Tuesday June 14, 2005

Rich Sands, new Sun blogger, has a good post on the Multi-Tasking Virtual Machine (MVM).

I find this article rather ironic. After the "hurry up and deliver OpenSolaris" we have been getting from SVN, "wait and see" is the current spin.

The article did not give one grain of credit for accomplishing what we said we would do. I know what is even better than "wait and see". How about "join and participate". That way, there is no need to be on the outside looking in and asking Red Hat what they think.

There's lots of notable comments in the article:

An open-source program should not be implemented as a marketing hook to drive incremental sales," said Leigh Day, Red Hat's spokesperson.

Two words for Mr. Day: Fedora Core.

Mr. Day then continues: "Open source is a strategy for development and building communities of use. Truly implementing an open-source strategy requires a long-term commitment; it is not a term to be used opportunistically".


Sun is educated on value of open source. Sun was building communities before Red Hat was a glint in Mr. Young's eye. Mr. Day, please feel free to visit SunSource.net to learn more.

Then there is this comment:

"And some analysts fear that Sun's internal development staff may stand in the way of building such a community."

And then this one:

Still, if Sun isn't successful with the service path it's chosen, Weiss said he fears that this might be "the last stand for Sun."

Is it just me or was this article generally written before the interviews? At Sun, we all know that while a huge hurdle was just overcome, there will be many more. But, hey, come on now. There are plenty of positive things to say about OpenSolaris. I suppose this is why we love to blog at Sun. To provide an (unfiltered) alternative point of view.

I'm a happy camper. Why? The fruit of many-a-laborer is coming to fruition. Sun has done what it (we) set out to do. For the many within Sun who have put forth so much effort to make this happen, THANK YOU. For those on the pilot and the OpenSolaris board who have jumpstarted (pun intended) the "formal" OpenSolaris community, THANK YOU. I'm also a happy camper because my wireless link is getting clogged right now downloading OpenSolaris source code and build tools.

Over the last 1+ year, Sun and the OpenSolaris community have taken a beating over OpenSolaris. Partially because it's not Linux. Partially because of the CDDL (read: not GPL). Partially because it took longer than planned. Open sourcing this much potentially legally encumbered code is hard. We delivered 6 months late. Our bad (slang for "our fault"). That's still well ahead of LongHorn :)

In general, my memory is crap. However, some things just get burned in. I'm not the kind of person to say "I told you so". No payback mentality here. Nope. So I won't tell Mr. Fink "I told you so" (although someone else just might).

I won't tell Steven "I told you so". Here's a quote from one of Steven's articles:

Actually, over the years, I've liked Sun. I still like Solaris—I just don't think it will ever be open-source—but what I don't like is Sun's constant game playing.

It's not game playing. It's being legally responsible and socially responsible by not simply dumping code over the wall.

I wont tell the numerous folks hiding behind "Anonymous Coward" "I told you so" either, mostly because I don't want to lower their self esteem even further.

I also think we have answered the Vaporware comments the most direct way possible without saying "I told you so".

I definitely don't have to tell foo "I told you so". Foo seems to have a pretty level head on the topic.

jl deserves an "I told you so", but I won't say it.

If I leave anyone out to not say "I told you so" to, please fill in the blanks (comment) for me. Thanks.

Now to the point. To those inside of Sun and the OpenSolaris community. I told you so. Then again, you already knew that. You made it happen.