Tuesday February 01, 2005

I hit this article by way of Jim's blog. Jim, your almost the home page link in my browser, dude :)

Linus' continued stance of wait and see is fair. I have plenty of disagreements with Linus in this article, though. He doesn't seem too fond of the JCP, and deems it a disaster. There are many ways to slice this pie. I have no idea how much commerce is travelling over JCP standards, but I bet it's frickin' huge. No, the JCP isn't perfect (as judged by it's continuous evolution), but it is a successful process like it or not. We just disagree on this point.

Next, Linus brings up what has come up over and over and over ... and over again in the press. Yes, I am talking about the notion of a "viable community" around OpenSolaris. Here's my take on "viable community." It is a conveniently non-discrete phrase. This means, of course, that naysayers can re-define its meaning over time. Sounds an awful lot like listening to politician-speak to me.

Last, but not least, comes this quote:

"A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die," the Linux creator and chief developer quipped.

Wow, this penguin has teeth :) So much for open source kumbaya. This is the first time I have heard Linus actually state that OpenSolaris is competition. Die is a bit strong, though. This re-affirms to me that Linux, like many open source projects, is as much about personalities and turf as it is about being intellectual and open. Hey, it's human nature. I feel strongly about Solaris, too (surprise!). I don't want Linux to die though. I have too much data on my Linux-based JDS laptop that isn't backed up.

I'll be down in San Diego tomorrow at the convention center to talk about Solaris 10 at the Sun booth. There is plenty to talk about, that's for sure. My co-worker, another John, is installing the Container Demo, a Dtrace demo or two, as well as the Tomcat SMF bits running on the released bits of Solaris 10.

Question for all of you that have installed and worked with Solaris 10. What is *your* experience with Solaris 10? What has it allowed you to do that either you couldn't do before or has made your life easier, simpler or more effective? I'll give you a plug on the show floor if you want.

NC05Q1, that's Network Computing 2005, Q1 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time. I enjoy watching these events although it is hard to take the time out of working away on my customer engagement. If I am unable to watch it live, I'll go back and watch the online recording.

I haven't seen the agenda of what will be covered, but I suspect it has something to do with Grid Computing (click on the link and you'll know why :) ). With the industry talking quite a bit about Solaris 10 (which is available for download), I suspect we'll have some content on that topic.

Do you find these events rewarding? What would you keep? What would you change?