A Waste of Time
Linux vs OpenSolaris…Again: The Q&A: "This discussion is largely a waste of time for both sides." -- Stephen O'Grady
I agree. Good overview, though, and well worth a read. Not sure about the fingernail bit, though. Ouch.
I agree. Good overview, though, and well worth a read. Not sure about the fingernail bit, though. Ouch.
How do you respond to the expressed general opinion of Linux and Apache enthusiasts (e.g. community members) that Sun is over-zealous in controlling the governance and direction of the open source projects it owns? From an external point of view, it would appear completely reasonable to me given the heritage and investments involved, but I'm not involved in any community-driven project. I'm very keen to understand your perspective on this.
Posted by Kevin Hutchinson on February 22, 2008 at 05:30 PM JST #
I can only speak about OpenSolaris since I know that project all too well. :) We Sun people do control most of the project on opensolaris.org. No one is denying that. We are not even finished opening most of the infrastructure yet (but some of it certainly is open). I realize that explanation is not valid to the attackers outside the project, but it's true. It's a waste of time even offering the explanation anymore, to be honest. Many community members are angry about this, and I can't fault most of them. Most of them are quite honorable and trying to help. Others, however, are just way over the top and their rhetoric undermines their credibility (I've said this many times on list). And yet others actually *are* contributing! That's what's amazing. This is a real mix of people trying to work under difficult circumstances and under a lot of noise.
Now, it's certainly valid to criticize us for taking too long, but heck, our own engineers have been yelling about that for quite some time now. That's not news. And I do think Sun is a pretty confusing company message-wise, so I don't fault anyone for being confused about our intentions. However, please keep in mind that Sun is quite literally transforming itself pretty much in full public view. What you are seeing is the ugly details of a turnaround, basically, and of thousands of employees trying to work to one degree or another in public. The migration across the firewall (people, infrastructure, code, processes, etc) has taken much longer than anyone expected because it's been far more complex than anyone expected. This is not an easy move here. Sun opened its three core products: Solaris, Java, and SPARC. Name one company to do that. Name one of our critics who has detailed experience in opening the core, revenue-generated products of a multi-billion dollar corporation the size of Sun *while* the company simultaneously builds, ships, and supports those very same products. So, my point is that we are very much learning here. We need to find the balance so we can build an open community. And we will.
That's pretty much my take. :)
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on February 22, 2008 at 06:05 PM JST #
You Sun folks rock, and to put it simply, I consider Sun second in awesomeness only to Google.
I'm a linux user myself, but we're all on the same team, and I firmly believe that the world could only benefit from another libre quality posix compliant operating system. It's important to keep things in perspective, and with all the people complaining about various relatively minor things, I think it's important to come out and return to the simple fact that we are all on the same side.
I must say the Sun technology I'm most excited about is sparc. I want to see open source technology free us from our dependence on the x86 ISA and let us move into the future. And while people can debate about various kernels and runtimes and such, I'd have to say one of the things I would most like to see from Sun's involvement in the open source community is a sparc based consumer level machines. The source is with us; we're free to do that. ^_^
Sun has demonstrated a commitment to open standards and to transparency, and while they still be in the middle a huge process, with all it's ups and downs, I have a huge amount of respect for all of you /now/.
Rock on.
Posted by ethana2 on February 23, 2008 at 06:42 AM JST #