Thursday May 28, 2009 Random ramblings
Thursday May 28, 2009 One thing I very much hope, is that the Sun software group (Sun here on) and the general free-software world (which these days is equivalent to the general Unix eco-system) will continue to converge.
I hope Sun continues to engage the wider free-software using community and embrace it more fully, as it is doing with OpenSolaris (the distro) and the work to build up a wide body of packages. Specifically I think Sun should:
- Consider an X.org-like splitting of large consolidations into many small, loosely-coupled projects. This would be far more inviting to "scratch an itch" participation than the current GB+ sized consolidations, and I think it would also have a beneficial decoupling effect on processes within Sun.
- Get over the GPL. Re-examine the value in having the underlying, core OS be technically free-software, yet licence-incompatible with most of the rest of the free software world.
Simply put: It's a divisive measure, by design - especially when Sun is seen to be happy with the GPL for other projects. It sets OpenSolaris aside from other communities. It greatly hinders code re-use. The costs of this are definitely high, the benefits uncertain.
- Contingent on resolving the said incompatibility: Don't re-invent things without need. If possible, where multi-vendor projects/frameworks to common Unix problems already exist, favour working with those projects to extend them to OpenSolaris. Divergence costs end-users time (in having to learn different technologies/UIs) and it costs Sun resources (because Sun will not benefit from multi-platform/vendor development and maintenance).
I hope the greater free-software using world also considers more carefully the importance of Sun to it. Sun has long contributed both code and technologies to the Unix eco-system and to free software. Further, the Unix eco-system has always been distinguished (e.g. from Wintel) by its healthy competition. Regardless of which Unix (inc Linux) you favour, the presence of strong, competing Unixes benefits you - even if don't like everything about them. It may be useful to keep that in mind.
I really believe that the best future for OpenSolaris demands much greater co-operation and inter-mingling with other free software projects. I hope Sun does too, and I hope the greater community will encourage and welcome them.
(See you at my new blog).
( May 28 2009, 07:25:06 PM IST ) Permalink Comments [3]
