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Today's Page Hits: 103

All | General | JDS | OpenSolaris
« OpenSolaris Has a... | Main | OpenSolaris Developm... »
20051101 Tuesday November 01, 2005
Throw-away Desktop?

So I guess I have to expect the bad with the good, but calling JDS a " throw-away desktop"? Are you people not reading the press before you publish articles trashing us? Does Google News not exist where you live? Let me put on the cranky pants here....


Now, I've only been the director responsible for JDS at Sun for a few months now, so I admit I don't know the history around what promises were made to Tom and Sam. Sometimes things are beyond our control, but if we promised you something, we should have at least given you an explanation on why we had to break that promise. So if that's what happened, let me be the one to apologize.


As it happens, I'm also the director responsible for OpenSolaris. A "holy war on destroying Linux"?? Where the hell did that come from?! Working in the open source means you're going to have email flame wars. It's part of the business. And yes, if you have any "vulgar, profanity laced" emails from Sun engineers, I'd like to see them. I like to think our engineers are more professional than that. I can't control everything people say out there in the community, but Sun's position has never been to "destroy Linux." We're out to create our own community, a community around Solaris.


Next paragraph. OK, here's where we get to reading the news. If you bothered to read any press last week, you would have seen that we have changed our JDS/Linux strategy. Although we got a lot of kudos on our JDS/Linux distribution, a lot of people didn't like that it was based only on SUSE. We also wanted to get into more developing countries, and that means localizing it in markets SUSE isn't present in. In short, what you'll see very soon is JDS on other Linux distros.


And if you can't wait for that, JDS is now open source. You can create your own JDS based on your own distro, either Linux-based or OpenSolaris-based. Knock yourself out!


So you see, we're not throwing it away, we're expanding it! You'll also see us keeping things more up to date as well. If you have any questions, complaints, problems, whatever, feel free to let us know through the desktop discussion board on opensolaris.org.


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Nov 01 2005, 03:47:00 PM PST Permalink Comments [8]

Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/harpster/entry/throw_away_desktop
Comments:

Interesting... maybe you should tell your engineers this stuff before you tell the press, because the ones I know seemed pretty taken aback by the news that they'd have to make this stuff work on any Linux other than SuSE. (The absence of YaST on any other Linux being a pretty major stumbling block before you even start.)

Posted by 212.2.179.105 on November 06, 2005 at 03:33 PM PST #

As one of the long suffering JDS2 users who has been patiently and eagerly waiting for the promised and long overdue upgrade to release 3, I consider Sun's change of it's JDS/Linux strategy more like an abandoment of its user base. I find it very disheartening that Sun would so cavalierly turn its back on its users - especially since the the JDS3 was, reportedly, ready for release several months ago. James R. Heisey

Posted by James R. Heisey on November 06, 2005 at 05:01 PM PST #

I never said Sun was going to do the port. We're partnering with other Linux distro vendors, a.k.a. OEM'ing.


James, why do you feel that Sun is turning its back on its users? I don't understand why you see this as an abandonment.....

Posted by Stephen Harpster on November 07, 2005 at 01:00 PM PST #

Well, it's a surprise to find a JDS director blogging :) As a long time Solaris user, AND JDS user since JDS 2003 (it was on linux back then) I would like to see more out-of-box multimedia capability integrated in the JDS. The only player I can see in JDS/Solaris is a Java multimedia player, which I didnt find very useful.

For James' gripe, I guess that's because that practically Sun is the only vendor integrates/ships JDS, if Sun shift its priority or strategy, it's very possible JDS on linux will suffer due to relocation of corporate resource. This happens, just like what happened to Solaris x86 in 2002.

Ivan.

Posted by Ivan Wang on November 07, 2005 at 05:41 PM PST #

I agree about multimedia capability. We're working to address that. It's going slower than I want, but these things take time. To your second comment, there will soon be other vendors integrating/shipping JDS/Linux soon. I can't say more until things are squared away and signed, but it's coming.

Posted by Stephen Harpster on November 08, 2005 at 01:59 PM PST #

I was googling JDS and found this interesting blog. It is indeed a surprise to see JDS director blog. I have been one of the volunteer building rpms for jdshelp.org, and it was a pleasant experience working together with a bunch people you met on internet trying to support a platform that we believed very promising at that time. I still personally believe that JDS3 has a lot of potential either on Linux or on Solaris... in fact I am writing this comment using the GA version of JDS3 for Linux that is never released. It is a great enhancement from JDS2 which is one of the best for its time, but now is severely outdated. Not everyone from the former JDS supporter become as bitter as Tom, and some are still using JDS3 beta and trying to build a new distro called gcclinux, trying to adopt the good points of JDS to the new distro. I have to admit that I am also dissapointed by the decision not to release the platform I am using right now. By not releasing it Sun has dissapointed current JDS/Linux user because there is no clear "upgrade path" for them until some Linux distro decide to adopt JDS OEM program. I feel if JDS3/Linux is released, if Sun wants the user later to consider JDS/Solaris the transition will be smoother. I also installed Solaris Express triple boot with JDS3/Linux and included WinXP from the notebook manufacturer, and I can say that JDS3 on Solaris still has some catch up to do compared to the unreleased JDS3/Linux (in term of desktop experience, not in term of scalability, DTrace, zoning and other server stuff). The hardware driver is one of the area of catching up beside the multimedia capability, and also administrative interface although I believe many people are working on it, I keep wondering if it is not better to release the JDS3/Linux to fill the time while JDS/Solaris is developed to catch up the desktop part.... Well this is just my rambling... I sincerely hope that there will be REAL other Linux vendor integrating JDS soon... my gnome 2.6 based JDS3/Linux start to feel outdated compared to other gnome 2.10/2.12 based distro like Ubuntu. It's all about time....

Posted by Adrianus B. Kurnadi on January 25, 2006 at 03:03 AM PST #

Over three (3) months have passed since your original blog post. So where is the third party JDS "OEM" version?? Anywhere?? I second the call: Sun JDS on Linux was too damn good to let it see go away. Why don't you just release a "Java Desktop System" kit that bundles StarOffice 8, Mozilla (<- Why not upgrade to SeaMonkey 1.0?), the Gnome desktop, Sun's Java VM, and Sun's tweaks, all rolled into a single installer and which can be installed by root on top of ANY LINUX SYSTEM and instantly convert it into Sun JDS?. That way, folks would continue bugging the original distro for kernel/drivers issues, and Sun for JDS desktop issues. I think it would be the best of both worlds. And of course, I don't mean Sun giving it away for free, I'd pay a $50/year price to Sun for the desktop if I can use whatever underlying linux kernel I want with it (say Fedora, Debian...). FC

Posted by Fernando Cassia on March 04, 2006 at 07:34 PM PST #

By the way... GOOGLE PACK is proof that people is willing to use a SINGLE INSTALLER that delivers a better experience, even if the components that comprise it are already known and widely available separately. FC

Posted by Fernando Cassia on March 04, 2006 at 07:36 PM PST #

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