[advocacy-discuss] The OpenSolaris "Attitude"

[Jim Grisanzio]

Brandorr wrote:
> On 9/21/07, *Jim Grisanzio* <Jim.Grisanzio at sun.com 
> <mailto:Jim.Grisanzio at sun.com>> wrote:
> 
>     I just read this post about NetBeans:
> 
>     NetBeans vs. Eclipse, this time with attitude
>     http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=387
>     <http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=387>
> 
>     This guy brings up a really interesting point about NetBeans. So, I was
>     wondering, what's /our/ attitude? What does OpenSolaris stand for?
> 
> 
> Solaris being torn, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century???


Why do you say that? :) I thought we were the "best OS on the planet" ...

> or maybe: MPD ( http://skepdic.com/mpd.html)
> 
> In all seriousness it's really a mix, and too early to say. 


I agree, but I'm also a bit surprised. I had thought a clear culture and 
attitude would have developed by now. In some ways, I'm amazing at how 
far we've some, but in other ways I'm surprised what we haven't done, 
too. I guess it's tough business predicting the future, eh?


> For me I 
> know and trust Solaris, and the devs behind it. At the same time I hate 
> deploying Open Source software on Solaris because of the lack of a 
> commercially supported open source software repo.
> 
> Here is my articulation of Solaris 
> http://www.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/Solaris_Strengths_and_Features
> 
> Hmmm.... I think what I think that it should end up with something like 
> "You don't have to play with Penguins anymore, OpenSolaris is here."

Ok, so this is the competitive angle here. :)

I've been trying to down play this for four years (actually longer than 
that) because it gets really nasty and I end up losing sleep. :) Also, 
various Open Source folks have told me over the years that to be 
competitive with Linux simply will not work and it's bad for community.

But I'm having my doubts about that now. I see the competition between 
NetBeans vs Eclipse has helped NetBeans (and probably Eclipse), and I'm 
also starting to see people from the OSS community /promoting/ a 
competitive situation between OpenSolaris and Linux. This is a /very/ 
new development here. Instead of ignoring or criticizing OpenSolaris, 
many people are now recognizing us and praising us, and still others are 
comparing us positively to Linux. That's cool. But I'm still a bit shy 
about going purely competitive because that brings the flamers out (on 
both sides). I'm looking for a way for a natural competition to emerge 
without the flame wars. Perhaps it's not possible. I'm glad we started 
the OpenSolaris project in a non-competitive way, though. It was a very 
good experiment.

One thing a good competition brings is focus. And that brings people 
together. And from that, leadership and a cultural attitude can clearly 
emerge.

Your juxtaposition with Linux also brings up another really good point: 
tag line. We don't have one and we've never been able to articulate one. 
Again, I think this will emerge from Indiana in the next few months. 
Perhaps at the Indiana Summit ...

Jim
-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris