Colm Smyth's Weblog

Correcting Bad Data about Open Solaris (Updated)

O'Reilly's OSDir.com usually aggregates fairly well-informed content but occasionally it get's it badly wrong, like when it picked up this article on WebProNews.

The author, A.P. Lawrence, offers "SCO UNIX and Linux consulting services" which doesn't bode too well for an objective evaluation of Solaris, and sadly the article seems to reflect a certain bias.

There's a lot there that I could take issue with, but I'll focus on the highlights without dignifying the author's opinions by quoting again them here:

Only specifically die-hard Linux pundits seem to want the "one world, one operating system" scenario; everyone else acknowledges that Linux has an assured place (until the need evolves for a really next-generation OS), and that choice is good
Most of "Linux" is actually not Linux; it's UNIX-compatible open-source software (see this for more analysis)
Linux has an advantage over Solaris in just one particular space - drivers, which is of primary importance only to the sundry and diverse configurations typically found on desktop-class machines, not to the embedded devices or the real servers; in all areas outside of the desktop, it's quality, reliability and performance that drive demand (and I would make the case that these qualities are also important on desktops), and drivers are less of an issue in enterprises where there is greater homogeneity of hardware configurations; in these areas and with these qualities, Solaris is a compelling choice that becomes even more compelling when Solaris becomes open-source; I also think Open Solaris will support more devices as it's community grows.
The author seems to think that Solaris would only compete with Linux; although some pundits seem to forget, oddly enough that's not the only operating system out there. In a world of choice, interoperability and integration is important.

It seems that some folks (even some at Sun today) underestimate how important it is when a major operating system becomes open-source. Choice today drives some users towards variants of Linux (which often defaults to Red Hat). Sun today offers customers a choice of Solaris or Linux. So what would happen if there was a standard application platform that supported sufficient portability between Linux and Solaris? I think that would make for a fairly friction-free choice between Solaris and the Linux variants (and possibly also *BSD) that supported such a platform. Java, GNOME and KDE already offer a large part of such a platform; what will tomorrow bring? I think the answer will be an open choice.

Finally, if you want to know what Sun means by "open source" in Open Solaris, don't read wild speculation on OSDir.com - you can get it live, fresh and real from Jim Grisanzio and Jonathan ;)

Update: I was planning on commenting on an OSNews article, but I found James Vastbinder over at Microsoft already sets the record straight. Come on guys, if a Microsoft engineer knows (and blogs) that Solaris x86 is a great OS, how come some Linux pundits can't be a bit more objective?

(2004-11-30 14:56:55.0) Permalink

Java Libraries for Web File Protocols (http, webdav, ftp)

I recently needed to develop a pure-Java prototype application that supported multiple web protocols. The JDK comes with built-in support that meet the needs of many application developers who primarily want to interact with web protocols using URLs (effectively the same way that a end-user uses a browser).

If you have tried the standard JDK libraries and you need more, the table below contains a summary of my brief investigations and the libraries I chose to use. You'll notice I favoured Jakarta's libraries - that's because they're generally very functional, well supported and they have open-source licenses that permit use and contribution by both open and closed source developers.

Protocol (spec link)	Information/Desired features	Suggested library
http	Features (and pointer to library comparison) Desired features HTTPS, HTTP proxy support Authentication (Basic, Digest and NTLM) Automatic Cookie response Connection timeouts	Apache Jakarta HttpClient - javadoc HttpClient implements the following IETF standards: RFC1945 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0 RFC2616 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1 RFC2617 HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication RFC2109 HTTP State Management Mechanism (Cookies) RFC2396 Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax RFC1867 Form-based File Upload in HTML
webdav	Features Desired features Versions Collections Properties Access control Locking	Apache Jakarta Slide (client) - javadoc - article
ftp (extensions)	Java FTP client libraries reviewed	Apache Jakarta Commons Net (FTP) - javadoc In addition to FTP, this library also implements FTP, NNTP, SMTP, POP3, Telnet, TFTP, Finger, Whois, rexec/rcmd/rlogin, Time (rdate) and Daytime, Echo, Discard.

If you want an abstract API that sits on top of other web protocols, take a look at the Filesystems API in the NetBeans Open APIs suite; the Explorer and Modules APIs also look useful. I hope to find some time to probe NetBeans in more depth one of these dark winter evenings.

I can recommend the Hamsam Instant Messaging API abstraction for Yahoo, MSN and AOL support. Smack completes the IM picture by providing XMPP (Jabber) suppport.

Finally, if you're looking for an implementation for another protocol, freshmeat "java protocol -GPL" is certainly not the worst place to start, especially if you drill-down further using the advanced search option.

(2004-11-29 10:38:54.0) Permalink

"Bazaar" - how useful is the right to fork?

Compared with the days of his work on The Cathedral and the Bazaar, it's a shame to see Eric Raymond commenting in the media today; he seldom seems to get the point anymore, or maybe it's just that his ideas seem to be distorted under the glare of publicity.

He states in effect that the cornerstone of open-source is the right to fork. However for a project of any real size, this issue is bunkum. Forks of projects like Linux or OpenOffice.org are doomed to failure because of lack of momentum and contribution, and because they run the very real risk of falling out of touch with the standards that the original project supports. If a fork becomes non-interoperable with the main-line, a few core hackers may be happy with their independence but everyone else loses:

there are fewer effective core developers working on the project - their efforts are divided with each fork
the project is a less attractive platform to application software developers because they have to build and test for each fork
it is also less attractive to deployers because they run the risk of running a fork that falls out of favour and ceases to be supported
users lose confidence because they are presented with the difficult choice of choosing which fork to run; service and support offerings have to try to target variant versions

For the reasons above, forking must be the last resort, like weapons of mass destruction. The optimal path is to steer the main-line in the right direction, and this is exactly what the JCP or Mozilla.org's super-reviewer approach enables in a far more effective way than Linux's benevolent dictatorship with the right to petition Linus for desired changes.

And if Raymond is right that IBM really plan to release their own JRE and class libraries within a year (and is not merely himself the subject of smoke-blowing), then this is further evidence that the right to fork the source is secondary to the right to implement software according to a standard; standards enable interoperability, which means that software built against the standard preserves the momentum and importance of the platform, which is ultimately what benefits developers, deployers and users.

So what is the fundamental basis of the bazaar? I would argue that it is the common currency which enables trade, or the common standards which enable substitution as a basis for true competition.

Update: there are some comments coming in which I'd like to respond to.

I talk here about the right to fork, which is what Eric Raymond talked about in his response to Jonathan's comments (and which he retrospectively says is the core of the bazaar); I think that this right is often illusory and that exercising this right on larger projects is often destructive
The right to fork is useful (or even essential) for smaller (and a few rare medium sized) projects where there is a real possibility of useful innovation in a fork and a later re-merge
GNOME and KDE are not forks; each has a completely independent code base (aside from X11 and a few libraries); similarly Solaris and Linux are not forks
I definitely support the need for competition (see this for example)

J2SE does have some TCK's and it is based on the JRE which is completely specified, however I agree it is not trivial to create a 100% compatible clean-room implementation. I think it has also become easier for developers to contribute code (patches) to Java libraries (on Bug Parade) which avoids the need for a fork; I hope more people take advantage of this as a way to improve Java where you need it.

(2004-11-28 11:26:01.0) Permalink Comments [5]

Even better than the real thing?

Today we accept that computer games like Enter the Matrix interleave segments of video footage into the regular 3D game-engine action assisted by body actors whose role is only to provide movement information so that virtual characters appear life-like. Popular movies like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and The Animatrix use computer rendering, with movement also partly mimed by body actors. And William Gibson's book Pattern Recognition has a believable character who composes movies of extraordinary beauty by editing existing movie fragments.

But now we are beginning to see another leap as second-generation games like The Sims 2 and Half Life 2 offer an even more intriguing possibility - to create movies using entirely virtual actors and sets on everyday desktop PCs.

Anyone who has seen footage of the characters in Half Life 2 is impressed by the range of emotion that is possible by moving up to 40 distinct segments of the face; compared to say Roger Moore's upwardly mobile eyebrow or the woozy contemplations of Brad Pitt (or indeed the repeated images of adaptable but often type-cast actors) this is a comparative revelation in acting.

So what next? I think tomorrow's actors and actresses won't need to work for a living, or at least not for long; they will simply license a virtual image of their face or movements to "studios" (the good ones will be able to license their image not just as an eternal 25 year old but at different ages, which may (but probably won't) reduce their use of cosmetic surgery). And of course, studios won't have a huge cast of cameramen and technicians and boom operators, and they certainly won't use film; they will probably consist of one all-powerful director who will license libraries of images, sounds, 3D maps of places (real or imaginary) and actors (also real or imaginary); they will use physics engines and image processors and "emote-engines" to create entirely virtual movies. All on a desktop PC.

This is clearly going to result in a lot of new movies, most of which will be terrible but some will be incredible and would never reach the (virtual) light of day with today's movie budgets.

So aside from an abundance of choice, what's in it for the consumer? Again, a lot. You won't just watch movies, you will be able to switch to any perspective; change hair-styles or clothes; choose a different music soundtrack; co-script them; in effect, you will be able to participate in the creation of a completely personal and unique entertainment.

Will actors make more money or less? Probably a lot less; it will be too easy to digitally modify digital faces and virtual bone structure so that they cease to be recognisable. But I think there will be a greater interest in the unusual faces; a Humphrey Bogart or a William H. Macy may be more successful than the generically beautiful.

But we may also look back at 20th century cinema as a golden age when actors and sets were real, and the capsule experience of a live play performance will also compete well against the virtual. Using an image from The Matrix - will you choose the red pill or the blue pill? Looks like you will have both.

(2004-11-26 06:33:06.0) Permalink

Inside the mind of a Britney Spears searcher

I don't get it; I have difficult even spelling Britney Spears let alone recalling any of her songs, but somehow that doesn't seem to prevent her name being a recurring search topic across 70% of monitored countries in the Google Zeitgeist.

But the Zeitgeist analysis is peanuts to what Nova Spivack wants to achieve. In his Physics of Ideas (yes another changethis manifesto; some very good reading matter here folks), Spivak proposes to examine memes (and their movement and velocity) in the same way as we analyse particles. He believes a deeper analysis of web and RSS content will reveal how "big ideas" are transmitted, stored and how they change in importance. Very interesting, but how could that information be used? Spivak suggests that it may be possible to correlate meme size and velocity with other sources of information such as stock price or demographics to help with stock purchases, market research, electioneering, even terrorist activity.

It's interesting to think about that "public" data being correlated with "private" data like regional product sales or telephone calls or house prices or weather patterns. Clearly a firm that could offer this kind of data and (more importantly) analysis is in a position to charge more than say Google charges today for targetted advertising. Taking this technology to its logical conclusion, it may be possible to track a meme back to it's origin (person, place or technology). Knowing the origin makes it possible to identify and either punish or reward the people or the mechanisms that are the sources of certain kinds of meme.

So continuing on the slightly 1984-ish theme of my entries for today, this means that the folks who play their parts in framing or starting or a trend - the little firestarters - those folks can look forward to micro-payments for pushing brands or propoganda, while the real data mines and miners (Google and such) can be assured of an even larger role in tomorrow's society.

(2004-11-25 12:06:24.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Repeat after me - we have no privacy

In the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise escapes retinal detection by having his eyes replaced. But advertisers may not have to go so far as to use retinal scanners - your future smart phone will give them far more information than even the spyware on most desktops that run Internet Explorer.

El Reg comments on a New Scientist article The phone that knows your next move about a smartphone in development that will learn your habits by observing who you phone or data-connect, where you do it (location-based awareness) and when.

This may sound like something you may have a choice about, but if you had to pay 3 times as much for a telephone contract with a dumb phone (a large unlovely specimen, the kind you wouldn't be seen dead with), you might just have to take the smartphone which knows more about your social life than you do.

It's funny - back in 1978, a fairly intelligent but low-budget BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven shocked my teen sensibilities with it's depiction of a tranquilised society watched over by cameras in all public spaces. Today I can't seem to get angry about that anymore, that makes me wonder what we'll accept tomorrow. Prozac anyone?

(2004-11-25 11:17:51.0) Permalink

Buy software as a service - from your corner store

El Reg nearly always has a fair amount of insight into what's going on but their article Napster nips into newsagents misses the point entirely. Of course Napster requires familiarity with the internet, but the new vouchers (which grant 2-4 months of Napster access) are not going to be bought by the user; they'll be presents from the uncle or granny who are already buying telephone cards and gift vouchers.

Interesting to see two emerging software trends in one day - both driven by mainstream consumer products targetted (primarily) at younger customers. Also related to software licensing, Microsoft are offering an amnesty for purchasers of pirate copies of Windows XP, provided they give full details of where and how they purchased it.

(2004-11-25 10:40:56.0) Permalink

Framing - Lakoff's manifesto

George Lakoff says: If the facts don't fit the frames, the frames stay and the facts are ignored. And he wasn't talking about reading glasses; he was talking about changing the way people really look at things.

If you have some reading time today (it's equivalent to about 10 A4 pages), George Lakoff's manifesto is an eye-opener.

(2004-11-25 09:26:19.0) Permalink

Europe offers a clear definition for open standards

An article on Newsforge points to a very significant determination by the European Union which seems currently to be leading the world in creating a future framework for the use of software and standards in government.

Here's a crucial quote from the end of the article:

To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:

The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).

The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.

The intellectual property (i.e. patents possibly present) of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.

There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.

The EC document goes on to suggest a strong link between open source and open standards. In particular, it says that "OSS products are, by their nature, publicly available specifications, and the availability of their source code promotes open, democratic debate around the specifications, making them both more robust and interoperable. As such, OSS corresponds to the objectives of this Framework and should be assessed and considered favourably alongside proprietary alternatives."

The article can be read in its entirety on Newsforge.

(2004-11-22 10:20:26.0) Permalink

Balance on the Perfect Wave

I never cease to be impressed by Google's automatic translations; it's fun to try it on songs because they sometimes take on a poetic quality that was never in the original. Just for kicks (well, I'm on holiday this week!) I tried this on a cute pop song by a German band called Juli - Perfekte Welle (Perfect Wave). I also tried to do a manual translation with a little fine-tuning to try to restore some of the rhyme. See how they compare (even more fun if you know a little German).

Original German	Google (German to English) translation	Manual translation
Mit jeder Welle kam ein Traum, Träume gehen vorüber, dein Brett ist verstaubt, deine Zweifel schäumen über, hast dein Leben lang gewartet, hast gehofft, daß es sie gibt, hast den Glauben fast verloren, hast dich nicht vom Fleck bewegt. Bridge Jetzt kommt sie langsam auf dich zu, das Wasser schlägt dir ins Gesicht, siehst dein Leben wie ein Film, du kannst nicht glauben, dass sie bricht. Chorus Das ist die perfekte Welle, das ist der perfekte Tag, lass dich einfach von ihr tragen, denk am besten gar nicht nach. Das ist die perfekte Welle, das ist der perfekte Tag, es gibt mehr als du weißt, es gibt mehr als du sagst. Deine Hände sind schon taub, hast Salz in deinen Augen, zwischen Tränen und Staub, fällt es schwer oft dran zu glauben, hast dein Leben lang gewartet, hast die Wellen nie gezählt, das ist alles nicht gewollt, hast viel zu schnell gelebt. (Bridge) (Chorus) Du stellst dich in den Sturm und schreist, ich bin hier ich bin frei, alles was ich will ist Zeit, ich bin hier ich bin frei, Du stellst dich in den Sturm und schreist, ich bin hier ich bin frei, ich bin hier ich bin frei. Das ist die perfekte Welle (Chorus) Das ist die perfekte Welle, das ist der perfekte Tag dafür. Das ist die perfekte Welle, das ist der perfekte Tag.	With each wave a dream, dreams came passes, your board is dusty, your doubts foams over, your life long waited, has hoped that there are it, the faith nearly lost, you from the mark did not move. Bridge Comes it slowly to you, the water strikes to you now in the face, sees your life like a film, you can not believe that she breaks. Chorus That is the perfect wave, that is the perfect day, lets you simply from it carry, does not think best. That is the perfect wave, which is the perfect day, it gives more than you knows, it gives more than you says. Your hands are already deaf, have salt in your eyes, between tears and dust, fall it to to with difficulty often believe, your life long waited, the waves counted, that are not intended never everything, much too fast lived. (Bridge) (Chorus) You place yourself into the storm and cry, I are I are free here, everything which I want are time, I are I are here free, you place yourself into the storm and cry, I are I am here free, I am I am here free. That is the perfect wave (Chorus) That is the perfect wave, that is the perfect day for it. That is the perfect wave, that is the perfect day.	With every wave comes a dream, dreams pass over, your board is dusty, your doubts foam over, waited your life long, hoping that it is, your faith almost gone, you did not move from this. Bridge Now it comes slowly to you, the water strikes you in the face, you see your life now like a film, you can't believe that it breaks. Chorus That is the perfect wave, that is the perfect day, let your self be carried by it, best not to think it away That is the perfect wave, which is the perfect day, there is more than you know, there is more than you say. Your hands are already mute, and salt is in your eyes, between tears and dust, to believe has not been wise waited your life unended, never counted each wave, that is all unintended, lived much too brave. (Bridge) (Chorus) You stand in the storm and cry, I am here, I am free, all that I want is time, I am here, I am free, You stand in the storm and scream, I am here, I am free, I am here, I am free. That is the perfect wave (Chorus) That is the perfect wave, that's the perfect day for it. That is the perfect wave, that is the perfect day.

There are a few ways to play with the metaphor in this song; for example imagine if "board" was "keyboard"; it could be a song about a late night coding session on an open-source project ;)

(2004-11-22 08:07:30.0) Permalink

Start your own business kit

Yes, I'm still looking for cheap but excellent Christmas presents and I found some other things I can add to that StarOffice 7 present for my sister, the home entrepeneur; in this partly-digital world, this is my way of making something "by hand". So what have I found...

Seth Godin's The Bootstrapper's Bible - although Charles Handy (The Elephant and the Flea) and Tom Peters ("Brand Me") have written about career independence, Seth Godin has some unique insights in this book (7 years old, but even more relevant today) which is available for free for the next week or so. Bloggers will love Seth's site too.
Firefox and Thunderbird - a new browser (that hates spyware) and a mail client (that cans your spam, faster than you can say wham bang thank you ma'am) - also 100% free from mozilla.org - with these two, her online work will be safer and more productive.
Templates - I'm not going to try to find creative templates for her business, but I am going to dig up some business related templates (invoices, promotions, reminders) - and I never realised there were so many out there for free, for example the desktop pub site at about.com has some good pointers for free Word templates; the ones without macros will work perfectly in StarOffice (and to be honest, I'm glad she won't be running VBA macros from documents downloaded from the web).
The Computer Arts magazine I mentioned earlier actually has some great free tools to download - for example, the Color Cop eyedropper is a neat tool for picking colours from the desktop and it displays the HTML colour code in real time - great for choosing colours from photos for her graphic art and web-site (she'll be able to use the Flash export from StarOffice to create some nice web presentations, and the PDF export for her brochures)
Speaking of HTML, I'll include JTidy for cleaning up any HTML she's written by hand; JTidy is a command-line program written in Java (I'm sure she has a Java runtime installed, but I can include one on the CD just in case); I can write a few lines of code to give JTidy a simple file-open GUI (and maybe make that available here)

And that's it! Next I'll see if I can find some decent pre-school educational software for my brother's family. Ideally I'd like to find Java applets so that I can create a nice HTML page as a "menu" - there seems to be a lot of good free Java-based educational software for teens, but finding good software for younger children really isn't child's play. If you know of any good safe software (especially Java applets), please let me know and I'll post the best ones here.

(2004-11-21 09:06:28.0) Permalink

StarOffice 7 is too cheap

I've been using StarOfffice for about 9 years (I started about 2 years before I joined Sun), mainly on Windows and Solaris, but more recently on Linux (Java Desktop System). It's always been a great office suite, very reliable, especially on longer documents where Word let me down a lot - anything over 3 pages seemed to make Word unstable.

Currently I use StarOffice 7 and it's rock solid with great interoperability with Microsoft Office (the documents within Sun tend to be almost all created within StarOffice, but I read documents (mainly Word and PowerPoint) posted on the web (for example, I've been looking at Tom Peter's PowerPoint deck - wow!) and occasionally I use templates from the office.microsoft.com for inspiration (I was actually using some nice Excel ones earlier).

So it's with amazement that I see Sun's promotion of StarOffice 7 for $39.95 (I don't even want to calculate what that is in Euro; well actually I do - I just used an exchange rate calculator and it works out at 30.60 Euro). That is an incredible price for a full office suite; I guess Sun must really want to get this product out to the market but in my view that is just too cheap; the templates and dictionary alone must be worth more than that, and it's got more applications in it than the Microsoft Office Standard Edition (oh my god, I just checked Microsoft's site - retail price is $399, I don't even have to use an exchange rate calculator for that because it's an even 10 times the price of StarOffice - 306 Euro).

I guess the only thing to do is take advantage of it while it lasts, so I've just figured out what I'm getting my sister for Christmas! She's started a home business making arts and crafts (like runs of 100 or less of really unique cards for busineses to send out to customers) and although she has a really nice PC, she's been using Microsoft Works up to now. She needs a real office suite though, for things like designing cards (StarOffice Draw), writing up invoices (StarOffice Writer) and doing her accounts (StarOffice Calc)). I can get her the current issue of Computer Arts magazine too - it has a Start Your Own Design Business topic (setting up a business, branding, logos, business card design) - just the right thing. Alright, that's one gift down (and just 33 shopping days to go!)

(2004-11-21 05:29:19.0) Permalink Comments [2]

Solaris 10 - A Blog Anthology

A lot has been (and is being) written about Solaris 10 but it's hard to know where to start. This blog serves the same purpose as a book anthology - as an introduction and to give you a chance to sample some of the most interesting writing from some of the key Solaris engineering authors.

I plan to write a new edition of the Solaris 10 Anthology about once a month; expect a Java 5 (Tiger) Anthology soon.

DTrace

Adam Leventhal (Baby's first DTrace)
Bryan Cantrill (DTrace vs. DProbes/LTT)

ZFS

Jeff Bonwick (128-bit storage: are you high?)
Matt Ahrens (What is ZFS?)

Zones

David Comay (What's New Pussycat?)

Service Management Facility (SMF)

Liane Praza (Is it spring yet?)
Stephen Hahn (smf(5): a view from the moon)
Tobin Coziahr (SMF/Predictive Self Healing Overview)

Solaris Kernel Developers

Alexander Kolbasov (Testing and Debugging.)
Andrei Dorofeev ()
Andy Tucker (On opening up Solaris)
Bart Smaalders (Entry #2 - Event ports)
Dan Price (Debugging SMF problems using svcs -x)
Ed Pilatowicz ()
Eric Schrock (Rebutting a rebuttal)
Mike Walker (How to build a Shared Library)
Rod Evans (Lazy loading - there's even a fall back)

Storage (SAN, Solaris Volume Manager)

Torrey McMahon (Storage and Solaris 10)

Town Criers & Photo Journals

Jim Grisanzio - OpenSolaris Community Manager (OpenSolaris in AP)
Mary Smaragdis (MaryMaryQuiteContrary) (the logo!)

Like any anthology, this is a personal view but if I've missed something you think is important, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

(2004-11-20 08:10:10.0) Permalink Comments [2]