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Permlink Replies: 33 - Last Post: Sep 6, 2005 4:22 PM by: svenl
Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:04 PM

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Hi all,

=========
I received great feedback to my last post about the proposal of
creating Debian with OpenSolaris (a new Debian architecture using the
OpenSolaris stack).

The vastly majority of the replies support the idea. I have also
talked with some of my friends on the Debian project about it; again,
all their words were supportive.

In the worst case (ignoring the trolls) I got a reply like: "Yeah, it
is a great idea, but sincerely, I doubt it is as good as Linux. I
think I won't switch", which makes sense to me for a person who has
been using Linux for the last 7 years or so.

I planned to upload a new blog entry trying to explain the idea a bit
more. There were some people who misunderstood the proposal. They
thought I wanted to compile apt and dpkg in an OpenSolaris environment
and start creating a software repository using the deb format. What I
really wanted to propose was to start a new architecture inside the
Debian project: OpenSolaris provides the software stack and the rest
is done on the Debian side.

As you can see, the beginning was pretty good: lot of good feedback,
people supporting the idea, and even some volunteers to start working
on it. Just grand.

My first step after seeing the good acceptance was to query the
"Legal" team of Debian to check if the OpenSolaris license was
compliant with the The Debian Free Software Guidelines.

My first thought was "There won't be any issues with the license, it
is very similar to the Mozilla Public License, and it has even been
marked as a Free Software License by the FSF". I couldn't even imagine
how wrong I was.

The CDDL license does not meet with the Debian requirements. The
furthest a CDDL program might reach inside Debian is the non-free
section. In that perspective the idea of the new architecture for
OpenSolaris becomes completely impossible.

The biggest CDDL problem is that it includes a "choice-of-venue":

«The problem with choice of venue clauses is that anyone who accepts
the license must also accept the burden of defending themselves
against charges of license violation in a court which is likely to
have an implicit bias in favor of the copyright holder» ...

So, if the Mozilla Public License is so similar to the OpenSolaris
license, why do Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc fit with the Debian
rules?

Simple, they licensed everything with a double license: MPL and GPL.

It seems like it is the premature end of my dream of a Debian with
OpenSolaris architecture. :-(

I would really like to find a way to solve this problem. Ideas?
=========

Permanent link:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/alvaro#debian_with_opensolaris_a_broken

--
Greetings, alo.
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draganc

Posts: 171
From: CA

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:12 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Alvaro Lopez Ortega wrote:
>
> I planned to upload a new blog entry trying to explain the idea a bit
> more. There were some people who misunderstood the proposal. They
> thought I wanted to compile apt and dpkg in an OpenSolaris environment
> and start creating a software repository using the deb format. What I
> really wanted to propose was to start a new architecture inside the
> Debian project: OpenSolaris provides the software stack and the rest
> is done on the Debian side.

Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the
connection between OpenSolaris and other architectures. E.g. programs like
pstack, pmap, pldd and others dealing with /proc stuff are and have been
often life-savers for me and they are one of the reasons I like Solaris.
Would they be available in Debian OpenSolaris distribution? Would that
require porting them to other architectures (there are quite a few
different ones under Debian umbrela)? How would stuff like that be
handled. What about all stuff in /usr/bin/* that is/was Solaris specific?
Etc. etc.

Thanks and bye, Dragan

--
Dragan Cvetkovic,

To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
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kaboom

Posts: 68
From:

Registered: 6/14/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:31 PM   in response to: draganc

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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:

> Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the connection
> between OpenSolaris and other architectures. E.g. programs like pstack, pmap,
> pldd and others dealing with /proc stuff are and have been often life-savers
> for me and they are one of the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be available
> in Debian OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require porting them to other
> architectures (there are quite a few different ones under Debian umbrela)? How
> would stuff like that be handled. What about all stuff in /usr/bin/* that
> is/was Solaris specific? Etc. etc.

Those p* commands are all standard on Linux as well (though not as needed,
since the files under /proc/$pid/* on Linux are mostly generated as text
files, not binary files like on Solaris), so presumably would be there in
any Debian port which uses Linux procps rather than either of the Solaris
ps command sets....

later,
chris
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draganc

Posts: 171
From: CA

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:45 PM   in response to: kaboom

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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Chris Ricker wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>
>> Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the connection
>> between OpenSolaris and other architectures. E.g. programs like pstack, pmap,
>> pldd and others dealing with /proc stuff are and have been often life-savers
>> for me and they are one of the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be available
>> in Debian OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require porting them to other
>> architectures (there are quite a few different ones under Debian umbrela)? How
>> would stuff like that be handled. What about all stuff in /usr/bin/* that
>> is/was Solaris specific? Etc. etc.
>
> Those p* commands are all standard on Linux as well (though not as needed,
> since the files under /proc/$pid/* on Linux are mostly generated as text
> files, not binary files like on Solaris), so presumably would be there in
> any Debian port which uses Linux procps rather than either of the Solaris
> ps command sets....

Well, I don't see e.g. pldd, pfiles and pargs in Debian sarge (that's the
Debian we use here) and e.g. pstack don't accept core file as an argument
so we don't have the same functionality. But that can all be changed, I
guess.

Dragan

--
Dragan Cvetkovic,

To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro.lopez@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:53 PM   in response to: draganc

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Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:

>> I planned to upload a new blog entry trying to explain the idea a
>> bit more. There were some people who misunderstood the
>> proposal. They thought I wanted to compile apt and dpkg in an
>> OpenSolaris environment and start creating a software repository
>> using the deb format. What I really wanted to propose was to start
>> a new architecture inside the Debian project: OpenSolaris provides
>> the software stack and the rest is done on the Debian side.
>
> Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the
> connection between OpenSolaris and other architectures.
> E.g. programs like pstack, pmap, pldd and others dealing with /proc
> stuff are and have been often life-savers for me and they are one of
> the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be available in Debian
> OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require porting them to other
> architectures (there are quite a few different ones under Debian
> umbrela)? How would stuff like that be handled. What about all stuff
> in /usr/bin/* that is/was Solaris specific? Etc. etc.

The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software as possible.
Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software programs. Debian
includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine something like
Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)

Build a Debian package with pstack, pmap, pldd, etc and add it to
the base system of an Debian with OpenSolaris installation makes
sense to me. These are really useful tools, and they are free.

My aim was that Debian with OpenSolaris could use most of its
packages. In order to do it, we would need to be able to compile
the basic compilation tools: GNU make, bash, gcc,.. but there is no
problem about it.

So, trying to join efforts, it seems like everybody wins:

- OpenSolaris takes: *volume*, packages, developers, building
system, get integrated in a well know free software community, ..

- Debian takes: loads of high quality software, a big help of the
OpenSolaris community to maintain all that software, ..

About the rest of the technical stuff, I said from the first moment,
It was just an idea/proposal. I know there might be problems along
the way.. but, ey! wouldn't it worth the effort?

--
Greetings, alo.
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draganc

Posts: 171
From: CA

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 1:50 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Alvaro Lopez Ortega wrote:

> Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>>
>> Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the
>> connection between OpenSolaris and other architectures.
>> E.g. programs like pstack, pmap, pldd and others dealing with /proc
>> stuff are and have been often life-savers for me and they are one of
>> the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be available in Debian
>> OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require porting them to other
>> architectures (there are quite a few different ones under Debian
>> umbrela)? How would stuff like that be handled. What about all stuff
>> in /usr/bin/* that is/was Solaris specific? Etc. etc.
>
> The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software as possible.
> Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software programs. Debian
> includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine something like
> Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)

Alvaro, I have been using Debian for the last 5 years or so as our Linux
platform of choice (at least from the developer's point of view). Which
also means that I know that 18000 is the number you get by having e.g. 17
versions of e.g. plotter programs and 75 different editors you can
install. Choice is a good thing, but we never installed more than 2CDs
(out of 7 or 8 that Debian is distributed on) of packages.


> Build a Debian package with pstack, pmap, pldd, etc and add it to
> the base system of an Debian with OpenSolaris installation makes
> sense to me. These are really useful tools, and they are free.

OK, that would make sense (more than using Linux tools for that). But how
do you propagate that back to other architectures? Shouldn't e.g. gedit
package be the same everywhere?

Bye, Dragan

--
Dragan Cvetkovic,

To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 4:38 PM   in response to: draganc

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Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:

>> The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software as possible.
>> Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software programs. Debian
>> includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine something like
>> Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)
>
> Alvaro, I have been using Debian for the last 5 years or so as our
> Linux platform of choice (at least from the developer's point of
> view). Which also means that I know that 18000 is the number you get
> by having e.g. 17 versions of e.g. plotter programs and 75
> different editors you can install. Choice is a good thing, but we
> never installed more than 2CDs (out of 7 or 8 that Debian is
> distributed on) of packages.

Yeah, you have 18k packages which are.. 10k programs? I think it
continues being pretty amazing :-)

>> Build a Debian package with pstack, pmap, pldd, etc and add it to
>> the base system of an Debian with OpenSolaris installation makes
>> sense to me. These are really useful tools, and they are free.
>
> OK, that would make sense (more than using Linux tools for
> that). But how do you propagate that back to other architectures?

No, I didn't want to do that. I mean, it was a proposal for a
different architecture because it had a different base y common
tools.

If there weren't license problems, I'm sure Debian would change its
current programs if the OpenSolaris ones provide them an extra
value. Why not? I mean, as long as it was free, everything should
be ok. Anyway, I didn't propose it. I think that is some of the
positive side effect we might expect after some time..

> Shouldn't e.g. gedit package be the same everywhere?

Of course, it should. Why do you think it would be different in
"Debian with OpenSolaris"?

Let's imagine: you boot your «D w/ OS» box and do "apt-get source -b
gedit". It should fetch the sources and build the same program using
the same "rules" files as the Linux version. That was the goal. :-)

--
Greetings, alo.
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kmays

Posts: 1,157
From: US

Registered: 7/2/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 8:52 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

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--- Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro at sun dot com> wrote:

> Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>
> >> The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris
> software as possible.
> >> Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software
> programs. Debian
> >> includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine
> something like
> >> Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available...
> :-)


I think somewhere down the path, we missed something.
I'll try to say that someone may have been mentioning
this concept: http://www.debian.org/ports/

If you look closely, there are a few paragraphs about
taking kernels and building the Debian OS around those
kernels (Debian GNU/OpenSolaris = Solaris kernel with
Debian infrastructure (OS w/ported apps) built around
it). I think the NetBSD people are doing something
like this as well. So, we take out the Linux kernel
and just compile the same Debian sources around the
Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel.

As for the Debian OS built around the Linux kernel:

"Current Status
Debian SPARC is officially released and known to be
stable. Supported are Sun4c, Sun4m, and Sun4u machines
(with a 32-bit userland). See the Install Manual for
information on supported systems, hardware, and how to
install Debian.

About 64-bit SPARC support
The Debian SPARC port, as mentioned above, does
support the sun4u (“Ultra”) architecture. It uses a
64-bit kernel (compiled with a special version of the
egcs compiler, called “egcs64”), but most of the
applications run in 32-bit. This is also called a
“32-bit userland”.

The Debian SPARC 64 (a.k.a., “UltraLinux”) porting
effort is not currently conceived as a full porting
effort like other ports. Rather, it is intended to be
an add-on to the SPARC Port.

In fact, there is really no point in having all
applications running in 64-bit mode. Full 64-bit mode
involves a significant overhead (memory and disk size)
with often no benefit. Some applications really can
benefit from being in 64-bit mode, and that is the
purpose of this porting effort."


So after reading all of this, you can just understand
if we can port the Debian OS infrastructure around our
Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel (AMD64/SPARCv9).

Maybe that was the dream and somehow it got broken
along the way....

~Ken




____________________________________________________
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joerg

Posts: 3,928
From: DE

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 2:59 AM   in response to: kmays

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ken mays <maybird1776 at yahoo dot com> wrote:

> I think somewhere down the path, we missed something.
> I'll try to say that someone may have been mentioning
> this concept: http://www.debian.org/ports/
>
> If you look closely, there are a few paragraphs about
> taking kernels and building the Debian OS around those
> kernels (Debian GNU/OpenSolaris = Solaris kernel with
> Debian infrastructure (OS w/ported apps) built around
> it). I think the NetBSD people are doing something
> like this as well. So, we take out the Linux kernel
> and just compile the same Debian sources around the
> Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel.

You cannot do this because the Debian people apply patches
on the sources that are Linux specific and in many cases are
known to break compatibility with other platforms like
Solaris.

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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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:22 AM   in response to: joerg

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Joerg Schilling wrote:

>> If you look closely, there are a few paragraphs about taking
>> kernels and building the Debian OS around those kernels (Debian
>> GNU/OpenSolaris = Solaris kernel with Debian infrastructure (OS
>> w/ported apps) built around it). I think the NetBSD people are
>> doing something like this as well. So, we take out the Linux kernel
>> and just compile the same Debian sources around the
>> Solaris/OpenSolaris kernel.
>
> You cannot do this because the Debian people apply patches on the
> sources that are Linux specific and in many cases are known to break
> compatibility with other platforms like Solaris.

Debian building system is powerful enough deal with this kind of
situations. There are people working on the NetBSD port, so Debian
is open to work on that way. Of course at this moment they are more
concern about Linux, it is their primary kernel, but it should not
be a problem for the rest of architectures.

--
Greetings, alo.
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joerg

Posts: 3,928
From: DE

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:55 AM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro at sun dot com> wrote:

> > You cannot do this because the Debian people apply patches on the
> > sources that are Linux specific and in many cases are known to break
> > compatibility with other platforms like Solaris.
>
> Debian building system is powerful enough deal with this kind of
> situations. There are people working on the NetBSD port, so Debian
> is open to work on that way. Of course at this moment they are more
> concern about Linux, it is their primary kernel, but it should not
> be a problem for the rest of architectures.

So let's wait until they fixed these problems or until people from Debian
aproach us for help with a Debian/Solaris distro.

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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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 5:07 AM   in response to: joerg

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Joerg Schilling wrote:

>> > You cannot do this because the Debian people apply patches on the
>> > sources that are Linux specific and in many cases are known to break
>> > compatibility with other platforms like Solaris.
>>
>> Debian building system is powerful enough deal with this kind of
>> situations. There are people working on the NetBSD port, so Debian
>> is open to work on that way. Of course at this moment they are more
>> concern about Linux, it is their primary kernel, but it should not
>> be a problem for the rest of architectures.
>
> So let's wait until they fixed these problems or until people from
> Debian aproach us for help with a Debian/Solaris distro.

Develop community is our target, they already have a lot with Linux.
IMO we should work for it. At this moment, it's more useful for us
than for them.

I don't mind about the pride (if we ask them or they ask us), if it
is good for us, let's do it :-)

We will have to support it in part, but it is a little price by pay
at the beginning for getting so much, don't you think?

--
Greetings, alo.
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ux-admin

Posts: 1,732
From:

Registered: 7/15/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 2:12 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

> The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software
> are as possible.
> Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software
> are programs. Debian
> includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine
> ine something like
> Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)

This is inconsistent with what you've been trying to sell -- you stated quite clearly you wanted Debian of some sort to run on an (Open)Solaris kernel.

That would be NO Solaris10, it would be Debian with a different kernel at its core.

Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 4:55 PM   in response to: ux-admin

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

UNIX admin wrote:

>>The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software are as possible.
>>Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software are programs. Debian
>>includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine ine something like
>>Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)
>
> This is inconsistent with what you've been trying to sell -- you
> stated quite clearly you wanted Debian of some sort to run on an
> (Open)Solaris kernel.

Sigh.. enough. I won't explain it again.

> That would be NO Solaris10, it would be Debian with a different
> kernel at its core.

*Of course* it is not Solaris 10. It didn't try to be S10.

And you are right, it is Debian with a different kernel and lot of
new OpenSolaris packages. In this way you would be able to install
all the OpenSolaris software and all the Free Software packages that
you want within in seconds.

--
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joerg

Posts: 3,928
From: DE

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 2:30 AM   in response to: ux-admin

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

UNIX admin <tripivceta at hotmail dot com> wrote:

> This is inconsistent with what you've been trying to sell -- you stated quite clearly you wanted Debian of some sort to run on an (Open)Solaris kernel.
>
> That would be NO Solaris10, it would be Debian with a different kernel at its core.

Besides the fact that it could not be Solaris 10 (OpenSOlaris is Solaris 11
based), I would let them do if they like but I don't like to push them to do so
as this would not be the OS I am looking for.

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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kmays

Posts: 1,157
From: US

Registered: 7/2/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 9:22 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply



--- Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro dot lopez at sun dot com> wrote:

> Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
>
> >> I planned to upload a new blog entry trying to
> explain the idea a
> >> bit more. There were some people who
> misunderstood the
> >> proposal. They thought I wanted to compile apt
> and dpkg in an
> >> OpenSolaris environment and start creating a
> software repository
> >> using the deb format. What I really wanted to
> propose was to start
> >> a new architecture inside the Debian project:
> OpenSolaris provides
> >> the software stack and the rest is done on the
> Debian side.
> >
> > Alvaro, you really need to explain this all
> better, especially the
> > connection between OpenSolaris and other
> architectures.
> > E.g. programs like pstack, pmap, pldd and others
> dealing with /proc
> > stuff are and have been often life-savers for me
> and they are one of
> > the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be
> available in Debian
> > OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require
> porting them to other
> > architectures (there are quite a few different
> ones under Debian
> > umbrela)? How would stuff like that be handled.
> What about all stuff
> > in /usr/bin/* that is/was Solaris specific? Etc.
> etc.
>
> The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software
> as possible.
> Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software
> programs. Debian
> includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine
> something like
> Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)

Also, I think I brought this up somewhere else. When
you actually cipher through the barrage of source
code, a lot of the ported code to various platforms
seems to sift more within the 5500-5700 range of
portable packages instead of the 13,000->20,000
packages mentioned by various distributors. Also, you
have to review the number of 'developer' versus 'user'
versions of packages which makes them 2x the number
automagically (so you take 5500 packages and split
them in two to make a developer and user version - and
you'll have 11,000 packages in no time). This is like
taking the i18n part of KDE 3.4.1 and making 10-20
packages of just various international languages and
then split off 10 more packages of just documentation
from each optional KDE package! Think of how many
aspell packages I can make as well!

So, let us not get so caught up in the numbers game.
I'd just like to see a Companion DVD worth of optional
open source software comparable to what you get when
buying a Linux/FreeBSD at a computer store or buy it
from Sun (with those Ultra 3 laptops!!!). Hey, 1K-3K
packages is good enough for me if I'm going to use
that many packages in my lifetime!

Ken Mays







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gman

Posts: 1,914
From: NZ

Registered: 6/16/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 24, 2005 3:10 PM   in response to: kmays

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

> So, let us not get so caught up in the numbers game.
> I'd just like to see a Companion DVD worth of optional
> open source software comparable to what you get when
> buying a Linux/FreeBSD at a computer store or buy it
> from Sun (with those Ultra 3 laptops!!!). Hey, 1K-3K
> packages is good enough for me if I'm going to use
> that many packages in my lifetime!

+1


Glynn

[Okay, so this mail was slightly pointless, but it really
feels like Ken has hit the mark on another important
point to note from this thread]

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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:02 AM   in response to: gman

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Glynn Foster wrote:

>>So, let us not get so caught up in the numbers game. I'd just like
>>to see a Companion DVD worth of optional open source software
>>comparable to what you get when buying a Linux/FreeBSD at a computer
>>store or buy it from Sun (with those Ultra 3 laptops!!!). Hey, 1K-3K
>>packages is good enough for me if I'm going to use that many
>>packages in my lifetime!
>
> +1
>
> [Okay, so this mail was slightly pointless, but it really feels like
> Ken has hit the mark on another important point to note from this
> thread]

A DVD full of software is interesting, but it is far from having a
repository updated constantly with security fixes, new versions and
new packages.

IMO, people who are used to work with the repository model will not
fill comfortable with just a DVD.

--
Greetings, alo.
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gman

Posts: 1,914
From: NZ

Registered: 6/16/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:05 AM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Hey,

> A DVD full of software is interesting, but it is far from having a
> repository updated constantly with security fixes, new versions and
> new packages.
>
> IMO, people who are used to work with the repository model will not
> fill comfortable with just a DVD.

A 'DVD worth' doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the only medium. I'm
just pointing out, that the average user will probably not even use
close to 3000 packages - if we can focus on a good set of packages, and
maintain with a repository model it seems like a better situation until
we develop a big enough user/developer base.


Glynn

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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:50 AM   in response to: gman

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Glynn Foster wrote:

>> A DVD full of software is interesting, but it is far from having a
>> repository updated constantly with security fixes, new versions and
>> new packages.
>>
>> IMO, people who are used to work with the repository model will not
>> fill comfortable with just a DVD.
>
> A 'DVD worth' doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the only
> medium. I'm just pointing out, that the average user will probably
> not even use close to 3000 packages - if we can focus on a good set
> of packages, and maintain with a repository model it seems like a
> better situation until we develop a big enough user/developer base.

Do you want to do that inside the OpenSolaris community?

In my opinion, it makes much more sense to relay that work on some
packaging experts: Debian and Gentoo are my favorites. We care about
the software and they care about compile and distribute it in the
way the community is used to get it.

--
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ericb

Posts: 1,697
From: US

Registered: 4/28/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 7:33 AM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Alvaro Lopez Ortega wrote:
> Glynn Foster wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > I'm just pointing out, that the average user will probably
> > not even use close to 3000 packages - if we can focus on a good set
> > of packages, and maintain with a repository model it seems like a
> > better situation until we develop a big enough user/developer base.
>
> Do you want to do that inside the OpenSolaris community?
>
> In my opinion, it makes much more sense to relay that work on some
> packaging experts: Debian and Gentoo are my favorites. We care about
> the software and they care about compile and distribute it in the
> way the community is used to get it.

It seems to me that a Debian/Solaris repository
initiative should reside on debian.org; a JDS and/or SPS
repository initiative should reside on opensolaris.org, a
Portage/Solaris repository initiative should reside on
gentoo.org; etc.

Eric
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gman

Posts: 1,914
From: NZ

Registered: 6/16/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 1:16 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Hey,

> > A 'DVD worth' doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the only
> > medium. I'm just pointing out, that the average user will probably
> > not even use close to 3000 packages - if we can focus on a good set
> > of packages, and maintain with a repository model it seems like a
> > better situation until we develop a big enough user/developer base.
>
> Do you want to do that inside the OpenSolaris community?

Either way, I'm not fussed. We have to focus on the long term goals -
how we actually get there is a completely different thread from my point
of view.

So a little story to compliment this, would be Jeff Waugh's GNOME
Marketing talk at GUADEC. Previously, everyone had been discussing this
great big GNOME 3.0 plan - how they could change the user interface,
break all the libraries, turn things on their head. It was all going to
be amazing.

But who was going to suffer?

But that's why it was immediately moved to be called Project Topaz [TPZ
= Three Point Zero, with some vowels], so that people would move away
from that, and look towards the long term goals of where we needed and
wanted to be, rather than the free for all that everyone was thinking -
and the hundreds of users that would ultimately suffer.

And then Jeff turned everything on its head once more, with one simple
slide -

10x10

10% of the global desktop market by 2010. That's the goal - now work on
how to get there.

> In my opinion, it makes much more sense to relay that work on some
> packaging experts: Debian and Gentoo are my favorites. We care about
> the software and they care about compile and distribute it in the
> way the community is used to get it.

Absolutely - but without the full committed support of a substantial
number of people from Debian/Gentoo, I think that's going to be an
uphill battle. I also wonder what the messages we're sending out to our
customers with such a step.

I don't know - maybe I'm being overly pessimistic. I'd just like us to
focus on a goal, focus on the key players that we already have, and
focus on what technology we already have. Seems like there is more value
to creating a unified community initially, rather than creating a
distributed one.


Glynn

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ericb

Posts: 1,697
From: US

Registered: 4/28/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 7:20 AM   in response to: kmays

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, ken mays wrote:
>
> I'd just like to see a Companion DVD worth of optional
> open source software comparable to what you get when
> buying a Linux/FreeBSD at a computer store or buy it
> from Sun...

But the key to success for this will not be the contents of the DVD but
the quality of the update system that supports it... IMNSHO.

Eric
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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:58 PM   in response to: draganc

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:

>> I planned to upload a new blog entry trying to explain the idea a
>> bit more. There were some people who misunderstood the
>> proposal. They thought I wanted to compile apt and dpkg in an
>> OpenSolaris environment and start creating a software repository
>> using the deb format. What I really wanted to propose was to start
>> a new architecture inside the Debian project: OpenSolaris provides
>> the software stack and the rest is done on the Debian side.
>
> Alvaro, you really need to explain this all better, especially the
> connection between OpenSolaris and other architectures.
> E.g. programs like pstack, pmap, pldd and others dealing with /proc
> stuff are and have been often life-savers for me and they are one of
> the reasons I like Solaris. Would they be available in Debian
> OpenSolaris distribution? Would that require porting them to other
> architectures (there are quite a few different ones under Debian
> umbrela)? How would stuff like that be handled. What about all stuff
> in /usr/bin/* that is/was Solaris specific? Etc. etc.

The idea was to use as much OpenSolaris software as possible.
Solaris 10 included about 200 Free Software programs. Debian
includes about 18,000. So now, try to imagine something like
Solaris 10 with 18,000 packages available... :-)

Build a Debian package with pstack, pmap, pldd, etc and add it to
the base system of an Debian with OpenSolaris installation makes
sense to me. These are really useful tools, and they are free.

My aim was that Debian with OpenSolaris could use most of its
packages. In order to do it, we would need to be able to compile
the basic compilation tools: GNU make, bash, gcc,.. but there is no
problem about it.

So, trying to join efforts, it seems like everybody wins:

- OpenSolaris takes: *volume*, packages, developers, building
system, get integrated in a well know free software community, ..

- Debian takes: loads of high quality software, a big help of the
OpenSolaris community to maintain all that software, ..

About the rest of the technical stuff, I said from the first moment,
It was just an idea/proposal. I know there might be problems along
the way.. but, ey! wouldn't it worth the effort?

--
Greetings, alo.
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swalker

Posts: 1,154
From: US

Registered: 6/14/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 12:21 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

On 7/22/05, Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro at sun dot com> wrote:
> The biggest CDDL problem is that it includes a "choice-of-venue":
>
> «The problem with choice of venue clauses is that anyone who accepts
> the license must also accept the burden of defending themselves
> against charges of license violation in a court which is likely to
> have an implicit bias in favor of the copyright holder» ...

Pardon if I'm wrong, but from the way I understand it: they fail to
mention that the reverse is true without a choice-of-venue clause.
Meaning that the person that has to defend themselves can that might
be biased against the license holder. Either way, someone's going to
be unhappy. I can't imagine that clause being put in there without
good reason.

--
Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
binarycrusader at gmail dot com - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/
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joerg

Posts: 3,928
From: DE

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 2:10 AM   in response to: swalker

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail dot com> wrote:

> On 7/22/05, Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro at sun dot com> wrote:
> > The biggest CDDL problem is that it includes a "choice-of-venue":
> >
> > «The problem with choice of venue clauses is that anyone who accepts
> > the license must also accept the burden of defending themselves
> > against charges of license violation in a court which is likely to
> > have an implicit bias in favor of the copyright holder» ...
>
> Pardon if I'm wrong, but from the way I understand it: they fail to
> mention that the reverse is true without a choice-of-venue clause.
> Meaning that the person that has to defend themselves can that might
> be biased against the license holder. Either way, someone's going to
> be unhappy. I can't imagine that clause being put in there without
> good reason.

+1

Correct: People who demand to forbid a "choice-of-venue", advocate
those people who like to sue the authors of free software and those
who like to violate the the Copyright or the license.


Don't trust single persons on the Debian mailing lists.....
Debian accepts the CDDL as a free 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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svenl

Posts: 1
From:

Registered: 9/6/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Sep 6, 2005 4:22 PM   in response to: joerg

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

> Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail dot com> wrote:
>
> > On 7/22/05, Alvaro Lopez Ortega <alvaro at sun dot com>
> wrote:
> > > The biggest CDDL problem is that it includes a
> "choice-of-venue":
> > >
> > > «The problem with choice of venue clauses is that
> anyone who accepts
> > > the license must also accept the burden of
> defending themselves
> > > against charges of license violation in a court
> which is likely to
> > > have an implicit bias in favor of the copyright
> holder» ...
> >

Well, i have been myself in trouble over this lone point, as one of my package (ocaml) was partly under the QPL and thus had a choice of venue clause. I personally don't agree about this one point, and there was some unconvincing discussion (err, rather overlong flamewar) about this point, and i personally souhgt (unofficially though) legal advice about the issue.

It seems that choice of venue may be moot anway, as the court chosen in those cases is usually the one of the defendant. IANAL, but i belive this makes sense, or anyone could sue anyone anywhere with no chance for the defendant to defend itself, and i am particularly uneasy with any licence which implies that i could be sued in the US, where the justice is known to be more interested to favor those with money than serving real justice :).

Furthermore this seems the most fair stuff, as it place the weight of the one suing equally among all sides, be it author or user.

> Don't trust single persons on the Debian mailing
> lists.....
> Debian accepts the CDDL as a free license.

Ah, so we should not thrust a debian developper about this, but accept your words unquestioningly ?

Can you provide an URL where this acceptance from debian can be seen ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther
(Wearing my debian hat today :)

waynel

Posts: 2,257
From: US

Registered: 6/24/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 1:11 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Coming from Fedora background, I was wondering whether anyone has thought about YUM?

Initially there were, as would be expected, talks about building a Debian-like apt-get mechanism/environment for Fedora. But then the creator of Fedora declared that he wanted to use YUM. At that time YUM was not only inferior to apt-get but didn't work very well.

I won't go into the details of YUM as anyone interested can do a quick googling. But over the past year and half or so, YUM has advanced to a stage that I actually much prefer YUM than apt-get.

I have no idea whatsoever who YUM can be relevant in this discussion, but since no one mentioned it, here is my $0.0.

ux-admin

Posts: 1,732
From:

Registered: 7/15/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 22, 2005 2:15 PM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

> The CDDL license does not meet with the Debian
> requirements. The
> furthest a CDDL program might reach inside Debian is
> the non-free
> section. In that perspective the idea of the new
> architecture for
> OpenSolaris becomes completely impossible.

That's good news as far as I'm concerned. I oppenly oppose the idea, regardless of popularity ratings or ad hominem attacks because of my stance.

Now, can we please get back to Solaris? I'd like to start working on ata.c.

ftempel

Posts: 17
From:

Registered: 6/18/05
Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 23, 2005 1:32 AM   in response to: Alvaro Lopez Or...

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Like I said earlier, both camps (opensolaris and debian) aren't too thrilled about the idea. I've already discovered that. The good news is that debian-legal finally pointed out the exact problem with the CDDL as it relates to the DFSG, instead of just saying they don't know and throw it on incompatibilities with the GPL.

However, it doesn't really prevent anyone from going through with it anyway. It's just not going to happen under the Debian umbrella. When a port of "base" has been created, which contains most of the components which relate directly to the kernel, all the rest should be fairly painless. A lot of packages should indeed just require a recompile to work, as long as they're not too dependent on linuxisms.

joerg

Posts: 3,928
From: DE

Registered: 4/27/05
Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:01 AM   in response to: ftempel

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

"Ferdinand O. Tempel" <ftempel at linuxops dot net> wrote:

> Like I said earlier, both camps (opensolaris and debian) aren't too thrilled about the idea. I've already discovered that. The good news is that debian-legal finally pointed out the exact problem with the CDDL as it relates to the DFSG, instead of just saying they don't know and throw it on incompatibilities with the GPL.

What I see is the opinion of a single person not the official
opinion or Debian. Why dou you believe otherwise?

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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Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 3:57 AM   in response to: joerg

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Joerg Schilling wrote:

>> Like I said earlier, both camps (opensolaris and debian) aren't too
>> thrilled about the idea. I've already discovered that. The good news
>> is that debian-legal finally pointed out the exact problem with the
>> CDDL as it relates to the DFSG, instead of just saying they don't
>> know and throw it on incompatibilities with the GPL.
>
> What I see is the opinion of a single person not the official
> opinion or Debian. Why dou you believe otherwise?

Good point Jörg! I have pinged them again. This time, I have asked
for the Debian official position about the CDDL.

--
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ftempel

Posts: 17
From:

Registered: 6/18/05
Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 5:33 AM   in response to: joerg

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Like I also said earlier, as far as my information stretches, the status of CDDL in relation to the DFSG is still unknown. It seems after an couple of zillion emails on debian-legal the general consensus was to just wait and cross the bridge when "Debian" gets to it. Furthermore, I visited #debian on irc.freenode.net (that's where all the cool Debian cats hang out), launched the idea of Debian/OpenSolaris and basically got my head bit off. I have logs if you like. Hence my statement that the Debian camp isn't too thrilled about the idea (sofar). Note that I never claimed it to be the "official" debian stance on affairs.

Then a thread appeared on this list on the same subject. From what was said in that thread, together with some reactions in your own fine IRC channel on irc.freenode.net I conclude that the other camp isn't too thrilled either. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not overpouring with enthousiasm either. And that seems to be a general trend in most vocal members of either community.

Some time later another thread appeared about a broken dream. In it there was an explanation of why Debian thinks the CDDL isn't DFSG compliant. Given the wording of the message I kinda assumed (apparently wrongly) that it was actually a somewhat official Debian stance of the CDDL vs. DFSG. It wasn't as it appears, which means the game is still open. Which it was in the firstplace because as I also said earlier, there's *nothing* keeping anyone from bolting Debian on an OpenSolaris base. You just don't get to call it Debian/OpenSolaris.

BTW, while we're on the subject anyway, would you mind where you got ÿour information" in "My information is that Debian did accept the CDDL
as a free license." and whether or not it's relevant in relation to the discussion DFSG vs. CDDL? Because it's not so much a problem that it's an OSI approved free license, but that it might (or not) be DFSG incompatible. If it's deemed DFSG incompatible, it pretty much rules out an "official" Debian port.

Alvaro Lopez Or...
alvaro@sun.com
Re: Re: Re: Debian with OpenSolaris: a broken dream
Posted: Jul 25, 2005 6:58 AM   in response to: ftempel

  Click to reply to this thread Reply

Ferdinand O. Tempel wrote:

> Some time later another thread appeared about a broken dream. In it
> there was an explanation of why Debian thinks the CDDL isn't DFSG
> compliant. Given the wording of the message I kinda assumed
> (apparently wrongly) that it was actually a somewhat official Debian
> stance of the CDDL vs. DFSG. It wasn't as it appears, which means
> the game is still open. Which it was in the firstplace because as I
> also said earlier, there's *nothing* keeping anyone from bolting
> Debian on an OpenSolaris base. You just don't get to call it
> Debian/OpenSolaris.

Yes, It was my fault. I accepted the message of a single guy at
debian-legal as the Debian official reply. I have queried them
again about it.

> BTW, while we're on the subject anyway, would you mind where you got
> ÿour information" in "My information is that Debian did accept the
> CDDL as a free license." and whether or not it's relevant in
> relation to the discussion DFSG vs. CDDL? Because it's not so much a
> problem that it's an OSI approved free license, but that it might
> (or not) be DFSG incompatible. If it's deemed DFSG incompatible, it
> pretty much rules out an "official" Debian port.

Yep, you are right. Hopefully it will be DFSG compliant. I still
think the Debian architecture for OpenSolaris could be really
interesting for many people.

--
Greetings, alo.
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