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Teo, the world is bigger than that
After reading Ted Ts'o comments on OpenSolaris I cannot stop thinking about how partial someone can be. From Ted's point of view, OpenSolaris has failed to build a community (as published in Slashdot), and if you read his post, you would probably think he is right.
Well, I think he is.. but only from a Linux-centric point of view. Actually, if you assume that the Linux development model is the only way to develop F/OSS, he would probably be right. However, if you are more open-minded than that and you know about other F/OSS development models, you will probably know that OpenSolaris' and Linux's models are different, and of course both perfectly acceptable. In fact, each model has its own advantages.
Let's see how different both communities are. Firstly, Linux was born Free Software, while Solaris has been opened after a long time being a closed product. Have you thought about how difficult that process has been? That is a huge amount of tough work that the OpenSolaris community has done in order to liberate such a huge project.
Besides, the OpenSolaris development model is quite different because of a number of technical reasons. IMO, the first one is something as simple as that we want to ensure its quality by following a number of processes. Another very important technical point is that we want OpenSolaris to continue being binary compatible (ABI) with the previous Solaris revisions, which is something Linux could not even dream of. Again, nothing of that has anything to do with Ted's comments; the most important thing here is that, as long as the operating systems goals and objectives are different, their communities are different as well.
And please, do not get me wrong; I have nothing against Linux, nothing at all. In fact, I like it a lot. However, I do think that trying to compare Linux and OpenSolaris communities from a Linux-centric point of view is simply wrong and an unfair comparison. So next time someone feels the need to compare them, it would be so much better if he could base the comparison of each operating system technical merits. Obviously, both communities are different, we all know that.
Comments
Strictly speaking, it's not that Linux "could not even dream of" strict binary compatibility; rather, the kernel developers have deliberately rejected it, because doing so has strong benefits (design mistakes can be corrected; third-party developers have a strong incentive to contribute their drivers, and so forth). In my view, the principal reason that Microsoft software has so many security and quality problems, despite the fact that they have enormous resources and many brilliant programmers, is legacy code; they have to support every crappy ABI they ever shipped, and they even have to preserve accidental features of those ABIs if any important program ever depended on them. It's a tradeoff, of course; there are strong advantages to binary compatibility as well, but they are less interesting to those whose focus is FOSS, as code can be recompiled as required.
opensolaris is just so f***ed up and that is a well know fact for the last three years Sun has been screwing around with it. Nothing Linux centric about that. Get off your high horse and address the real issues.
Have you ever kissed a girl?
"Solaris has been opened after a long time being a closed product. Have you thought about how difficult that process has been?" I don't buy it. How hard is it to throw your code in a VCS and share it worth the world? That should take weeks or maybe months, not years. Why does Sun make things so much harder than they have to be?
open source is nice, if i can choose, i always will take it instead of closed source. but the major illness in the it-industries is present in any bigger project, whatever it is os or cs. so i will instead consider if the software is based on open standards all that management bullshit is present every where and it gets stronger and stronger in the os sector. many "solaris people" strongly disagree with the way solaris heads. sun seems to be willing to do every thing to "catch up" with linux, like sacrificing abi etc or rather then developing a package system based on the existing sysV infrastructure, building something that totally breaks it (in indiana, for now or ever). indiana - not shipping with java, not with gcc? eh? another major annoying point is developing behind the doors, that might be okay for something like zfs, but it was mayor pita with ips etc. im waiting since like forever for a successor of live upgrade(zfs), proper patching for zones(zfs), zfs boot, dynamic clocking for multicores, proper laptop support and so on. except the laptop support this all are things i need for production! sorry for the rant, but im sic of the sun/indiana marketing crap
bronson, I take it you have never worked in a large corporation trying to opensource something?
Hrm, here are some binaries from my Slackware-based Linux 1.2.6 system (386) that still run today on my amd64 system. Meanwhile, here's a solaris2.6 binary that won't run on my opensolaris system. What exactly are you saying about ABI? Furthermore, if Sun had somehow found the process to produce quality, I'm sure there'd be a lot more Sun systems still in production. Finally, never forget that Sun's "opening something closed" is a Hail Mary pass. Linux is already faster, has wider hardware support, better tools, and is overall a much better system than Solaris. We understand Sun doesn't want to give it up, and things like ZFS are clearly attractive, but there's no sense in insulting our intelligence. OpenSolaris has to crawl uphill through broken glass now, and everybody knows it.
"How hard is it to throw your code in a VCS and share it worth the world?" Ask your lawyers sometime. Getting legal clearance to publish code contributed by hundreds of different sources, some of whom no longer exist, has been the biggest obstacle by far I'm sure.
Everyone is a critic. Antagonizing anyone is always inappropriate and counterproductive. Every community is different, people flock to whatever makes them happy. I think the Xen-Solaris folks would strongly disagree with Teo, as do I. You should pick your ego as you do your nose, get rid of waste in full public view and encourage others to do so. Why does anyone have to be better? Do what you do and enjoy it. Sometimes people talk just to make sure they can.
