:15 +0200, Casper.***@Sun.COM wrote:
> >Possibly so, but ZFS is all new code. Are you saying that Sun couldn't
> >license that as BSD had they wanted?
>
> They could, but Sun's patents would get in the way of actually using it.
>
> If you get Sun's code under the CDDL it comes with a patent license.
So if one wanted to play devils advocate; if Linux wants ZFS, they could
move to CDDL and all would be well :-)
I think its good what has happened; lord knows the one way sucking from
the Linux community is bad enough as it is - and given the GPL, they can
suck in any code they want and none of the enhancements can be merged
back to the original source.
Matthew
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter
to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 6:30 AM
in response to: aland
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|
Alan DuBoff writes:
> On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, James Carlson wrote:
> > I suspect that would have been much worse. ZFS (like many things in
> > OpenSolaris) has patented technology behind it. Among other things,
> > the CDDL provides users with grants for those patents, so that they
> > can actually *use* the bits provided.
>
> Possibly so, but ZFS is all new code. Are you saying that Sun couldn't
> license that as BSD had they wanted?
No, I didn't say that. Sun is the author and can do as it pleases.
> Certainly the underlying system is CDDL and/or other licenses, but how
> does that effect ZFS sitting on top?
I didn't say anything like that, either. Please see what I wrote
above. A BSD license would *NOT* confer patent rights for the
implementation of ZFS to recipients.
We could have published it that way. But if we did, then nobody could
have used it at all. That makes it _worse_ than CDDL.
> > I realize that (as non-lawyers) we're all very fond of short-and-sweet
> > licenses on software, even if they're riddled with legal holes, and
> > treat IPR like Mizaru. The standard BSD license is that.
>
> I'm not sure how the BSD is riddled with holes, it has stood up in court.
> AFAIK, no other popular license has gone through that, GPL included. Maybe
> I'm wrong.
One clear issue with the standard BSD license is that it doesn't deal
with IPR. There are other (more arcane) issues having to do with the
right to distribute modified versions of the source, which is one
reason why CDDL is different. (And, yes, I've imported BSD things
into Solaris, and it's not always easy precisely because of those
holes -- not all of which I understand myself; I'm not a lawyer.)
I share the concern about having a license that everyone can
understand and use and (most importantly) _trust_. I don't think that
wishing for a BSD-only world fixes that problem.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james dot d dot carlson at sun dot com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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Posts:
34
From:
San Francisco
Registered:
11/6/06
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter
to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 9:55 AM
in response to: carlsonj
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OSOL folks,
I'm also, quite frankly, not clear on how it benefits the opensolaris project
to have ZFS be more available to other operating systems. DTrace, certainly,
because we're trying to get people to include DTrace probes in the middleware
layer which will only happen if it's multi-OS. But why do we want to spread
ZFS independant of OSOL?
--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Lead
Sun Microsystems
San Francisco
01-415-752-2500
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From:
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open Letter
to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 10:19 AM
in response to: jberkus
|
|
Josh Berkus writes:
> I'm also, quite frankly, not clear on how it benefits the opensolaris project
> to have ZFS be more available to other operating systems. DTrace, certainly,
> because we're trying to get people to include DTrace probes in the middleware
> layer which will only happen if it's multi-OS. But why do we want to spread
> ZFS independant of OSOL?
Having it supported in multiple operating systems would put more
pressure on third-party vendors (with disk management tools, backup
systems, and the like) to support it and to write applications that
are designed with ZFS in mind.
All of that would be good for OpenSolaris.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james dot d dot carlson at sun dot com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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Posts:
631
From:
CZ
Registered:
3/21/06
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An Open
Letter to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 1:13 PM
in response to: jberkus
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|
Hi Josh,
Josh Berkus píše v út 14. 08. 2007 v 09:55 -0700:
> OSOL folks,
>
> I'm also, quite frankly, not clear on how it benefits the opensolaris project
> to have ZFS be more available to other operating systems. DTrace, certainly,
> because we're trying to get people to include DTrace probes in the middleware
> layer which will only happen if it's multi-OS. But why do we want to spread
> ZFS independant of OSOL?
>
Sharing data between operating systems? Not locking users to just one
filesystem, which is locked to operating system. Today we have two
possibilities:
a) Veritas is everywhere - commercial closed source
b) FAT - MS has some patent for it and tried to do something around it,
I think and not very good for data.
Do you know another? ext2 maybe, but it is old. Sharing is the key
benefit for OSol and open source.
Best regards,
Milan
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: making zfs open enough [was Re: An
Open Letter to the Solaris Community.]
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 1:17 PM
in response to: jurikm
|
|
On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 22:13 +0200, Milan Jurik wrote:
> Hi Josh,
>
> Josh Berkus píše v út 14. 08. 2007 v 09:55 -0700:
> > OSOL folks,
> >
> > I'm also, quite frankly, not clear on how it benefits the
> opensolaris project
> > to have ZFS be more available to other operating systems. DTrace,
> certainly,
> > because we're trying to get people to include DTrace probes in the
> middleware
> > layer which will only happen if it's multi-OS. But why do we want
> to spread
> > ZFS independant of OSOL?
> >
>
> Sharing data between operating systems? Not locking users to just one
> filesystem, which is locked to operating system. Today we have two
> possibilities:
>
> a) Veritas is everywhere - commercial closed source
>
> b) FAT - MS has some patent for it and tried to do something around
> it,
> I think and not very good for data.
>
> Do you know another? ext2 maybe, but it is old. Sharing is the key
> benefit for OSol and open source.
How about UDF - I mean, you can write to it, read it, its universally
supported, it works on a variety of devices and its open and available.
Matthew
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From:
Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 6:29 AM
in response to: aland
|
|
|
|
> The only thing I would have done different given the limited resources in
> engineering, would have been to license under the BSD 3 clause so that
> anyone, any system, could have taken the code to incorporate into their
> system, even Linux. It seems that will happen if Sun does GPL2 and/or GPL3
> the OpenSolaris sources, and I don't know if they will do that, just that
> they have mentioned that in the press.
I don't think that going GPL is the right thing to do right now. The
OpenSolaris project should first gather some momentum before
reconsidering to release the bits to the lion and then just go under.
See my other thread ("Okay guys, let's take our balls, give up and go
home!") for why.
-mg
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From:
Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 6:49 AM
in response to: servo
|
|
On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Mario Goebbels wrote:
>> The only thing I would have done different given the limited resources in
>> engineering, would have been to license under the BSD 3 clause so that
>> anyone, any system, could have taken the code to incorporate into their
>> system, even Linux. It seems that will happen if Sun does GPL2 and/or GPL3
>> the OpenSolaris sources, and I don't know if they will do that, just that
>> they have mentioned that in the press.
>
> I don't think that going GPL is the right thing to do right now. The
> OpenSolaris project should first gather some momentum before
> reconsidering to release the bits to the lion and then just go under.
>
> See my other thread ("Okay guys, let's take our balls, give up and go
> home!") for why.
>
> -mg
>
>
If the text of the GPL was actually read, those concerned would understand
that Linux could have ZFS and DTrace now, along with any other piece of
code licensed under the CDDL. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be
possible, given the majority of people that work with GPL'd license code
seem to be set upon making the imagined 'linking clause' reality when, in
fact, the text of the GPL contains no instances of the word 'link'. It
seems to be the case the real GPL is the FSF FAQ. Some might go as far to
say the 'the program' and 'derivative work' referred to in the GPL
encompass linking; however, this is an ambiguity, and any lawyer worth the
air he or she breathes to sufficiently dispute this in court, I think.
>From my research, a ZFS or DTrace Linux port would only require the
sources be distributed separately. Binaries could still be shipped with a
Linux distribution, as the GPL is strictly a source-level license if one
assumes the imaginary 'linking clause' is, in fact, imaginary.
With this said, I fail to see how adopting a license that contains such
ambiguities could be beneficial towards OpenSolaris.
Derek E. Lewis
delewis at acm dot org
http://delewis.blogspot.com
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From:
Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 1:10 PM
in response to: dlewis
|
|
On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Derek E. Lewis wrote:
> If the text of the GPL was actually read, those concerned would understand
> that Linux could have ZFS and DTrace now, along with any other piece of code
> licensed under the CDDL.
No, that is not clear, and IANAL and neither are you it seems.
While this aspect of the GPL has not been taken to court, AFAIK, most
legal folks go under the assumption that the licenses are incompatible.
> Unfortunately, this does not seem to be possible,
> given the majority of people that work with GPL'd license code
> seem to be set upon making the imagined 'linking clause' reality when, in
> fact, the text of the GPL contains no instances of the word 'link'.
I agree with you, in principal, but in reality the legal weanies are
siding with them also, and those are the folks that are most intimately
familiar with law, IMO.
> From my research, a ZFS or DTrace Linux port would only require the sources
> be distributed separately. Binaries could still be shipped with a Linux
> distribution, as the GPL is strictly a source-level license if one assumes
> the imaginary 'linking clause' is, in fact, imaginary.
Maybe so, but your research is not under a legal perspective, is it? IOW,
if you are a lawyer, you would be in that position.
> With this said, I fail to see how adopting a license that contains such
> ambiguities could be beneficial towards OpenSolaris.
Considering that the majority of open source software development is being
done under this license, it's not something that can be ignored.
In the best world all of our sources would be licensed under the BSD 3
clause, my favorite license of any to date. Only use it if you want your
sources to truely be free and open, for everyone. My $0.02.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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Posts:
3,928
From:
DE
Registered:
4/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 1:54 PM
in response to: aland
|
|
Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Derek E. Lewis wrote:
>
> > If the text of the GPL was actually read, those concerned would understand
> > that Linux could have ZFS and DTrace now, along with any other piece of code
> > licensed under the CDDL.
>
> No, that is not clear, and IANAL and neither are you it seems.
>
> While this aspect of the GPL has not been taken to court, AFAIK, most
> legal folks go under the assumption that the licenses are incompatible.
The fact that some people without legal knowledge claim a general unspecific
incompatibility should not be taken for serious.
With the same way of thinking, a lock and a key may be called incompatible
because you cannot put the lock _into_ the key. The same key could be put
into the same lock.....without a poroblem.
Lawyers carefully look at the licenses and tell you different things.
Eben Moglen (at the press conference for a early GPLv3 draft) did explain
why there is no need for the "OS exception" in the GPL and that GPLd code
may use non-GPLd code.
The GPL only prevents you from using GPLd code in a non-GPL project (called work
in compliance with the copyright law). The GPL does not prevent you from using
non-GPLd code from a GPLd project. The latter is allowed because this way, no
non-GPLd code becomes a "derived work" of the GPLd code.
Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
is a heavily assymetric license.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Brandorr
brandorr@opensolaris...
|
|
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 2:05 PM
in response to: joerg
|
|
On 8/9/07, Joerg Schilling < Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Derek E. Lewis wrote:
>
> > If the text of the GPL was actually read, those concerned would understand
> > that Linux could have ZFS and DTrace now, along with any other piece of code
> > licensed under the CDDL.
>
> No, that is not clear, and IANAL and neither are you it seems.
>
> While this aspect of the GPL has not been taken to court, AFAIK, most
> legal folks go under the assumption that the licenses are incompatible.
The fact that some people without legal knowledge claim a general unspecific
incompatibility should not be taken for serious.
With the same way of thinking, a lock and a key may be called incompatible
because you cannot put the lock _into_ the key. The same key could be put
into the same lock.....without a poroblem.
Lawyers carefully look at the licenses and tell you different things.
Eben Moglen (at the press conference for a early GPLv3 draft) did explain
why there is no need for the "OS exception" in the GPL and that GPLd code
may use non-GPLd code.
The GPL only prevents you from using GPLd code in a non-GPL project (called work
in compliance with the copyright law). The GPL does not prevent you from using
non-GPLd code from a GPLd project. The latter is allowed because this way, no
non-GPLd code becomes a "derived work" of the GPLd code.
Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
is a heavily assymetric license.
If I understand what you are saying, I'd have to say I interpret it differently.
In order to compile a Linux ZFS kernel module, you need access to the kernel source code at compile time. Thus the resulting binary is a derivative of both the GPLed Linux kernel and the CDDLed ZFS code. The GPL expressly forbids this, so this child can not legally exist. (Both licenses must allow it)
Brian
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Posts:
3,928
From:
DE
Registered:
4/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 3:59 AM
in response to: Brandorr
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Brandorr <brandorr at opensolaris dot org> wrote:
> > The GPL only prevents you from using GPLd code in a non-GPL project
> > (called work
> > in compliance with the copyright law). The GPL does not prevent you from
> > using
> > non-GPLd code from a GPLd project. The latter is allowed because this way,
> > no
> > non-GPLd code becomes a "derived work" of the GPLd code.
> >
> > Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
> > because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
> > is a heavily assymetric license.
>
>
> If I understand what you are saying, I'd have to say I interpret it
> differently.
>
> In order to compile a Linux ZFS kernel module, you need access to the kernel
> source code at compile time. Thus the resulting binary is a derivative of
> both the GPLed Linux kernel and the CDDLed ZFS code. The GPL expressly
> forbids this, so this child can not legally exist. (Both licenses must allow
> it)
The GPL is a sourcecode license that has been written around the term "work". It does
not matter what code may be in a binary that has been created from the original work.
Binaries created from this work are similar to a photograph taken from an
artwork (note that the Copyright law treats software as "artwork"). A picture
of an artwork may contain additional content but this does not change the
artwork itself.
I am not sure about copyright laws in less free countries, but in Germany/Europe,
there is something called "Recht auf das wissenschaftliche Kleinzitat".
You may quote other people's work _without_ ever asking them for permission in case
this is needed for your work and as long as your work has enough own "creation level"
to make it a separate work.
This would definitely be the case for a work like ZFS.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Posts:
511
From:
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 4:33 AM
in response to: joerg
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On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
[ ... ]
> You may quote other people's work _without_ ever asking them for permission in case
> this is needed for your work and as long as your work has enough own "creation level"
> to make it a separate work.
That might or might not be correct given the gritty details where the
legislation in different countries is different.
Though in the end, it doesn't matter. You may be allowed to do that, fully
within your rights.
But that's not the point. It doesn't actually help either of:
- integrate a Linux ZFS with 'Linux mainstream'.
- maintain a Linux ZFS when Linux changes ... yet again.
- find co-workers who will help with coding/maintenance.
It doesn't encourage cooperation. And even if there were a e.g. a WTO
decision that the so-called 'linking clause' of the GPL is null and void,
and several high court rulings worldwide confirming so, it wouldn't stop
people who _like_ to think it's valid from adopting a stance that no
matter what, they'll use all means they can to obstruct those who do not
agree with them.
Several Linux kernel developers have openly stated so. Or, on a different
end, the Debian "Free Software Guidelines" are way more restrictive than
the GPL.
It's a political agenda, not a question of what's legally/technically
possible. Linux developers don't _want_ non-GPL code in the kernel, and
unless you have a significant tendency towards masochism (or are well-paid
to do it) and are willing to update your port chain whenever compatibility
with your module is deliberately broken next (greetings to Ati/Nvidia),
you'd better not try or else you'll regret the continuous waste of effort.
Personally, I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, definitely
long-term. But then, this talk about how to get code from OpenSolaris into
Linux is somewhat off-topic; back in usenet days, I'd have pointed you
towards comp.unix.advocacy :)
FrankH.
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 4:55 AM
in response to: frankho
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Frank Hofmann <Frank dot Hofmann at Sun dot COM> wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
> > You may quote other people's work _without_ ever asking them for permission in case
> > this is needed for your work and as long as your work has enough own "creation level"
> > to make it a separate work.
>
> That might or might not be correct given the gritty details where the
> legislation in different countries is different.
>
> Though in the end, it doesn't matter. You may be allowed to do that, fully
> within your rights.
> But that's not the point. It doesn't actually help either of:
>
> - integrate a Linux ZFS with 'Linux mainstream'.
> - maintain a Linux ZFS when Linux changes ... yet again.
> - find co-workers who will help with coding/maintenance.
>
> It doesn't encourage cooperation. And even if there were a e.g. a WTO
> decision that the so-called 'linking clause' of the GPL is null and void,
> and several high court rulings worldwide confirming so, it wouldn't stop
> people who _like_ to think it's valid from adopting a stance that no
> matter what, they'll use all means they can to obstruct those who do not
> agree with them.
> Several Linux kernel developers have openly stated so. Or, on a different
> end, the Debian "Free Software Guidelines" are way more restrictive than
> the GPL.
This is what I try to explain since a while ,-)
It could be done if there was a will. The problem is that some people from the
Linux camp claim that there is a legal problem just to hide their real
intention.
> Personally, I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, definitely
> long-term. But then, this talk about how to get code from OpenSolaris into
The problem is that you cannot tell us how log we need to wait to see the blood
coming off "Linux feet" ;-)
This is not a legal problem but some people play politic games.
If we respond to these games, we loose. If we continue the way we currently
have and verify that OpenSolaris is viable and constantly creates new ideas and
new code, this kind of games will die out some time.
Let us wait until they shoot themselves in the foot and then give them
"feet back".
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Posts:
987
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 8:15 AM
in response to: joerg
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On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 12:59 +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> I am not sure about copyright laws in less free countries, but in Germany/Europe,
> there is something called "Recht auf das wissenschaftliche Kleinzitat".
> You may quote other people's work _without_ ever asking them for permission in case
> this is needed for your work and as long as your work has enough own "creation level"
> to make it a separate work.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that US copyright law is
essentially similar. Those who disagree may want to read:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Lexmark_v_Static_Control/20041026_Ruling.pdf
(particularly the discussion of copyright as applied to functional
elements of computer programs on pages 5 through 8 of the decision),
which cites a large number of prior cases which establish that copyright
protection does not prevent the copying of purely functional elements
necessary to build interoperable software and hardware.
- Bill
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Posts:
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From:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 2:27 PM
in response to: joerg
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On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> The fact that some people without legal knowledge claim a general unspecific
> incompatibility should not be taken for serious.
What I know is that I must defer all the legal aspects to Sun's legal
team, and have discussed several of these issues with them. While they
agree that some things are not cast in stone (i.e., have not been taken to
a court of law), they have a specific side they err on, and this is one of
those issues that seems to be accepted by them.
I do not get a choice in the matter, where you as an outsider of Sun can
view it differently.
I've personally never liked the fiasco that was created with the Linux
2.4.13 kernel, where the GPL exportt is required and if not used your code
is considered to be tainting the kernel.
I just do not feel the whole kernel linking has much value when placed in
open source software, either it's free or it's not.
I 'spose this is my problem with the GPL, in that I do feel it places
restrictions on the code, and in various ways places restrictions on it's
very freedom.
With that said, I don't have a choice with OpenSolaris, it's the Sun
lawyers that will ultimately decide, and defend what they have created.
> With the same way of thinking, a lock and a key may be called incompatible
> because you cannot put the lock _into_ the key. The same key could be put
> into the same lock.....without a poroblem.
I don't see it as being so simple, I see a key that will fit but will
break off in the lock, or a key that will break the lock after it is in
the lock. It's not that the lock and key are incompatible, it's that they
do not work together due to licensing and/or interpetation.
I'm certainly in envy of you non-lawyers that understand this better than
lawyers, but I can't and will not claim to be in that group.
> Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
> because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
> is a heavily assymetric license.
What do you suggest when I need to deal with Sun legal? Sounds like you're
saying I should not listen to them. That doesn't seem like a very good
option for me since I need to work with them.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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844
From:
INDIA
Registered:
2/10/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 9, 2007 5:40 PM
in response to: aland
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> On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Derek E. Lewis wrote:
and any lawyer worth the air he or she breathes to sufficiently
dispute this in court, I think.
On 8/10/07, Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> they have a specific side they err on, and this is one of
> those issues that seems to be accepted by them.
Unless the putting the code into gpl tree is something we *badly want*,
if there is ambiguity and scope for legal battle, err on the side that
avoids litigation. No point in getting into litigations that distracts
& frustrates everyone.
While contributing CDDL code to GPL code might not be a problem, that
part of the contributed CDDL code would need to be re-licensed or
dual-licensed under GPL compatible code.
On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Do not listen to the people who like to tell you that there are problems
> because you cannot put the lock into the key.....understand that the GPL
> is a heavily assymetric license.
If Eben Moglen has clarified *this specific issue*, it should be ok.
But lock and key analogy to drive home this point is incorrect. There
is a codebase X(ZFS) under CDDL and codebase Y(linux kernel), under
GPL.
* A 3rd party takes ZFS & Linux-kernel and creates a combined product,
now do you call it ZFS incorporating Linux-kernel or the other way.
* The codebase of linux-kernel is huge compared to ZFS is incidental,
if ZFS code were to be 200k instead of the 80k would you still use the
container analogy. What if it were 1000k instead of 80k => See, it is
subject to interpretation and litigations in such situations lawyers
are the only ones who stand to gain.
~Shiv
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 2:20 AM
in response to: gns
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"S h i v " <shivakumar dot gn at gmail dot com> wrote:
> > On Thu, 9 Aug 2007, Derek E. Lewis wrote:
> and any lawyer worth the air he or she breathes to sufficiently
> dispute this in court, I think.
>
> On 8/10/07, Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> > they have a specific side they err on, and this is one of
> > those issues that seems to be accepted by them.
>
> Unless the putting the code into gpl tree is something we *badly want*,
> if there is ambiguity and scope for legal battle, err on the side that
> avoids litigation. No point in getting into litigations that distracts
> & frustrates everyone.
>
> While contributing CDDL code to GPL code might not be a problem, that
> part of the contributed CDDL code would need to be re-licensed or
> dual-licensed under GPL compatible code.
ZFS is a separate "work", you do not need to relicense it under the GPL and you
cannot.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 2:33 AM
in response to: joerg
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On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> > Unless the putting the code into gpl tree is something we *badly want*,
> > if there is ambiguity and scope for legal battle, err on the side that
> > avoids litigation. No point in getting into litigations that distracts
> > & frustrates everyone.
> >
> > While contributing CDDL code to GPL code might not be a problem, that
> > part of the contributed CDDL code would need to be re-licensed or
> > dual-licensed under GPL compatible code.
>
> ZFS is a separate "work", you do not need to relicense it under the GPL and you
> cannot.
>
*I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
have its good share of problems and need not be done. There is no
compelling need either.
regards
Shiv
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Posts:
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 3:12 AM
in response to: gns
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"S h i v " <shivakumar dot gn at gmail dot com> wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> > > Unless the putting the code into gpl tree is something we *badly want*,
> > > if there is ambiguity and scope for legal battle, err on the side that
> > > avoids litigation. No point in getting into litigations that distracts
> > > & frustrates everyone.
> > >
> > > While contributing CDDL code to GPL code might not be a problem, that
> > > part of the contributed CDDL code would need to be re-licensed or
> > > dual-licensed under GPL compatible code.
> >
> > ZFS is a separate "work", you do not need to relicense it under the GPL and you
> > cannot.
> >
>
> *I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
> about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
> Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
Please do!
Until now, no lawyer did tell us that there may be a problem.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 3:30 AM
in response to: joerg
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On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> Please do!
>
> Until now, no lawyer did tell us that there may be a problem.
>
Alan has already made references to the repeated discussion that has
happened with the legal team. There is no reason compelling enough for
a second opinion :-)
regards
Shiv
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 4:17 AM
in response to: gns
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"S h i v " <shivakumar dot gn at gmail dot com> wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> > Please do!
> >
> > Until now, no lawyer did tell us that there may be a problem.
> >
>
> Alan has already made references to the repeated discussion that has
> happened with the legal team. There is no reason compelling enough for
> a second opinion :-)
Sorry, he did not. Please carefully read hs mail, it does not include any quote
fom a lawyer. I hope he is going to correct his statement.
Note that Eben Moglen (being a law professor) on the other side explains that
this kind of code combination is OK.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 1:19 PM
in response to: joerg
|
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On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Joerg Schilling wrote:
>> Alan has already made references to the repeated discussion that has
>> happened with the legal team. There is no reason compelling enough for
>> a second opinion :-)
>
> Sorry, he did not. Please carefully read hs mail, it does not include
> any quote fom a lawyer. I hope he is going to correct his statement.
>
> Note that Eben Moglen (being a law professor) on the other side explains
> that this kind of code combination is OK.
What Eben Moglen often states is not what the community acts upon, and we
have to deal with the Linux community in regards to Linux, not Eben.
It could very well be that it is ok, but from our perspective we need to
have Sun legal go over everything we do, as Sun employees, it is not a
choice.
There's a chance that legal will say, "ah, it's fine to port ZFS to
Linux", but I doubt that as the Linux community hasn't done it, so they
obviously feel there is contention there between the licenses.
You seem pretty confident in your interpetation of the law, and maybe you
are spot on, I don't know. My interaction with the legal department has to
do with CDDL/GPL/BSD interaction.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 3:46 AM
in response to: aland
|
|
Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> You seem pretty confident in your interpetation of the law, and maybe you
> are spot on, I don't know. My interaction with the legal department has to
> do with CDDL/GPL/BSD interaction.
I had several courses payed by my employer because I need to do some legal
stuff in my job... I try to understand how lawyers think. This is needed in
order to estimate whether there is a need for a legal case and whether such
a case might be won.
In my private life, I did also try to sue two companies for GPL violatoions
long before Harald Welte did similar things. I had many discussions with my
lawyer at this time trying to find out what is possible and what should/could
be done.
It turned out that it is usually not possible (note that Harald Welte's cases
are hand picked from the general pool of GPL violatoions while I did try to
defend "cdrtools") to win a GPL related case. There have been sereval
discussions in public mailing lists related to my cases and after some time,
Eben Moglen did chime in. He claimed that it is possible to defend the GPL. So
I did send him a private mail with the arguments of my lawyer. After reding
these arguments, Moglen admitted that I was right but he needs to repeat in
the public what's theoretically possible. Be careful when reading Moglens
public statements as he has an own opinion but usually publishes the opinion
of Richard Stallman which may be completely different.
With these background experiences, I learned to verify claims from other people
by comparing them to the official law or license text.
It is obvious that even a lawyer cannot tell you anything final on a legal
problem before it has been tried for. But it is possible to judge on the
credibility of a claim by comparing it with the original license text.
You do not need to be a lawyer in case you just take all public proven claims
and compare them with the license text. Trow way all unproven claims before and
then compare the remaining proven claims with their credibility.
>From this perspective, it turns out that there is no problem to include CDDLd
code in a GPLd project as long as the CDDLd code does not become a derived work
from the act of combining.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 1:10 PM
in response to: gns
|
|
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, S h i v wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
>> Please do!
>>
>> Until now, no lawyer did tell us that there may be a problem.
>>
>
> Alan has already made references to the repeated discussion that has
> happened with the legal team. There is no reason compelling enough for
> a second opinion :-)
Shiv,
Let me just add a couple comments here. No matter what I or anyone else
believes, at the end of the day everything needs to go through legal, we
just do not have a choice as Sun requires that to protect themself.
I have put my neck on the line to go up against legal for some issues that
I didn't feel were correct, and in the end it cause a lot of frustration
for everyone, the legal team, my manager, and myself. It did help me
understand more just why legal is so complicated in itself.
It's not a choice, we need to use them for anything that anyone from Sun
does, they are the folks that look after us. They are also the ones that
have the most knowledge about open source software at Sun and/or how it
applies to our sources.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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From:
DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 2:48 AM
in response to: gns
|
|
"S h i v " <shivakumar dot gn at gmail dot com> wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> > Please do!
> >
> > Until now, no lawyer did tell us that there may be a problem.
> >
>
> Alan has already made references to the repeated discussion that has
> happened with the legal team. There is no reason compelling enough for
> a second opinion :-)
As long as he does not quote content of this discussion, it does not help us at
all.
I know of no public statement from a lawyer that claims there is a problem.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Darren J Moffat
darrenm@opensolaris....
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 3:24 AM
in response to: gns
|
|
S h i v wrote:
> *I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
> about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
> Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
> have its good share of problems and need not be done. There is no
> compelling need either.
Extract of an email from Linus on 3 Dec 2003 to linux-kernel
L> Historically, there's been things like the original Andrew filesystem
L> module: a standard filesystem that really wasn't written for Linux in the
L> first place, and just implements a UNIX filesystem. Is that derived just
L> because it got ported to Linux that had a reasonably similar VFS
interface
L> to what other UNIXes did? Personally, I didn't feel that I could make
that
L> judgment call. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but it clearly is a gray
L> area.
>
L> Personally, I think that case wasn't a derived work, and I was willing to
L> tell the AFS guys so.
OpenAFS runs on Linux and it is NOT GPL it is covered under the IBM
Public License.
OpenAFS isn't part of the Linux kernel source it just hooks into the VFS
layer.
I personally believe that a ZFS port could very likley be done under the
same terms, but thats my interpretation of what Linus has said.
--
Darren J Moffat
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From:
Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 1:15 PM
in response to: Darren J Moffat
|
|
On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Darren J Moffat wrote:
> S h i v wrote:
>
>> *I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
>> about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
>> Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
>> have its good share of problems and need not be done. There is no
>> compelling need either.
>
> Extract of an email from Linus on 3 Dec 2003 to linux-kernel
Darren,
No matter what anyone says, Linus included, at the end of the day we need
to let our legal team guide us and use them for advice.
I will say that we certainly have some sharp folks at Sun on the legal
team, and it is often quite complicated to decide on some of these issues.
It is really to our advantage, they really do know best if we need to take
something to court, and rightfully so, that is their job.
There's a lot of lawyers on the internet, but these folks do it for a
living, as their job, with credentials to back them up. My $0.02.
--
Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
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From:
DE
Registered:
4/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 2:10 PM
in response to: aland
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|
Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Darren J Moffat wrote:
>
> > S h i v wrote:
> >
> >> *I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
> >> about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
> >> Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
> >> have its good share of problems and need not be done. There is no
> >> compelling need either.
> >
> > Extract of an email from Linus on 3 Dec 2003 to linux-kernel
>
> Darren,
>
> No matter what anyone says, Linus included, at the end of the day we need
> to let our legal team guide us and use them for advice.
Please do not let us continue a discussion like:
I've heard of people that heard there is a lawyer that claims that there
are problems.
If you cannot give qualified quotes, the only known expression of a lawyer is
the expression from Eben Moglen. He believes that there are no problems.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Posts:
386
From:
AR
Registered:
2/2/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 4:27 PM
in response to: joerg
|
|
On 8/10/07, Joerg Schilling <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
> Alan DuBoff <alan dot duboff at sun dot com> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Darren J Moffat wrote:
> >
> > > S h i v wrote:
> > >
> > >> *I* cannot, because I am not the owner of the copyright. Point was
> > >> about mixing CDDL & GPL and why it *is a problem*
> > >> Sane thing is to follow legal advice by the qualified. It seems to
> > >> have its good share of problems and need not be done. There is no
> > >> compelling need either.
> > >
> > > Extract of an email from Linus on 3 Dec 2003 to linux-kernel
> >
> > Darren,
> >
> > No matter what anyone says, Linus included, at the end of the day we need
> > to let our legal team guide us and use them for advice.
>
> Please do not let us continue a discussion like:
>
> I've heard of people that heard there is a lawyer that claims that there
> are problems.
>
> If you cannot give qualified quotes, the only known expression of a lawyer is
> the expression from Eben Moglen. He believes that there are no problems.
>
> Jörg
will we have this kind of thread every time some linux user complains
about GPL?.
please, let it die... again...
nacho
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Posts:
611
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:29 AM
in response to: wussboy
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|
> Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a reality.
> With the support of Sun Microsystems, resources
Solaris is not very well positioned in the UI competition. Sun, it
appears, has consciously chosen not to actively develop a desktop, but
to patiently swallow whatever gnome.org is producing. Hire a few more
GNOME polishers - and you get another Ubuntu, why bother. That's the
real frustrating part: most people see the problems (except those in
denial), yet very little can be done about that. Cheerleading only makes
it more bitter.
-Artem
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From:
US
Registered:
7/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 2:16 PM
in response to: artem
|
|
>> Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a reality.
> > With the support of Sun Microsystems, resources
>
> Solaris is not very well positioned in the UI competition. Sun, it
> appears, has consciously chosen not to actively develop a desktop, but
> to patiently swallow whatever gnome.org is producing. Hire a few more
> GNOME polishers - and you get another Ubuntu, why bother. That's the
> real frustrating part: most people see the problems (except those in
> denial), yet very little can be done about that. Cheerleading only makes
> it more bitter.
Artem:
This is hugely unfair. Sun created the accessibility infrastructure that
is used in GNOME based (and compatible with) the accessibility infrastructure
used by Java. Sun has contributed a great deal back to the GNOME community
and delivers well received value add products on top of GNOME including Trusted
JDS and APOC.
Korey:
Considering Section 508 government requirements that all U.S. government
funded agencies (including schools, libraries, etc.) must purchase accessible
software solutions, distros that use GNOME are well poised to compete with
Windows in these markets. Sun is probably better poised due to its already
established customer base in the U.S. government and the fact that Sun
dedicates more engineering effort towards supporting accessibility than
other distros. Overall accessibility works better on Solaris (with one
important exception...). At the moment, Ubuntu does have a slight lead in
the accessibility market since their installer is accessible. I don't think
that Sun would require a great deal of effort to catch up in this area
especially since we are already working on a GTK+ based installer (though
accessibility support is not currently planned for the initial release
unfortunately).
Having said that, I think there are a few things that would be good to get
done before trying to compete with Windows and other Linux vendors in the
desktop arena.
- Finish the port from Xsun to Xorg Xserver, including on Sparc.
- Virtual Terminals support which is in the works
- Complete the SunAudio to OSS migration.
- Make further progress with Project Indiana (e.g. provide the sorts
of tools that Linux users expect like autoconf, automake, libtool,
etc.). This is also in the works, obviously.
- Media codec support (MPEG, encrypted DVD, WindowsMedia, etc.). If
not directly in the OS, at least users should be able to buy and
download plugins from somewhere (e.g. Fluendo).
I think it would be great if Sun gave these sorts of tasks a bit more
priority and started to seriously consider the desktop market. It's not
high margin like selling mainframes, but I'd think Sun could make a serious
competitor to Microsoft and Apple if we wanted to.
Just my opinion...
Brian
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From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 3:00 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
> This is hugely unfair. Sun created the accessibility infrastructure that
> is used in GNOME based (and compatible with) the accessibility infrastructure
> used by Java. Sun has contributed a great deal back to the GNOME community
> and delivers well received value add products on top of GNOME including Trusted
> JDS and APOC.
I have nothing but admiration for Sun's desktop developers, but it's
hard to care for Sun's desktop strategy. The fearless leadership is just
not serious about it. If it was, HCI designers would be revered and
given as much credit as kernel hackers; instead they are exposed to a
huge cultural dissonance from engineering community and little support
from management. If it was, the more aggressive, result-oriented steps
would be taken (don't ask me what... bribe key gnome developers? license
aqua? dance around the fire naked? half of the answers lie within
correctly asked questions).
-Artem (the kernel guy who loves his xterms)
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 7:48 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
> - Finish the port from Xsun to Xorg Xserver, including on Sparc.
> - Virtual Terminals support which is in the works
> - Complete the SunAudio to OSS migration.
> - Make further progress with Project Indiana (e.g. provide the sorts
> of tools that Linux users expect like autoconf, automake, libtool,
> etc.). This is also in the works, obviously.
> - Media codec support (MPEG, encrypted DVD, WindowsMedia, etc.). If
> not directly in the OS, at least users should be able to buy and
> download plugins from somewhere (e.g. Fluendo).
>
> I think it would be great if Sun gave these sorts of tasks a bit more
> priority and started to seriously consider the desktop market. It's
> not
> high margin like selling mainframes, but I'd think Sun could make a
> serious
> competitor to Microsoft and Apple if we wanted to.
I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs under
the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
Matthew
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From:
US
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 31, 2007 5:06 AM
in response to: kaiwai
|
|
Kaiwai Gardiner writes:
> > I think it would be great if Sun gave these sorts of tasks a bit more
> > priority and started to seriously consider the desktop market. It's
> > not
> > high margin like selling mainframes, but I'd think Sun could make a
> > serious
> > competitor to Microsoft and Apple if we wanted to.
>
> I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs under
> the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
I'm not surprised. Access isn't the problem -- licensing is.
Licensing is a tricky business in the best of cases, because it's
entirely possible to have products that you can legally ship on one OS
but that you cannot sell the rights to or ship with some other OS.
I think it's a great idea to ask those involved with MS (whoever they
are ;-}) to investigate some sort of porting effort like this, but
don't be surprised if the answer is a fairly opaque "no."
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james dot d dot carlson at sun dot com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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From:
NZ
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 31, 2007 6:01 AM
in response to: carlsonj
|
|
On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 08:06 -0400, James Carlson wrote:
> Kaiwai Gardiner writes:
> > > I think it would be great if Sun gave these sorts of tasks a bit
> more
> > > priority and started to seriously consider the desktop market.
> It's
> > > not
> > > high margin like selling mainframes, but I'd think Sun could make
> a
> > > serious
> > > competitor to Microsoft and Apple if we wanted to.
> >
> > I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs
> under
> > the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
>
> I'm not surprised. Access isn't the problem -- licensing is.
> Licensing is a tricky business in the best of cases, because it's
> entirely possible to have products that you can legally ship on one OS
> but that you cannot sell the rights to or ship with some other OS.
>
> I think it's a great idea to ask those involved with MS (whoever they
> are ;-}) to investigate some sort of porting effort like this, but
> don't be surprised if the answer is a fairly opaque "no."
Well, they need to have something there to justify people paying for a
subscription to Indiana once released - if they offered out of the box
support for mp3, wmv, wma, asf (encoding and decoding) I'd be more than
happy to shell out the money for a subscription - if they don't, why the
heck would I want yet another operating system that offers me nothing
different over Linux or FreeBSD?
Matthew
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US
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 31, 2007 9:33 PM
in response to: kaiwai
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|
Kaiwai:
> I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs under
> the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
I don't think access to the codecs is the problem. Paying the
royalties required to distribute the IP is more likely the issue.
Especially when only a percentage of Solaris users use it as a
desktop and have such media needs.
Brian
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From:
US
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 31, 2007 10:19 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
On 8/1/07, Brian Cameron < Brian dot Cameron at sun dot com> wrote:
Kaiwai:
> I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs under
> the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
I don't think access to the codecs is the problem. Paying the
royalties required to distribute the IP is more likely the issue.
Especially when only a percentage of Solaris users use it as a
desktop and have such media needs.
It's interesting how Ubuntu does it. They point you to external sources, that they don't vouch for the codecs. (They just make the install painless. IE: Unrecognized filetype/streamtype. Do you want me to look for one that work? If you say yes... and you are looking at a quicktime file, it points you to a non apple codec, which I am pretty sure is not kosher. It does give you a warning though.)
Brian
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 12:34 PM
in response to: brandorr
|
|
Brian:
I'm not a lawyer so I can't really comment on what Ubuntu is doing with
any authority. There are probably some cases where users could
legally install such IP protected code. Examples could include:
- people who live in countries that have different IP law (I'd bet
countries that seriously disregard IP law aren't countries where
IT companies want to do much business, though).
- people who already own license to use IP in such a way. In this
case, if people have already worked with a lawyer to ensure they
have a license, then by comparison building and installing the
code should be much less work.
Therefore, I don't really see the value in making it so easy to
build or install IP protected codecs. People who want such codecs
should probably buy them from a company like Fluendo and therefore
ensure that they are doing things legally and supporting the existing
frameworks to make IP protected codecs available on free operating
systems.
Brian
> It's interesting how Ubuntu does it. They point you to external sources,
> that they don't vouch for the codecs. (They just make the install
> painless. IE: Unrecognized filetype/streamtype. Do you want me to look
> for one that work? If you say yes... and you are looking at a quicktime
> file, it points you to a non apple codec, which I am pretty sure is not
> kosher. It does give you a warning though.)
>
> Brian
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> opensolaris-discuss mailing list
> opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>
>
>
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From:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 12:57 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
On 8/1/07, Brian Cameron <Brian dot Cameron at sun dot com> wrote:
Brian:
I'm not a lawyer so I can't really comment on what Ubuntu is doing with
any authority. There are probably some cases where users could
legally install such IP protected code. Examples could include:
- people who live in countries that have different IP law (I'd bet
countries that seriously disregard IP law aren't countries where
IT companies want to do much business, though).
- people who already own license to use IP in such a way. In this
case, if people have already worked with a lawyer to ensure they
have a license, then by comparison building and installing the
code should be much less work.
Therefore, I don't really see the value in making it so easy to
build or install IP protected codecs. People who want such codecs
should probably buy them from a company like Fluendo and therefore
ensure that they are doing things legally and supporting the existing
frameworks to make IP protected codecs available on free operating
systems.
First off, as I understand the Codecs are opensource. They also might be legal, but the status is not clear. If Mac OS and Windows, and Ubuntu can view these files, we should look at making a solaris desktop as easy to use. Currently desktop usage of Solaris is tiny. Large developers aren't really targetting SOlaris (just as most large developers aren't targeting ubuntu yet.)
The fact of the matter is, for OpenSolaris to gain market share as a desktop (developer or otherwise), we can't lag in the usability area. The point wasn't really so much that the IP is unknown status, more that it outomatacilly goes and gets software and codecs painlessly. (Even asking you if you want to get ZYX pacakge, when it thinks you could use it.).
Brian
Brian
> It's interesting how Ubuntu does it. They point you to external sources,
> that they don't vouch for the codecs. (They just make the install
> painless. IE: Unrecognized filetype/streamtype. Do you want me to look
> for one that work? If you say yes... and you are looking at a quicktime
> file, it points you to a non apple codec, which I am pretty sure is not
> kosher. It does give you a warning though.)
>
> Brian
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> opensolaris-discuss mailing list
> opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:
opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>
>
>
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|
Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 1:31 PM
in response to: brandorr
|
|
Brian:
> First off, as I understand the Codecs are opensource. They also might be
> legal, but the status is not clear.
There are a lot of issues here. Note that the GPL/LGPL (and many other
free licenses) do not allow IP protected code to be included. This can
be worked around with proper exceptions in the license, but you'll notice
most "free" and "open" IP protected modules don't include such verbage.
Therefore there are a lot of poorly licensed plugins out there that you
can use but are not really under a valid license. While individuals can use
them, this defeats the free/open source ethos. People who use them are
like people who drive gas guzzling Hummers and have a "I support the war in
Iraq" ribbon on the back.
> If Mac OS and Windows, and Ubuntu
> can view these files, we should look at making a solaris desktop as easy
> to use. Currently desktop usage of Solaris is tiny. Large developers
> aren't really targetting SOlaris (just as most large developers aren't
> targeting ubuntu yet.)
I think there are legal avenues for reasonable media support on Solaris,
and these avenues will improve over time. Especially if people support
companies like Fluendo by purchasing their plugins and letting them
know there is a Solaris media market.
I think that the argument that Solaris should do something just because
someone else does it is not a strong argument. Especially when there
are legal considerations.
> The fact of the matter is, for OpenSolaris to gain market share as a
> desktop (developer or otherwise), we can't lag in the usability area.
> The point wasn't really so much that the IP is unknown status, more that
> it outomatacilly goes and gets software and codecs painlessly. (Even
> asking you if you want to get ZYX pacakge, when it thinks you could use
> it.).
Yes, I agree that Sun could use better package management tools that
would let users easily download and install stuff that they want. I
understand people at Sun are working on this.
Brian
> Brian
>
>
> > It's interesting how Ubuntu does it. They point you to external
> sources,
> > that they don't vouch for the codecs. (They just make the install
> > painless. IE: Unrecognized filetype/streamtype. Do you want me to
> look
> > for one that work? If you say yes... and you are looking at a
> quicktime
> > file, it points you to a non apple codec, which I am pretty sure
> is not
> > kosher. It does give you a warning though.)
> >
> > Brian
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > opensolaris-discuss mailing list
> > opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>
> > <mailto: opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>>
> >
> >
>
>
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From:
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|
Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 1:44 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
On 8/1/07, Brian Cameron < Brian dot Cameron at sun dot com> wrote:
Brian:
> First off, as I understand the Codecs are opensource. They also might be
> legal, but the status is not clear.
There are a lot of issues here. Note that the GPL/LGPL (and many other
free licenses) do not allow IP protected code to be included. This can
be worked around with proper exceptions in the license, but you'll notice
most "free" and "open" IP protected modules don't include such verbage.
Therefore there are a lot of poorly licensed plugins out there that you
can use but are not really under a valid license. While individuals can use
them, this defeats the free/open source ethos. People who use them are
like people who drive gas guzzling Hummers and have a "I support the war in
Iraq" ribbon on the back.
The Free software movement doesn't believe in software patents.
> If Mac OS and Windows, and Ubuntu
> can view these files, we should look at making a solaris desktop as easy
> to use. Currently desktop usage of Solaris is tiny. Large developers
> aren't really targetting SOlaris (just as most large developers aren't
> targeting ubuntu yet.)
I think there are legal avenues for reasonable media support on Solaris,
and these avenues will improve over time. Especially if people support
companies like Fluendo by purchasing their plugins and letting them
know there is a Solaris media market.
I can understand paying for authoring tools. But playback is free on Linux, Windows and Mac.. (Pretty much all standards). I need video codecs, because tech companies are putting out technical videos, and there is no format standard. (You name it Flash, Mindows Media, Quicktime, Divx, etc). Developers are used to certain things from their platforms in this day and age. Multiple format video playback happens to be one of those things. Ubuntu, which is closer to Solaris in desktop market share than Windows and MacOSX have figured out a way to do it, we should at least investigate what and how they are doing it... (I will try to contribute more feedback in the install community, but I just started using Ubuntu so my knowledge is limited.).
I think that the argument that Solaris should do something just because
someone else does it is not a strong argument. Especially when there
are legal considerations. I beg to differ. You have to wonder why they are doing it, and see if those reasons apply to you. e.g. Sun strongly embracing x86 commodity servers and OSes. Price/performance was a huge factor that couldn't be ignored.
> The fact of the matter is, for OpenSolaris to gain market share as a
> desktop (developer or otherwise), we can't lag in the usability area.
> The point wasn't really so much that the IP is unknown status, more that
> it outomatacilly goes and gets software and codecs painlessly. (Even
> asking you if you want to get ZYX pacakge, when it thinks you could use
> it.).
Yes, I agree that Sun could use better package management tools that
would let users easily download and install stuff that they want. I
understand people at Sun are working on this.
Brian
> Brian
>
>
> > It's interesting how Ubuntu does it. They point you to external
> sources,
> > that they don't vouch for the codecs. (They just make the install
> > painless. IE: Unrecognized filetype/streamtype. Do you want me to
> look
> > for one that work? If you say yes... and you are looking at a
> quicktime
> > file, it points you to a non apple codec, which I am pretty sure
> is not
> > kosher. It does give you a warning though.)
> >
> &nb sp; > Brian
> >
> >
> > &nbs p; _______________________________________________
> > opensolaris-discuss mailing list
> > opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:
opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>
> > &n bsp; <mailto: opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> <mailto:
opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>>
> >
> &n bsp; >
>
>
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Posts:
1,193
From:
US
Registered:
7/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 1:58 PM
in response to: brandorr
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Brian:
> The Free software movement doesn't believe in software patents.
Untrue. It would be better to say that they do not support them. I'd
be interested to hear how far "the free software movment doesn't
believe in software patents" argument gets anyone in court. :)
The GPL license is quite clear that IP protected code should not be included
in GPL/LGPL licensed projects.
> I can understand paying for authoring tools. But playback is free on
> Linux, Windows and Mac.. (Pretty much all standards).
With Windows and Mac, you pay for the licenses when you pay for the OS.
Most free operating system distros do not ship IP protected media decoders
or encoders. Any OS that ships them "for free" is very generous to be
paying the license fee and not passing the charge to the end-user. The
licensing fees for some popular formats are quite expensive.
I have been working with Fluendo to make sure that plugins to enable media
encoding and decoding are available to Solaris users for a modest fee.
I hope that MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 plugins will be available there for Solaris
in the not-too-distant future.
> I need video
> codecs, because tech companies are putting out technical videos, and
> there is no format standard. (You name it Flash, Mindows Media,
> Quicktime, Divx, etc). Developers are used to certain things from their
> platforms in this day and age. Multiple format video playback happens to
> be one of those things. Ubuntu, which is closer to Solaris in desktop
> market share than Windows and MacOSX have figured out a way to do it, we
> should at least investigate what and how they are doing it... (I will
> try to contribute more feedback in the install community, but I just
> started using Ubuntu so my knowledge is limited.).
I agree that we need to figure out a way to do it. I also agree it is
important. I also think we need to find the most appropriate legal way to
do things. I'm aware Sun's legal department is working on this.
> I think that the argument that Solaris should do something just because
> someone else does it is not a strong argument. Especially when there
> are legal considerations.
>
> I beg to differ. You have to wonder why they are doing it, and see if
> those reasons apply to you. e.g. Sun strongly embracing x86 commodity
> servers and OSes. Price/performance was a huge factor that couldn't be
> ignored.
Yes, Sun is currently working on Project Indiana to address many of these
issues, including media related issues.
Brian
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Posts:
887
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 2:39 PM
in response to: brandorr
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On Aug 1, 2007, at 1:44 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:
> > If Mac OS and Windows, and Ubuntu
> > can view these files, we should look at making a solaris desktop
> as easy
> > to use. Currently desktop usage of Solaris is tiny. Large developers
> > aren't really targetting SOlaris (just as most large developers
> aren't
> > targeting ubuntu yet.)
>
> I think there are legal avenues for reasonable media support on
> Solaris,
> and these avenues will improve over time. Especially if people
> support
> companies like Fluendo by purchasing their plugins and letting them
> know there is a Solaris media market.
>
> I can understand paying for authoring tools. But playback is free
> on Linux, Windows and Mac.. (Pretty much all standards). I need
> video codecs, because tech companies are putting out technical
> videos, and there is no format standard. (You name it Flash,
> Mindows Media, Quicktime, Divx, etc). Developers are used to
> certain things from their platforms in this day and age. Multiple
> format video playback happens to be one of those things. Ubuntu,
> which is closer to Solaris in desktop market share than Windows and
> MacOSX have figured out a way to do it, we should at least
> investigate what and how they are doing it... (I will try to
> contribute more feedback in the install community, but I just
> started using Ubuntu so my knowledge is limited.).
Playback is free on Windows and Mac OS because Microsoft and Apple
licensed the codecs from their respective owners. Playback is free
on Linux only because the Linux movement doesn't care much about the
IP Laws in the US (understandably) and thus leaves the decision of
"can I use these codecs legally" up to the user (which most users,
even in the US just don't bother with and go on using things that are
against US law).
You won't see Sun including code that it doesn't have a legal right
to include. By extension, neither should OpenSolaris. Whether or
not it makes Solaris (open or otherwise) seem lacking misses the
point, Sun isn't about to start breaking the law and neither should
OpenSolaris. Keep in mind, what's legal in one country isn't
necessarily legal in all countries. With a globally used OS like
OpenSolaris you have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Now
if someone wants to pony up some money to license the various non-
free codecs that the community would like to see, I'm certain the
community (and Sun) would be happy to accept it.
Cheers,
--
Glenn
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Anil Gulecha
anil.verve@gmail.com
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 8:18 PM
in response to: glagasse
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|
On 8/2/07, Glenn Lagasse <Glenn dot Lagasse at sun dot com> wrote:
> Playback is free on Windows and Mac OS because Microsoft and Apple
> licensed the codecs from their respective owners. Playback is free
> on Linux only because the Linux movement doesn't care much about the
> IP Laws in the US (understandably) and thus leaves the decision of
> "can I use these codecs legally" up to the user (which most users,
> even in the US just don't bother with and go on using things that are
> against US law).
>
> You won't see Sun including code that it doesn't have a legal right
> to include.
Hi,
I'd just like to point out that we get out of the box support to play
mp3 on solaris express.. real player included has no problems. Noting
that sun somehow obtained permission to of redistributing real player,
could this also be included in Indiana?
Anil
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Posts:
8
From:
Registered:
5/9/07
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 5:36 PM
in response to: brandorr
|
|
On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:44:48 -0400, you wrote:
>The Free software movement doesn't believe in software patents.
Not true.
The free software movement believes that software patents are bad for
a variety of reasons, but still acknowledges that (at least in the US)
they are legally valid. It is for this reason that Red Hat has
software patents, see http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
As such you will find most developers of software that is known to be
risky (ie. video codecs) are outside of the US.
>I can understand paying for authoring tools. But playback is free on Linux,
Playback is free on Linux because it is developed outside of the US,
and so far the patent holders have not been able to extend their
reach.
>Windows and Mac.. (Pretty much all standards). I need video codecs, because
>tech companies are putting out technical videos, and there is no format
>standard. (You name it Flash, Mindows Media, Quicktime, Divx, etc).
>Developers are used to certain things from their platforms in this day and
>age. Multiple format video playback happens to be one of those things.
>Ubuntu, which is closer to Solaris in desktop market share than Windows and
>MacOSX have figured out a way to do it, we should at least investigate what
Ubuntu, and more importantly Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) are
NOT American. They are based in Europe, which means so far they can
get away with doing things that an American based company cannot.
Red Hat has had their lawyers look into this issue with regards to the
Fedora Project and it is quite clear that not only can Red Hat and/or
Fedora not include this questionable software in their distributions
but even linking to it could cause legal problems in the US.
This would also apply to Sun given that they are also an American
company.
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Posts:
3,928
From:
DE
Registered:
4/27/05
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 2, 2007 6:09 AM
in response to: ghenriks
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Gerald Henriksen <ghenriks at gmail dot com> wrote:
> Ubuntu, and more importantly Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) are
> NOT American. They are based in Europe, which means so far they can
> get away with doing things that an American based company cannot.
>
> Red Hat has had their lawyers look into this issue with regards to the
> Fedora Project and it is quite clear that not only can Red Hat and/or
> Fedora not include this questionable software in their distributions
> but even linking to it could cause legal problems in the US.
>
> This would also apply to Sun given that they are also an American
> company.
This is why it is important to be able to have net-install and
packet mirrors for Solaris in Europe provided buy people other that Sun.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 2, 2007 6:27 AM
in response to: joerg
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Hi,
True, but at the same time, until there it is 100% opensource, its going to
be difficult for a distribution to be independent of Sun's input in some
form or another.
Matthew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joerg Schilling" <Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de>
To: <opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org>; <ghenriks at gmail dot com>
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: [osol-discuss] An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Gerald Henriksen <ghenriks at gmail dot com> wrote:
> Ubuntu, and more importantly Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) are
> NOT American. They are based in Europe, which means so far they can
> get away with doing things that an American based company cannot.
>
> Red Hat has had their lawyers look into this issue with regards to the
> Fedora Project and it is quite clear that not only can Red Hat and/or
> Fedora not include this questionable software in their distributions
> but even linking to it could cause legal problems in the US.
>
> This would also apply to Sun given that they are also an American
> company.
This is why it is important to be able to have net-install and
packet mirrors for Solaris in Europe provided buy people other that Sun.
Jörg
Unfortunately until
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 1, 2007 6:27 PM
in response to: yippi
|
|
On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 23:33 -0500, Brian Cameron wrote:
> Kaiwai:
>
> > I'm surprised that Sun can't get access to those windows codecs
> under
> > the agreement which Sun and Microsoft signed.
>
> I don't think access to the codecs is the problem. Paying the
> royalties required to distribute the IP is more likely the issue.
> Especially when only a percentage of Solaris users use it as a
> desktop and have such media needs.
Only a small percentage use x86 - should Sun throw in the towel as well?
Don't look at 'current' look at 'potential' - if you constantly look at
current, you'll never grow your user base because you're constantly only
delivering what your current user base wants rather than what your
potential user base needs to make that shift to your product(s).
Matthew
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 7:28 PM
in response to: artem
|
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On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 11:29 -0700, Artem Kachitchkine wrote:
> > Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a reality.
> > With the support of Sun Microsystems, resources
>
> Solaris is not very well positioned in the UI competition. Sun, it
> appears, has consciously chosen not to actively develop a desktop,
> but
> to patiently swallow whatever gnome.org is producing. Hire a few more
> GNOME polishers - and you get another Ubuntu, why bother. That's the
> real frustrating part: most people see the problems (except those in
> denial), yet very little can be done about that. Cheerleading only
> makes
> it more bitter.
>
Well positioned is a bit of a subjective statement. Having used the
current GNOME bundled with Solaris, I certainly don't see anything major
with it - I can load my StarOffice, surf the net. About the only axe to
grind is getting bugs fixed. But most of the problems end users will
face will have more to do with hardware support than whether the GUI is
'oooh shiney!'.
As for what Sun can do - possibly work with GNOME developers but one
thing wouldn't want to see is pointless 'branding' simply to keep those
jusifying their existance, through paper shuffling, happy. More features
aren't needed - working on making sure that nautilus doesn't crash when
an ipod is loaded or when a device like a flash mp3 player with two
flash chips - which should result in two drives appearing on the
desktop. Adding support for more CODECs out of the box - I'd be more
than happy to pay Sun $20 per month for a copy of Solaris which included
the latest GNOME and extensive CODEC support out of the box.
Matthew
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Posts:
365
From:
Registered:
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 11:52 AM
in response to: wussboy
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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> To Ian Murdoch and the Open Solaris Community,
>
> As a long-time follower of the open source community,
> I stumbled across this forum a week ago and was
> intrigued by the activity taking place on Open
> Solaris. I spent some time reading posts, and over
> the day some concerns became clear to me; concerns
> that I felt compelled to write about. I have written
> a letter that I hope will encourage discussion and
> bring about positive results. I thank you for your
> interest.
>
> [b]Gaining a significant market share will attract
> developers. [/b]
>
> Imagine with me that Solaris was the OS on 40% of all
> computers. Do you believe that it would have a large
> and vibrant developer community? Most certainly.
> Developers would miss out on 40% of the market if
> they ignored Solaris. Getting Solaris installed on
> as many computers as possible should be the first
> and main concern.
>
> It is true that users alone will not make Open
> Solaris into a great product, but they are the final
> judge of its success. The Open Solaris community
> must remember who will use their software when the
> development is done: the user.
>
> If a large number of desktop users should be the
> first priority, targeting the Linux developer’s
> community is a poor strategy. These developers are
> already a small subset of all developers, and
> hundreds of Linux distros compete for their limited
> time. In targeting them, Solaris has chosen the
> hardest possible target when much easier targets
> exist.
>
> Where, then, will this imaginary 40% of users come
> from? From Windows, of course. Windows is where it
> must come from. Solaris [i]must [/i]take a large
> share from Windows, not Linux, to be successful.
>
> Fortunately…
>
> [b]There is a large group of Windows users who would
> use a FOSS alternative if it existed.[/b]
>
> Wait. What about Linux? We already have an open
> source alternative. Not really. There are two kinds
> of people who currently use Linux. There are those
> who are good at programming, who understand computers
> and software at a deep level. These people enjoy the
> command prompt, know what “Vi” is and usually work in
> network administrator or other IT positions. I shall
> refer to these people as the Technical Elite. The
> Technical Elite use Linux.
>
> The second group is the friends and relatives of this
> Technical Elite. Their moms and dads and roommates.
> These people rely upon the Technical Elite to help
> them get Beryl working, to figure out Grub, to
> re-compile the kernel to make their wireless card
> work. They are not power users, and use their
> computers to simply surf the web and write email.
>
> The only reason this second group can even consider
> Linux is because it has become much easier to use. A
> lot of work has been done to hide the power, so that
> an average Joe can do most average things. But
> should something go wrong, should something advanced
> need to be done, anyone not a Technical Elite must
> seek the aid of one. There is no middle ground. The
> arcane syntax of the command prompt ensures this. In
> fact, I predict that Linux will continue to grow
> until the Technical Elite can “support” no more.
> Linux is too hard for the average user to fix or
> update on their own. There are too many gotchas,
> too many places where special knowledge is required.
> If any one doubts this, a simple visit to the
> Ubuntu support forum will confirm it. Post after
> post documents the trials and tribulations of
> average users wrestling with even the (seemingly)
> simplest of tasks.
>
> Most people use Linux for a single reason. They use
> it because, at some level, they agree with the
> principles of Open Source. They take the time and
> energy required to learn Linux because of the
> strength of that belief. They are like people who
> have a dream of climbing Mt. Everest. They train and
> practice and spend a lot of money to fly to Asia and
> risk their lives to realize this dream. It is an
> expensive and dangerous process, but the view from
> the top makes it all worthwhile.
>
> However, for every person who has the time and money
> to spend making their dream come true, there are
> hundreds of others who share the same dream, but lack
> the time and money. Climbing Mt. Everest will always
> remain a dream for millions.
>
> It is the same with Linux and Solaris. It is a
> wonderful dream that thousands like myself have, but
> we lack the time and money to invest in the learning
> required to make it happen. I want the freedom that
> climbing Mt. Solaris offers, but I have a job and a
> wife and debts and not enough free time to spend
> years figuring out sudo or XFS or D-Trace. A truly
> Free operating system will always remain just a dream
> for me. I, and thousands like me, use Windows
> because we want more power than a neutered Linux, but
> we lack the knowledge of the Technical Elite to make
> Linux work.
>
> It is unfortunate, because it doesn’t need to be this
> way. The…
> [b]
> Technical constraints that shaped the way we use
> computers no longer exist and must be rethought.[/b]
>
> Some here remember a time when programs were punched
> in to cards. We have come a long way since then.
> There are still some relics of that era that
> continue in computing, particularly in open source
> communities. Developers have spent many years
> acquiring these skills. They have grown used to the
> command prompt, to Perl scripts. They are
> comfortable. Their knowledge gives them status.
> However, these relics are the chief hurdle that
> prohibits the mass acceptance of FOSS platforms.
> Until the command prompt (and all functions that
> rely on it) is replaced by a graphical, intuitive,
> easy-to-use interface, open source operating systems
> will never gain wide acceptance. The barrier of
> entry is simply too high.
>
> The frustrating part is that it doesn’t need to be
> this way. We now have the technology to make the
> command line obsolete. Combo boxes and check marks
> and tool tips could open up a world of features to
> the general user. Simple, intuitive interfaces would
> also allow the best tool for the job to be chosen,
> instead of the most familiar. Making it simple
> enough for the non-Technical Elite makes it simple
> enough for all. Outdated and arcane software ideas
> that have been kept on life support for 30 years
> could be retired in favor of ideas that are the
> product of 30 years of learning.
>
> An operating system, based on excellent technology,
> wrapped up in intuitive interfaces that allow the
> average user to utilize the full power of their
> computer would be extremely attractive to not only
> the current Linux community, but the much larger
> community of users who are attracted to the ideas of
> Open Source. For the thousands of us who will never
> climb Mt. Everest, it would be a dream come true.
>
> [b]Open Solaris has a once in a lifetime
> opportunity.[/b]
>
> Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a
> reality. With the support of Sun Microsystems,
> resources (no matter how insignificant) could be
> directed towards making fundamental aspects of
> Solaris “powerful AND easy” for all users: to
> replacing the command line with an interface that
> would allow many more users to enjoy and maintain
> their own computers, to rethinking the way people
> interact with their computers, to lowering the
> barrier to entry without resorting to baby-sitting.
> Should Solaris use sudo or RBAC? Users don’t care
> about which is better. They want the one they can
> use (Windows’ dominance demonstrates this), and
> neither of these technologies currently meet this
> criteria.
>
> An operating system founded on Open Source ideals
> that allowed users to easily master their computers
> would be extremely attractive to a large group of
> people now laboring in Microsoft’s camp. The much
> desired developers would come of their own accord,
> should Solaris gain a significant majority of users.
>
> Worry about the technology being used, but more
> importantly, worry about making the technology easily
> usable. In your debates and meetings and focus
> groups ask the question, “Could a complete newbie use
> this in less than 5 minutes?” Keep forefront in your
> mind that every time the answer is “No”, the barrier
> to entry just got raised a little higher, Solaris’
> market share just got a little smaller, and a few
> more developers just picked a rival operating system
> to develop for.
>
> Picture a future where Free Solaris is the world’s
> most popular operating system. Looks good, doesn’t
> it? The only way this can be is by appealing to
> users. Remove the barriers that keep this from
> becoming reality.
I enjoy Solaris, Always have. Do I want it to become another Windows? NO.
Leave the point and clickers behind. We in the Open source community need to be able to
give all people the choice and flexibility to be independent. To have the freedom to develop
the next evolutionary step in computers. Command line is where we live! It is not dead and
never will be. This is where the future brain trust is and this is where we gather into our
communities. I like solving the difficult problems and don't want someone giving me the
"EASY BUTTON". Solaris should stay ahead of the crowd. Not in the 40% But more in the
10%.
My 2 cents.
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 7:32 PM
in response to: mdemarco
|
|
On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 11:52 -0700, Mike DeMarco wrote:
> > To Ian Murdoch and the Open Solaris Community,
> >
> > As a long-time follower of the open source community,
> > I stumbled across this forum a week ago and was
> > intrigued by the activity taking place on Open
> > Solaris. I spent some time reading posts, and over
> > the day some concerns became clear to me; concerns
> > that I felt compelled to write about. I have written
> > a letter that I hope will encourage discussion and
> > bring about positive results. I thank you for your
> > interest.
> >
> > [b]Gaining a significant market share will attract
> > developers. [/b]
> >
> > Imagine with me that Solaris was the OS on 40% of all
> > computers. Do you believe that it would have a large
> > and vibrant developer community? Most certainly.
> > Developers would miss out on 40% of the market if
> > they ignored Solaris. Getting Solaris installed on
> > as many computers as possible should be the first
> > and main concern.
> >
> > It is true that users alone will not make Open
> > Solaris into a great product, but they are the final
> > judge of its success. The Open Solaris community
> > must remember who will use their software when the
> > development is done: the user.
> >
> > If a large number of desktop users should be the
> > first priority, targeting the Linux developer’s
> > community is a poor strategy. These developers are
> > already a small subset of all developers, and
> > hundreds of Linux distros compete for their limited
> > time. In targeting them, Solaris has chosen the
> > hardest possible target when much easier targets
> > exist.
> >
> > Where, then, will this imaginary 40% of users come
> > from? From Windows, of course. Windows is where it
> > must come from. Solaris [i]must [/i]take a large
> > share from Windows, not Linux, to be successful.
> >
> > Fortunately…
> >
> > [b]There is a large group of Windows users who would
> > use a FOSS alternative if it existed.[/b]
> >
> > Wait. What about Linux? We already have an open
> > source alternative. Not really. There are two kinds
> > of people who currently use Linux. There are those
> > who are good at programming, who understand computers
> > and software at a deep level. These people enjoy the
> > command prompt, know what “Vi” is and usually work in
> > network administrator or other IT positions. I shall
> > refer to these people as the Technical Elite. The
> > Technical Elite use Linux.
> >
> > The second group is the friends and relatives of this
> > Technical Elite. Their moms and dads and roommates.
> > These people rely upon the Technical Elite to help
> > them get Beryl working, to figure out Grub, to
> > re-compile the kernel to make their wireless card
> > work. They are not power users, and use their
> > computers to simply surf the web and write email.
> >
> > The only reason this second group can even consider
> > Linux is because it has become much easier to use. A
> > lot of work has been done to hide the power, so that
> > an average Joe can do most average things. But
> > should something go wrong, should something advanced
> > need to be done, anyone not a Technical Elite must
> > seek the aid of one. There is no middle ground. The
> > arcane syntax of the command prompt ensures this. In
> > fact, I predict that Linux will continue to grow
> > until the Technical Elite can “support” no more.
> > Linux is too hard for the average user to fix or
> > update on their own. There are too many gotchas,
> > too many places where special knowledge is required.
> > If any one doubts this, a simple visit to the
> > Ubuntu support forum will confirm it. Post after
> > post documents the trials and tribulations of
> > average users wrestling with even the (seemingly)
> > simplest of tasks.
> >
> > Most people use Linux for a single reason. They use
> > it because, at some level, they agree with the
> > principles of Open Source. They take the time and
> > energy required to learn Linux because of the
> > strength of that belief. They are like people who
> > have a dream of climbing Mt. Everest. They train and
> > practice and spend a lot of money to fly to Asia and
> > risk their lives to realize this dream. It is an
> > expensive and dangerous process, but the view from
> > the top makes it all worthwhile.
> >
> > However, for every person who has the time and money
> > to spend making their dream come true, there are
> > hundreds of others who share the same dream, but lack
> > the time and money. Climbing Mt. Everest will always
> > remain a dream for millions.
> >
> > It is the same with Linux and Solaris. It is a
> > wonderful dream that thousands like myself have, but
> > we lack the time and money to invest in the learning
> > required to make it happen. I want the freedom that
> > climbing Mt. Solaris offers, but I have a job and a
> > wife and debts and not enough free time to spend
> > years figuring out sudo or XFS or D-Trace. A truly
> > Free operating system will always remain just a dream
> > for me. I, and thousands like me, use Windows
> > because we want more power than a neutered Linux, but
> > we lack the knowledge of the Technical Elite to make
> > Linux work.
> >
> > It is unfortunate, because it doesn’t need to be this
> > way. The…
> > [b]
> > Technical constraints that shaped the way we use
> > computers no longer exist and must be rethought.[/b]
> >
> > Some here remember a time when programs were punched
> > in to cards. We have come a long way since then.
> > There are still some relics of that era that
> > continue in computing, particularly in open source
> > communities. Developers have spent many years
> > acquiring these skills. They have grown used to the
> > command prompt, to Perl scripts. They are
> > comfortable. Their knowledge gives them status.
> > However, these relics are the chief hurdle that
> > prohibits the mass acceptance of FOSS platforms.
> > Until the command prompt (and all functions that
> > rely on it) is replaced by a graphical, intuitive,
> > easy-to-use interface, open source operating systems
> > will never gain wide acceptance. The barrier of
> > entry is simply too high.
> >
> > The frustrating part is that it doesn’t need to be
> > this way. We now have the technology to make the
> > command line obsolete. Combo boxes and check marks
> > and tool tips could open up a world of features to
> > the general user. Simple, intuitive interfaces would
> > also allow the best tool for the job to be chosen,
> > instead of the most familiar. Making it simple
> > enough for the non-Technical Elite makes it simple
> > enough for all. Outdated and arcane software ideas
> > that have been kept on life support for 30 years
> > could be retired in favor of ideas that are the
> > product of 30 years of learning.
> >
> > An operating system, based on excellent technology,
> > wrapped up in intuitive interfaces that allow the
> > average user to utilize the full power of their
> > computer would be extremely attractive to not only
> > the current Linux community, but the much larger
> > community of users who are attracted to the ideas of
> > Open Source. For the thousands of us who will never
> > climb Mt. Everest, it would be a dream come true.
> >
> > [b]Open Solaris has a once in a lifetime
> > opportunity.[/b]
> >
> > Solaris is uniquely situated to make this dream a
> > reality. With the support of Sun Microsystems,
> > resources (no matter how insignificant) could be
> > directed towards making fundamental aspects of
> > Solaris “powerful AND easy” for all users: to
> > replacing the command line with an interface that
> > would allow many more users to enjoy and maintain
> > their own computers, to rethinking the way people
> > interact with their computers, to lowering the
> > barrier to entry without resorting to baby-sitting.
> > Should Solaris use sudo or RBAC? Users don’t care
> > about which is better. They want the one they can
> > use (Windows’ dominance demonstrates this), and
> > neither of these technologies currently meet this
> > criteria.
> >
> > An operating system founded on Open Source ideals
> > that allowed users to easily master their computers
> > would be extremely attractive to a large group of
> > people now laboring in Microsoft’s camp. The much
> > desired developers would come of their own accord,
> > should Solaris gain a significant majority of users.
> >
> > Worry about the technology being used, but more
> > importantly, worry about making the technology easily
> > usable. In your debates and meetings and focus
> > groups ask the question, “Could a complete newbie use
> > this in less than 5 minutes?” Keep forefront in your
> > mind that every time the answer is “No”, the barrier
> > to entry just got raised a little higher, Solaris’
> > market share just got a little smaller, and a few
> > more developers just picked a rival operating system
> > to develop for.
> >
> > Picture a future where Free Solaris is the world’s
> > most popular operating system. Looks good, doesn’t
> > it? The only way this can be is by appealing to
> > users. Remove the barriers that keep this from
> > becoming reality.
>
> I enjoy Solaris, Always have. Do I want it to become another Windows? NO.
> Leave the point and clickers behind. We in the Open source community need to be able to
> give all people the choice and flexibility to be independent. To have the freedom to develop
> the next evolutionary step in computers. Command line is where we live! It is not dead and
> never will be. This is where the future brain trust is and this is where we gather into our
> communities. I like solving the difficult problems and don't want someone giving me the
> "EASY BUTTON". Solaris should stay ahead of the crowd. Not in the 40% But more in the
> 10%.
I think the "40%" was a rectum pluck rather than it being a fixed number
on which OpenSolaris should aim. I mean, if you look at Mac, their
marketshare is below 10% and yet has a bigger selection of software than
Solaris.
One could argue that not only does Solaris need more users, but its
quality rather than quantity. If the vast majority of the 40% are penny
pinching, proprietary software hating, thick-rim-glasses wearing, hunch
back coding geeks - it certainly won't attract vendors such as Adobe or
MYOB who don't target that crowd.
Matthew
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764
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 8:43 PM
in response to: kaiwai
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One could argue that not only does Solaris need more users, but its
quality rather than quantity. If the vast majority of the 40% are penny
pinching, proprietary software hating, thick-rim-glasses wearing, hunch
back coding geeks - it certainly won't attract vendors such as Adobe or
MYOB who don't target that crowd.
Penny pinching = intelligent
proprietary software hating = trend setter
thick-rim-glasses wearing = hip
hunch back = bad and inaccurate stereotype
coding geek = backbone of the technology industry
All I want is all the coding geeks running Solaris on their laptops/desktops. (Especially University
coding geeks... That is where people generally develop their OS
preferences). Remember people deploy what they are familiar with. Also, they tend to deploy to the OS they develop with. (But this is less set in stone).
Also, don't you get it? Proprietary apps are just a side show now... The real is action is in open source web development frameworks... (How many Linux users buy desktop applications!??!? Also it would be interesting to see of all the installed Linux servers what percentage are running shrink wrapped apps. I'd venture it is actually a small percentage.)
-Brian
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 30, 2007 10:14 PM
in response to: brandorr
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On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 23:43 -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
> One could argue that not only does Solaris need more users,
> but its
> quality rather than quantity. If the vast majority of the 40%
> are penny
> pinching, proprietary software hating, thick-rim-glasses
> wearing, hunch
> back coding geeks - it certainly won't attract vendors such as
> Adobe or
> MYOB who don't target that crowd.
>
> Penny pinching = intelligent
> proprietary software hating = trend setter
> thick-rim-glasses wearing = hip
> hunch back = bad and inaccurate stereotype
> coding geek = backbone of the technology industry
>
> All I want is all the coding geeks running Solaris on their
> laptops/desktops. (Especially University coding geeks... That is where
> people generally develop their OS preferences). Remember people deploy
> what they are familiar with. Also, they tend to deploy to the OS they
> develop with. (But this is less set in stone).
>
> Also, don't you get it? Proprietary apps are just a side show now...
> The real is action is in open source web development frameworks...
> (How many Linux users buy desktop applications!??!? Also it would be
> interesting to see of all the installed Linux servers what percentage
> are running shrink wrapped apps. I'd venture it is actually a small
> percentage.)
A trend setter to nowhere - the vast majority of applications are closed
source - until the day I see opensource programmers argue over code
quality, asking for feed back from end users and actually taking on
board that feedback and dropping the licencing jihad, that'll be when
opensource takes over the desktop.
Apart from a few token applications, it makes up a microscopic number
out there.
Wake me up when there is an opensource equvilant of Creative Suite,
Photoshop Elements, Homesite, MYOB, Quicken etc. etc. - then we can
start to talk about opensource taking over the desktop.
Matthew
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764
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Jul 31, 2007 6:51 AM
in response to: kaiwai
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On 7/31/07, Kaiwai Gardiner < kaiwai dot gardiner at gmail dot com> wrote:
On Mon, 2007-07-30 at 23:43 -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:
> One could argue that not only does Solaris need more users,
> but its
> quality rather than quantity. If the vast majority of the 40%
> are penny
> pinching, proprietary software hating, thick-rim-glasses
> wearing, hunch
> back coding geeks - it certainly won't attract vendors such as
> Adobe or
> MYOB who don't target that crowd.
>
> Penny pinching = intelligent
> proprietary software hating = trend setter
> thick-rim-glasses wearing = hip
> hunch back = bad and inaccurate stereotype
> coding geek = backbone of the technology industry
>
> All I want is all the coding geeks running Solaris on their
> laptops/desktops. (Especially University coding geeks... That is where
> people generally develop their OS preferences). Remember people deploy
> what they are familiar with. Also, they tend to deploy to the OS they
> develop with. (But this is less set in stone).
>
> Also, don't you get it? Proprietary apps are just a side show now...
> The real is action is in open source web development frameworks...
> (How many Linux users buy desktop applications!??!? Also it would be
> interesting to see of all the installed Linux servers what percentage
> are running shrink wrapped apps. I'd venture it is actually a small
> percentage.)
A trend setter to nowhere - the vast majority of applications are closed
source - until the day I see opensource programmers argue over code
As we move to service based computing models, (WebApps 2.0
) we are seeing the majority of these applications being built using FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software). They are being developed in PHP, Python, Ruby/Rails and Perl, generally they use MySQL and Postgres databases on the backend (Which both now support clustered databases). The predominant OS choice is Linux.
quality,
Why would they argue about code quality. Isn't the best way to have good code quality is to implement it, and let the code speak for itself? (See that's the thing, you can look at the source yourself. With proprietary solutions you have no idea what the quality of the code is.
asking for feed back from end users and actually taking on
board that feedback and dropping the licencing jihad, that'll be when
opensource takes over the desktop.
While there is a small but vocal minority of "free" software activists, the majority of "open source" advocates are focused on the practical benefits of distributed and open development models. They believe they gain a) faster development cycles, b) quicker bug fixes, c) addition programmer resources, d) visibility into the functioning of the code e) and the ability to not have to reinvent the wheel (build on top of other open source projects). There are more, but you get the idea.
As far as I know, most OpenSource developers are glad for any feedback that they can get. (Particularly developers of user facing applications) I'd also say this is true for most developers, FLOSS or proprietary. (I know, because I often submit feedback, and have seen many of my suggestions implemented)
Apart from a few token applications, it makes up a microscopic number
out there.
I think at last count there are somewhere between 20,000-50,000 open source applications.
Wake me up when there is an opensource equvilant of Creative Suite,
Photoshop Elements, Homesite, MYOB, Quicken etc. etc. - then we can
start to talk about opensource taking over the desktop.
Adobe alternatives: http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/contentcreation/0,1000001068,39286832,00.htmHomesite:
http://www.osalt.com/nvuMYOB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboCASHQuicken: http://www.linux.com/articles/49400
Interestingly enough, many of the most popular video games today have been ported to Linux. -brian P.S. - In many ways I find the Ubuntu desktop much easier to use than Windows. If I run into a unrecognized file format, it just goes out to the network and learns about it. Although Windows tries to do the same thing, it results in failure many times. (Generally you need to be using Microsoft File Formats to get this to work properly).
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Posts:
566
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4/19/07
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 5, 2007 4:52 AM
in response to: brandorr
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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> Adobe alternatives: http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/contentcreation/0,1000001068,39286832,00.htm
> Homesite: http://www.osalt.com/nvu
> MYOB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboCASH
> Quicken: http://www.linux.com/articles/49400
See, I'm a recent Windows convert. I wasn't a fan of it, until I found an alternative few months ago that pleased me. That being Solaris.
Now to the quote, no offense, did you actually use the actual applications and compared them to the alternatives you presented? Functionally and usability-wise, the open source equivalents are jokes.
Just last night I was about to get a s%&# fit about GIMP, because while trying to be a Photoshop clone, it's being completely obnoxious about it and introduces me to semantics that make absolutely no sense in a editing and designing context.
While I can easily cope with issues like that and grudgingly adapt (after all, my computer skills come from trial and erroring since I was 7 years old), someone else may just be annoyed and go back to good old Windows and the actual professional applications.
Part of the gaining users is also having the big apps available. Something that isn't the case today, not even with Linux. I suppose, e.g. the Adobe applications can be very easily ported, considering MacOSX is BSD and as such probably able to compile on Solaris/Linux without much troubles, and that the Creative Suite uses a custom windowing kit ported to both Windows and MacOSX, that could aswell be ported to X11.
Maybe this is a venue for Sun to try pushing some big apps onto their platform.
Personally, I'm going as far as running Windows in QEMU, and some RDP hacks when I feel like I need the apps on the desktop, to use various kindof-lightweight applications, like the Microsoft Office suite.
-mg
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567
From:
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4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 5, 2007 4:58 AM
in response to: servo
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On Sun, 2007-08-05 at 04:52 -0700, Mario Goebbels wrote:
> > Adobe alternatives:
> http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/contentcreation/0,1000001068,39286832,00.htm
> > Homesite: http://www.osalt.com/nvu
> > MYOB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboCASH
> > Quicken: http://www.linux.com/articles/49400
>
> See, I'm a recent Windows convert. I wasn't a fan of it, until I found
> an alternative few months ago that pleased me. That being Solaris.
>
> Now to the quote, no offense, did you actually use the actual
> applications and compared them to the alternatives you presented?
> Functionally and usability-wise, the open source equivalents are
> jokes.
>
> Just last night I was about to get a s%&# fit about GIMP, because
> while trying to be a Photoshop clone, it's being completely obnoxious
> about it and introduces me to semantics that make absolutely no sense
> in a editing and designing context.
>
> While I can easily cope with issues like that and grudgingly adapt
> (after all, my computer skills come from trial and erroring since I
> was 7 years old), someone else may just be annoyed and go back to good
> old Windows and the actual professional applications.
>
> Part of the gaining users is also having the big apps available.
> Something that isn't the case today, not even with Linux. I suppose,
> e.g. the Adobe applications can be very easily ported, considering
> MacOSX is BSD and as such probably able to compile on Solaris/Linux
> without much troubles, and that the Creative Suite uses a custom
> windowing kit ported to both Windows and MacOSX, that could aswell be
> ported to X11.
>
> Maybe this is a venue for Sun to try pushing some big apps onto their
> platform.
>
> Personally, I'm going as far as running Windows in QEMU, and some RDP
> hacks when I feel like I need the apps on the desktop, to use various
> kindof-lightweight applications, like the Microsoft Office suite.
Regarding GIMP, 2.4 will apparently take more of a "Photoshop look" -
but ultimately the only real possibility is for Sun to work with wine
and improve Windows compatibility - Adobe has flat out refused to
support Sun and Solaris. There is very little Sun can do when Adobe is
unwilling to play ball.
It would be interesting to know whether Corel is willing to create a
partnership in regards to Sun paying Corel in conjunction with mainsoft,
to getting their applications running on Solaris.
Matthew
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 5, 2007 11:41 AM
in response to: kaiwai
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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> Regarding GIMP, 2.4 will apparently take more of a
> "Photoshop look" -
> but ultimately the only real possibility is for Sun
> to work with wine
> and improve Windows compatibility - Adobe has flat
> out refused to
> support Sun and Solaris. There is very little Sun can
> do when Adobe is
> unwilling to play ball.
Is this a "There's no business case" refusal or a "Duh, you SUCK!" refusal? Just wondering, because software politics become pretty stupid at times. After all, we finally got Flash 9.
-mg
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Brandorr
brandorr@opensolaris...
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 5, 2007 1:01 PM
in response to: servo
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On 8/5/07, Mario Goebbels < me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
> Regarding GIMP, 2.4 will apparently take more of a
> "Photoshop look" -
> but ultimately the only real possibility is for Sun
> to work with wine
> and improve Windows compatibility - Adobe has flat
> out refused to
> support Sun and Solaris. There is very little Sun can
> do when Adobe is
> unwilling to play ball.
Is this a "There's no business case" refusal or a "Duh, you SUCK!" refusal? Just wondering, because software politics become pretty stupid at times. After all, we finally got Flash 9.
I thought it was an: "Adobe, if you promise not to support other *nixes, we'll kick out Quark, and make you the new star DTP application suite." (Just kidding..)
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 5, 2007 10:24 PM
in response to: servo
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On Sun, 2007-08-05 at 11:41 -0700, Mario Goebbels wrote:
> > Regarding GIMP, 2.4 will apparently take more of a
> > "Photoshop look" -
> > but ultimately the only real possibility is for Sun
> > to work with wine
> > and improve Windows compatibility - Adobe has flat
> > out refused to
> > support Sun and Solaris. There is very little Sun can
> > do when Adobe is
> > unwilling to play ball.
>
> Is this a "There's no business case" refusal or a "Duh, you SUCK!"
> refusal? Just wondering, because software politics become pretty
> stupid at times. After all, we finally got Flash 9.
Flash was supplied via an agreement with Macromedia - Adobe merely held
up the original agreement. I doubt very much that Adobe would have
created a Flashplayer for Solaris given Adobes refusal to provide
Acrobat for Solaris - even after Sun offered to pay for the porting of
it to Solaris x86.
If Sun really wanted to 'punish' Adobe for their arrogance, create a
great tool to create JavaFX content that allow creative types (aka
non-programmers) to create easier and quicker than they could have with
Adobe Flash.
If Sun can really harm Adobes web side of the business then it'll put
them on the back foot - for me, I have no love for Adobe, they're in the
same boat of 'scum sucking roaches' as Microsoft.
Matthew
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 7:32 AM
in response to: kaiwai
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
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Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has pretty much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX builds have. All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just doesn't believe in *nix.
-mg
> Flash was supplied via an agreement with Macromedia -
> Adobe merely held
> up the original agreement. I doubt very much that
> Adobe would have
> created a Flashplayer for Solaris given Adobes
> refusal to provide
> Acrobat for Solaris - even after Sun offered to pay
> for the porting of
> it to Solaris x86.
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Brandorr
brandorr@opensolaris...
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 7:36 AM
in response to: servo
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On 8/6/07, Mario Goebbels < me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has pretty much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX builds have. All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just doesn't believe in *nix.
Unless you don't count Mac OS X as Unix.
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
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4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 8:14 AM
in response to: Brandorr
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On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 10:36 -0400, Brandorr wrote:
> On 8/6/07, Mario Goebbels <me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
> Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader
> has pretty much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX
> and HP-UX builds have. All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose
> Adobe simply just doesn't believe in *nix.
>
> Unless you don't count Mac OS X as Unix.
> _______________________________________________
> opensolaris-discuss mailing list
> opensolaris-discuss at opensolaris dot org
Unfortunately it is for ever wedded to Apple hardware, thus makes it a
non-viable alternative to Windows.
Matthew
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DE
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 8:23 AM
in response to: Brandorr
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Brandorr <brandorr at opensolaris dot org> wrote:
> On 8/6/07, Mario Goebbels <me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
> >
> > Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has pretty
> > much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX builds have.
> > All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just doesn't believe in
> > *nix.
>
>
> Unless you don't count Mac OS X as Unix.
Before continuing this discussion, I would be really interested to know how
Apple did pass the POSIX compliance tests on Mac OS X.
Jörg
--
EMail:joerg at schily dot isdn dot cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
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Brandorr
brandorr@opensolaris...
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 9:41 AM
in response to: joerg
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On 8/6/07, Joerg Schilling < Joerg dot Schilling at fokus dot fraunhofer dot de> wrote:
Brandorr <brandorr at opensolaris dot org> wrote:
> On 8/6/07, Mario Goebbels <me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
> >
> > Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has pretty
> > much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX builds have.
> > All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just doesn't believe in
> > *nix.
>
>
> Unless you don't count Mac OS X as Unix.
Before continuing this discussion, I would be really interested to know how
Apple did pass the POSIX compliance tests on Mac OS X. This isn't the current release. It is for the upcoming release, Leopard, that happens to also include ZFS. (Also it's only the x86 build.)
I guess the question is, why wouldn't they pass the certification? -Brian
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 9:52 AM
in response to: joerg
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On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 17:23 +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Brandorr <brandorr at opensolaris dot org> wrote:
>
> > On 8/6/07, Mario Goebbels <me at tomservo dot cc> wrote:
> > >
> > > Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has pretty
> > > much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX builds have.
> > > All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just doesn't believe in
> > > *nix.
> >
> >
> > Unless you don't count Mac OS X as Unix.
>
> Before continuing this discussion, I would be really interested to know how
> Apple did pass the POSIX compliance tests on Mac OS X.
>
> Jörg
>
They must have done some major changes in Leopard given it is UNIX 2003
compliant.
Matthew
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Posts:
567
From:
NZ
Registered:
4/27/06
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Re: An Open Letter to the Solaris Community.
Posted:
Aug 6, 2007 8:13 AM
in response to: servo
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On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 07:32 -0700, Mario Goebbels wrote:
> Well, I've taken a look and the development of a Linux reader has
> pretty much stagnated the same time the Solaris SPARC, AIX and HP-UX
> builds have. All are stuck at 7.0.9, so I suppose Adobe simply just
> doesn't believe in *nix.
True - it would be great to see Adobe contribute to Evince since they're
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