Wednesday September 21, 2005
Wednesday September 21, 2005 Props from Mike Eisler to OpenSolaris
Wow. Mike Eisler, a talented senior software engineer who works on all things NFS for Network Appliance, has some very positive things to say about the OpenSolaris community and website in a blog titled, opensolaris.org: the Future of Open Source Communities?
Kudos to members of the OpenSolaris community - all of you - for helping to create a place where people can share and collaborate and make things happen. There is some great community building in action happening over on OpenSolaris.org - and it's great to see this kind of pat on the back. Keep up the good work, folks.
Here are some excerpts from Mike's blog entry. (Still, I encourage all of you to read his entire blog. He's a good writer. And he's smart. Check it out.)
"One, like conventional open source, the world outside of Sun now has direct, and early (i.e. before first customer ship) visibility into what is going on. "
"Two, unlike many large open source projects, the information for getting that visibility is well organized. "
"This is revolutionary: as an employee of another NFS server vendor I could influence the design and implementation of an important NFS client without having to wait for our mutual customers to file a trouble ticket."
"But I think the bigger point is that because Sun has made opensolaris.org so easy to navigate, so easy participate in, and so open to "outsiders", (not to mention flame free), those "outsiders" are going to find that they get much more leverage with OpenSolaris than with other open operating systems."
"Whether this higher leverage translates into increased market share for OpenSolaris versus other open source kernels remains to be seen. But the design and execution of opensolaris.org may represent the future of open source communities."
Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate your good words.
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
(2005-09-21 20:37:27.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Flickr group for OpenSolaris Enthusiasts
I'm a Flickr fan. Flickr is a wonderful photo sharing service and its founders have done an excellent job building a flickriscious sense of community. And I'm a bit of an OpenSolaris Enthusiast, too. Well, tonight I married the two interests and created an OpenSolarisEnthusiast Flickr group. Check it out!
The description of the new group that I posted on Flickr:
Post any photo that shares your enthusiasm for OpenSolaris and shows
how you're spreading the word about the community.
Such as ... a photo of you in your favorite OpenSolaris t-shirt,
or a photo of your laptop covered with OpenSolaris stickers,
or your office wall plastered with OpenSolaris posters.
Many of us are Flickr fans - and OpenSolaris enthusiasts - so
here is a marriage made in heaven.
We welcome photos taken in distant lands, on mountain peaks,
on tropical isles - and those taken at home, at work and on the
soccer field. Wherever your passion takes you.
Tell a friend. Spread the word. Be an enthusiast!
Some of you have already posted some marvelous photos on your blogs wearing your OpenSolaris garb. Hal did it in the Dead Sea, Tim Foster did it via Spreadshirt, and Mark Dixon posted on his OpenSolaris Beauty. And I know there are more OpenSolaris photos out there.
Let's do some sharing. Join the Flickr group. Become an OpenSolaris Enthusiast. And tell a friend!
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
(2005-09-21 01:46:54.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Tuesday September 20, 2005 Ok, so it's not Letterman but I did have fun creating my Top Ten Favorites of the NC05Q3 Launch. Looks like something interesting happened behind the scenes though - the rejected ads about ass-whoopin' servers (on a page titled Sun Censored But Not Silent) that had placed #2 in my Top 10 list have disappeared into thin air. Whoooosh. Instead, when you follow the link to rejected ads, you get the approved ads. Which are certainly edgy and interesting in their own right (especially this centerfold) - after all, the approved ads had already landed as #3 on my Top 10 list. Unfortunately the link where the approved ads used to be is now broken, too. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted!
(2005-09-20 23:48:12.0) Permalink
Monday September 19, 2005 The whispered hushes of a library make me feel at home. When I was 12, my father used to drop us off every week at the Middletown Free Library for a blissful visit into the land of stories. It was a teeny tiny place - not a formal library building but rather a white one-story that had the small rooms and nooks and crannies of a New England house* converted into a library. We'd stay for around an hour - and on rare occasion my father would run an errand or two rather than sitting and reading and waiting. I can still remember one of the librarians stiffly informing my father, in a high-pitched nasal voice, "you know, we don't run a babysitting service here, sir."
In later years, on oh-so-very-humid New Hampshire summer days, my sister and I would take a long walk every week to visit the Concord Public Library. We'd return home with gleeful smiles on our faces and as many books as we could carry stacked all the way to our chins. (I guess backpacks were out of fashion or something?)
Some bookstores, especially ones equipped with armchairs and benches that make you feel welcome to browse and read, hold that same magical quality for me.
One of my favorite all-time bookstores (an independent one of course) is Kepler's Books & Magazines in Menlo Park, California. Sadly, Kepler's abruptly shut its doors on August 31st as the owner announced that it had gone out of business. I was stunned. As were many in Menlo Park. Some devoted fans are rallying to save Kepler's, in fact. I've spent countless hours at Keplers - browsing, reading, socializing and of course adding books to my collection. I know that things change and there's a constant tug of war between the old and the new - but it is sad to see this fixture of the community go. (I'm still hoping that it won't, and that this is just a temporary setback. Negotiations are underway, I believe.)
* [Updated: Here is a photo of the white one-story Middletown Free Library from the link above - boy does it bring back memories...]
(2005-09-19 01:12:19.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Friday September 16, 2005 Thanks to the help of Dave Johnson, of Roller fame, I now have an About Me link on the right hand column of my blog. So if you're a new reader, or an old reader, and you're trying to figure out who the heck I am and what I do, the answers are there for the asking. I warn you, though, don't go looking for standard bio fare. My blog is true to cluetrain. Bottom line - thanks, Dave. So glad you're at Sun.
(2005-09-16 12:21:58.0) Permalink
Little Known Facts about Marketeers
The ides of September have come and gone so I decided to send an "organizational update" around Sun describing the marketeers involved in the OpenSolaris project. I thought I'd share some of the "little known facts" from my message. Because little known facts can be interesting and fun. In alphabetical order by first name:
About Laura Ramsey:
Turned down a job as Sports Promotional Intern with the SF 49ers for a job at an SRI spin off (Artificial Intelligence)
Had a longer run in corporate marketing than CATS had on broadway...1984
Was the PR contact for the Solaris 2.0 announcement in 1991
Was a speechwriter for Ray Noorda, at Novell back in the day when they thought the network was the printer
Lives in the Massachussetts countryside, with Blue the Nakota mustang, Butterscotch the bunny, Penny the Boxer, Pippen and Coke the cats, her two daughters, and her own personal rock star husband
Has lived in California twice, Colorado twice and Massachussetts twice
Drives a bright yellow VW bug
Favorite gum is Juicy Fruit; believes in chocolate chip cookies for dinner
About Patrick Finch:
Recently married
Sometimes, when doing too many things at once, can relate to the guy in the film "Memento"
Lived in a tent for 8 months in 1996
Went to the same high-school as one of the Beatles, a British heavyweight boxing champion, 2 footballers who played for England (with distinction) and a national gameshow host
Likes Westerns
First job at Sun was cold-calling people who didn't call Sun anymore and might be dead (some of them were)
Collects old-school Adidas trainers
Is English, has a wife from Sweden, and a brother in America. Naturally, lives in the Netherlands
First Sun desktop was an IPX, bless it
In 1990, saved a sheep from a fate worse than death
About Sara Dornsife:
Has been in marketing for 18 years
Has a background in color management and graphic design software
Has done the Silicon Valley circuit: Apple, Symantec, and Sun
Came to Sun through the acquisition of Cobalt Networks where she worked on the
Cobalt Developer Network
Sent out the Solaris x86 Blvd street signs
Fled California because of the cost, the traffic, and the schools
Misses San Francisco and the ocean
Moved to Austin, TX - just because it is cool
Husband is a stay-at-home dad for their 2 children (one girl and one boy)
Works from home (because Sun is a very cool place to work)
Does hotroom Vinyasa Yoga as often as possible - Namaste
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
(2005-09-16 01:45:26.0) Permalink
Wednesday September 14, 2005 
Props to Bryan Cantrill
for a well-deserved award. Last week, the MIT Technology
Review awarded Bryan Cantrill a TR35 award, naming Bryan one of the 35
Young Innovators under the age of 35. Bryan was nominated for his work on Solaris 10 with DTrace (which is open source software and is part of the OpenSolaris project. An active OpenSolaris community is found here.) For fun, I dug up some old Slashdot quotes about Solaris DTrace (I'll post the links later):
"DTrace rocks my socks."
- Slashdot user 1359
"Freaking [expletive deleted] on a stick. DTrace might be among the two or three most powerful tools I've ever used."
- Slashdot user 2898
"[Expletive deleted] almighty! It's like they *saw inside my head* and gave me The One True Tool!"
- Slashdot user 159009
I've blogged about Bryan before - no need to wax philosophical now. I will say this, though:
1. Do check out this great podcast interview with Bryan, courtesy of I/O Podcast by Richard Giles, and see why innovation stems from anger.
2. If you've not read Bryan's Observation Deck blog, check out this story titled: Man, myth, legend, and get hooked. Bryan's a gifted storyteller, and he ropes you in and infects with his passion and his voice.
3. Love Stephen O'Grady's comment in his del.icio.us bookmarks about Bryan's aforementioned story:
"anybody remember the scene from Cryptonomicon where Comstock gets hopped up on stimulants to keep up w/ Waterhouse? this is the real life equivalent"
4. Check out the great Bryan quote from Ozan Yigit... it's a classic.
[And, added item#5 on 10/7/05]
5. Here's a Contrarian Minds article about Bryan and DTrace titled No Bad Dogs: How to Make a Dog-Slow System Sit Up and Speak.
Congratulations, Bryan. It's an honor to work with you.
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
(2005-09-14 01:11:49.0) Permalink Comments [3]
[Updated: #9 and #10 added below.]
I sheepishly admit that ever since we stopped having those Sun Network Conferences, the NC0xQx quarterly product launches have been off my radar screen. Not this one, though. NC05Q3 in New York is very much on my radar screen. And if you get a glimpse of one of the Galaxy boxes I think you'll see why. These boxes are beautiful, from a design perspective. Aesthetically, functionally, environmentally, fiscally and darwinianly beautiful. They're good for business and good for the soul.
I've long been a fan of Top 10 lists. The proof is here. So, while I'll let the geeks comment on the modern matte Sun Fire X2100, X4100 and X4200 servers and the Sun Grid Rack System, I'll put on my marketing hat and share some NC05Q3 favorites from an alternate version of reality:
Top Ten Favorites of the NC05Q3 Launch:
1. Jonathan rings the Closing Bell at NASDAQ in NY. Check out the pics. Was it thrilling, Jonathan?
2. Online collection of rejected ads about ass-whoopin' servers! Somebody had fun with this one. :-)
3. Online library of approved ads. Sweet. And still a bit edgy.
4. Martin Hardee and team's Stunning New Web Pages. In particular - the photo galleries.
5. Some creative soul took to the friendly skies to spread the word. Specifically, and I quote, "Sun hired a plane to fly a "Sun's Got a New x64 Server" banner over the Bay Area. Planes also flew a "Thanks AMD" banner over Austin, Texas, and a "Sun's got a new x64 server. Watch out Dell!" banner over Dell headquarters in Round Rock, Texas." It didn't take long for an email to show up in my inbox from a friend of a friend of a friend who works at Dell - with the picture attached:
6. Postcard greetings (really, invitations) from New York, Silicon Valley and from around the world. You can find them on the NC05Q3 press kit. My favorite - the one "from around the world":
7. Use of the word "hodgepodge" in a Sun press release (specifically in a quote from Jonathan.) I know, I'm not being a big fan of "press release voice" - but I love this word just the same. Shows we're loosening up a bit, huh? I quote:
"Until today, the thought was that a move to an industry-standard platform meant a move toward hot, inefficient servers, with weak management and a hodgepodge of system components. We're here to call an end to that era," said Jonathan Schwartz, chief operating officer and president, Sun Microsystems.
8. As with Laura's Box of Chocolates, amid all the pomp and circumstance about the beautiful boxes, I like this line about OpenSolaris (yeah, yeah, I'm biased...)
And following Sun's recent move to make the source code to the Solaris OS available at opensolaris.org under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), more than 7,000 users have registered to participate as part of the OpenSolaris community.
[Updated on 9/14/05: #9 and #10 added below.]
9. I like these statues. Does that mean that size does matter? Nah, it's not the size, it's the handwritten scribble of equations that brings to mind late nights of brilliant engineering. (This photo doesn't have the scribbles. Once I find a photo with scribbles I'll replace it.)
10. The centerfold. Check out the horse. "Warning. The following statements contain explicit content. By viewing them, you are making the statement: I am viewing explicit content." See why Bryan calls this "easily the funniest ad in Sun's history."
Technorati Tag: OpenSolaris
(2005-09-14 00:19:25.0) Permalink
Monday September 12, 2005 
So what, you ask,
does NC05Q3 stand for anyway? "Network Computing (fiscal year) 2005 in
Quarter 3". Because, as we've said for a long, long, (did I say
long?) time - "the Network is the
Computer".[Sidebar: If you want definitive proof that the network is the computer, just count the number of not so genteel words that I whisper under my breath if my home wireless router ever goes on the blink. The ability to connect your system to the network has become a common, fundamental requirement - whether you're a doctor working for Kaiser on evening paperwork or running a worldwide sales organization or a technomarketinggeek at Sun like me. Without connectivity, I'm lugging around a fancy red typewriter.]
So, what exactly is LIVE from New York today?
We launched Galaxy. These systems are 56% more energy efficient, at half the price of the competition, with 1.5 times the performance. That's *%^$# compelling in my book. And here are the benchmarks to backup the claims. Wow. Am I glad that we acquired Andy Bechtolsheim's company back in 2004. Incidentally, I fully agree with Scott's description of Andy earlier today. And I don't pass out compliments like this easily:
"...Andreas von Bechtolsheim, employee #1 at Sun, who I think is the greatest computer designer in the history of industrial computing..." --Scott McNealy
All manner of info about today's NC05Q3 launches - including interviews with Scott and Jonathan - are available online. Check it out! And, of course - MaryMary has some inside scoop on the launch - complete with photos.
(2005-09-12 18:16:32.0) Permalink
Friday September 02, 2005 When I was 8, I lived in Mississippi for one year, right next door to Gulfport, just a few blocks from the beach. My memories of Long Beach are memories of childhood - walks on the beach, playing on trampolines, weebles that wobble but don't fall down, hurricane drills in the hallway of a school named after a famous confederate soldier. My little brother fell in a creek at the end of the street, and when he stood up he was covered with crayfish, and with wide eyes of surprise, between tears - all he could say was "crayfish!!" I wonder if my old home is still standing and what happened to the people that live there now.
Even before that, my parents lived for a year in the Big Easy. They were newlyweds, and my sister was born there, just weeks before Hurricane Betsy hit. As an adult, when I travelled to New Orleans for the first time (for a USENIX conference back in the 1990s), my mother gave me a list of places I had to go to - including breakfast at Brennans and Preservation Hall Jazz. And I fell in love with a restaurant called Nola (by Emeril Lagasse, before he was a famous TV chef) and kept going back to Nola every day with more and more (and more) people joining for each meal. What an amazing, beautiful city.
So, I've found myself at a loss for words in my blog this week.
One of my first summer jobs in college brought me to the Lockheed Space Sciences Research Lab in Palo Alto. There, I worked closely with a man who had survived a concentration camp in WWII. One of the things he told me - that I've never forgotten - was that you never really know a person's true character until they've been faced with hardship. Then you know.
Here's to all the strong, courageous people on the Gulf Coast who are quietly toiling away to get through this disaster and to help others get through it.
(2005-09-02 12:43:14.0) Permalink Comments [1]
