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]
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"The rest of the free software world" is not Linux and GPL. Take for example the fact that ZFS has been ported to BSD and MacOS X. CDDL is compatible with lots of OSI approved open source licenses.
Posted by Darren Moffat on May 28, 2009 at 08:32 PM IST #
Hi Darren,
I have to say, I didn't consider OS-X in my comment. Perhaps because I'm a bit sceptical that Apple and OS-X are or will ever be much of a net contributor to the general Unix eco-system.
Basically, what I had in mind was not just the porting of Solaris code to other platforms, but a general 2-way traffic of code incorporation between Solaris and other platforms, for their and their users mutual benefit. That's harder to do with licence incompatibilities, even when the technical work is already done.
But hey.. just my 2¢ worth ;).
--paulj
Posted by Paul Jakma on May 28, 2009 at 10:50 PM IST #
Oh, also, am I correct in thinking that OpenSolaris code is also unlikely to be integrated into the base BSD distributions? (Cause they want to keep their cores as BSD licensed as possible). Will a CDDL ZFS or the D userland ever be included with core FreeBSD?
**If** no then, though a problem of their own choosing, it means the OpenSolaris licence is a hindrance to code re-use between it and every other actively developed Unix out there, except for the proprietary Unix (which we're never going to get much code back from). Is that really the best thing for OpenSolaris?
Anyway :)
Posted by Paul Jakma on May 28, 2009 at 11:01 PM IST #