From rich.friedeman at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 06:53:37 2007 From: rich.friedeman at gmail.com (Rich Friedeman) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 08:53:37 -0500 Subject: [approach-discuss] Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5ad61bf00706010653y5c47d27eq5549ead4df15a70@mail.gmail.com> > I also propose that if you are in favor of this distro coming to be, > > that you respond to this thread. Please do this even if you can not > > contribute. It will give other like minded individuals moral support. > > ;) > > absolutely -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian.gupta at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 08:11:19 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:11:19 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] Message-ID: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> The purpose of this thread is threefold. First, I would like to start a focused discussion, as to why people would want an OSH (OpenSolaris Hosted) binary set, so that we can accommodate the widest set of needs with our efforts. (OSH as a hopefully non controversial working name). Second, this thread is meant as an educational thread, so that those who aren't convinced that there is a legitimate need for OSH, have been given the full story. Third I have started receiving questions regarding what the idea of an OpenSlaris distro is and what it's goals are. (In another thread, that I am trying to keep focused.) It is very important that these particular threads that I am starting keep focused for reasons that I hope are self explanatory. If you feel that there should be a new related thread of discussion, but potentially disruptive, please contact me offline, and I will work with you to start the thread, or point you to an existing thread that is already discussing said issue. (Even if it's not potentially disruptive.) Various drivers behind an effort to produce OSH. 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to also be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to bullet #1, but keep reading) 3) Currently the barrier of entry to getting involved with OpenSolaris is high, both from a conceptual point of view, as well as a work required point of view. (I can't just download a ISO and install an up to date dev platform) 4) Currently the barrier to entry for immigrants is high. Driver support, that shall we say "does not lead the field". Installation and configuration can be confusing to those that have not studied Solaris. I think these are generally acknowledged as goals in the community, but this is where we have a distro that focuses on this issue specifically. 5) Although AOL has proved that mass mailings of optical media can be made into a scalable distribution model, this only worked because AOL self updated upon install. OpenSolaris needs a quicker and simpler distribution method. (Which allows free mirroring of ISOs, binary and source packages, without lengthy legal reviews. This ties into the desire to have a completely unencumbered base distro set) 6) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). ;) 7) Currently there isn't a method for non-Sun distros to offer optional non open source bits. We would want to establish a standard and precedent for doing so, that all distros could leverage. (I'm thinking mostly HW support issues). 8) Currently, by continuing to use closed source bits as the standard, there is minimal incentive to close (open?) the loop. 9) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. I feel that if we set our goals properly we could accommodate all these desires and wishes within the Scope of a single "approachability" CG (community group) project. Some possible design criteria that could allow this to come to pass: 1) A goal to make all components fully modularized packages/components. This even applied to the ON (OS/Networking) consolidation. This will allow alternate distributions to very easily pick and choose components for their distribution. (Distributions would of course be free to ignore the reference and use their own build/packaging methods) This would also allow for the building of a very compact miinimal core, using the same components that are used to construct a "Complete" user focused distro. (Meeting the needs and desires of multiple groups, e.g. appliance builders, distro builders, hobbyists working w/ old HW, etc.) 2) Be strict about making the System fully Open Source (This is mandatory for this to be an OpenSolaris project). Optionally allow a method to pull in closed source bits if desired by the installer, or distro packager. (This would eventually require involvement by technical as well as legal participants). This said we would have to work out a prioritized roadmap, that covered everyone's desires. Please feel free to contact me offline, if you feel that there are flaws in what I have laid out. I don't want to clutter this thread with a large amount of dissident traffic. If you must reply on list, please completely change the topic. (No "was".) Let's please try to keep on topic. (Read the subject of the thread before hitting send). Please start reaching out to your User groups and see if we can find more interested parties there. Finally, I have decided to add a trailing tag of [OSH-thread] so that going forward anyone interested/not-interested in these threads that for now, I am starting, can setup an appropriate mail filter. Keep in mind that the only CG that I are focused on living in is "approachability" I think in the short term we will work in the general approach-discuss list, as time goes on I expect a project to form in approachability, and then when enough interest is established the project would earn promotion into a full OSCG (OpenSolaris Community Group.) -Brian P.S. - Remember if you want a new related thread, I ask that you please contact me offline, so that we can keep this discussions focused. From John.Plocher at Sun.COM Fri Jun 1 10:21:56 2007 From: John.Plocher at Sun.COM (John Plocher) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:21:56 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <466055B4.6000309@Sun.Com> Brian Gupta wrote: > I also propose that if you are in favor of this distro coming to be, > that you respond to this thread. Please do this even if you can not > contribute. It will give other like minded individuals moral support. +1 -John From michelle.olson at sun.com Fri Jun 1 10:44:44 2007 From: michelle.olson at sun.com (Michelle Olson) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:44:44 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" In-Reply-To: <34749.72.39.216.186.1180680449.squirrel@mail.blastwave.org> Message-ID: <7015122.1180719914312.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> > > >> I also propose that if you are in favor of this > distro coming to be, > >> that you respond to this thread. Please do this > even if you can not > >> contribute. It will give other like minded > individuals moral support. > >> ;) > > > aye -Michelle This message posted from opensolaris.org From al at logical-approach.com Fri Jun 1 10:58:08 2007 From: al at logical-approach.com (Al Hopper) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:58:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <466055B4.6000309@Sun.Com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> <466055B4.6000309@Sun.Com> Message-ID: > Brian Gupta wrote: > I also propose that if you are in favor of this distro coming to be, > that you respond to this thread. Please do this even if you can not > contribute. It will give other like minded individuals moral support. +1 Excellent idea/goal Brian! Regards, Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. al at logical-approach.com Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007 http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/ From maybird1776 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 1 10:58:30 2007 From: maybird1776 at yahoo.com (Ken Mays) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:58:30 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <21775313.1180720740257.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> +1 This message posted from opensolaris.org From michelle.olson at sun.com Fri Jun 1 11:37:43 2007 From: michelle.olson at sun.com (Michelle Olson) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:37:43 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Thread to discuss goals for OpenSolaris reference build. (Indiana) In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705311028h5d8d881bkdc166132616dcd58@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1491825.1180723093351.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> Hiya, This is good, I've linked to it from page below, feel free to combine these two into one if you want. This location just enables folks to navigate to the info from the main genunix wiki page->Distributions->Indiana. http://www.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/Indiana Thanks, Michelle This message posted from opensolaris.org From jek3 at sun.com Fri Jun 1 14:17:50 2007 From: jek3 at sun.com (Joseph Kowalski) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:17:50 -1000 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46608CFE.2020404@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > I also propose referring to this project as OSH (Just so we have a > non-controversial name to call it). Naming is something that should be > addressed later. Please, let's not belabor this point. OSH = "Orchid Supply Hardware", a hardware chain much like ACE, but without John Madden. Do you care? > P.S.S. - This is really the time to step up and reply, if you are in > favor of this. I find it strange that it is to be assumed that such a distribution is a "good thing" on this group. You say this discussion is happening elsewhere; could you point at those *ongoing* discussions? That said, it seems like you are asking people to sign-up to make this happen without the benefit being understood nor the costs being detailed. I don't know about others, but I don't make that kind of commitment for anything. However, if the purpose of this discussion is to detail the costs, while the benefits are being pursued in some other discussion, then I'm all for it. Is it? - jek3 From John.Plocher at Sun.COM Fri Jun 1 14:49:02 2007 From: John.Plocher at Sun.COM (John Plocher) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:49:02 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <46608CFE.2020404@sun.com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> <46608CFE.2020404@sun.com> Message-ID: <4660944E.9010007@Sun.Com> Joseph Kowalski wrote: > However, if the purpose of this discussion is to detail the costs, while > the benefits are being pursued in some other discussion, then I'm all > for it. Thats why I'm here at least... -John From jek3 at sun.com Fri Jun 1 15:07:03 2007 From: jek3 at sun.com (Joseph Kowalski) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:07:03 -1000 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46609887.9020208@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > > Various drivers behind an effort to produce OSH. > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to > also be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > bullet #1, but keep reading) #1 and #2 seem to make a lot of sense. #2 seems mostly a "free as in speech" issue, which I don't tend to care about, but I understand it is very important to some people. We all know, "free as in beer" is most important! :-) (Note the smiley - let's not start a discussion on this in general.) > 3) Currently the barrier of entry to getting involved with OpenSolaris > is high, both from a conceptual point of view, as well as a work > required point of view. (I can't just download a ISO and install an up > to date dev platform) What does this problem have to do with OSH? It seems like a separately addressable problem. Also, it is a problem Sun Solaris (express) knows about (as 50 e-mail in my inbox the last two days will attest to!). If you think this is fun, try OpenJDK. This, like "closed sources", tend to be a high start-up cost for software moving to the "free" domain. > 4) Currently the barrier to entry for immigrants is high. Driver > support, that shall we say "does not lead the field". Installation and > configuration can be confusing to those that have not studied Solaris. > I think these are generally acknowledged as goals in the community, > but this is where we have a distro that focuses on this issue > specifically. Ditto #3 - a problem that doesn't really motivate OSH (as the disclaimer states). > 5) Although AOL has proved that mass mailings of optical media can be > made into a scalable distribution model, this only worked because AOL > self updated upon install. OpenSolaris needs a quicker and simpler > distribution method. (Which allows free mirroring of ISOs, binary and > source packages, without lengthy legal reviews. This ties into the > desire to have a completely unencumbered base distro set) Ditto #3. > 6) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still > leave a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike > Fedora). ;) OK, you have allies. 8^) > 7) Currently there isn't a method for non-Sun distros to offer > optional non open source bits. We would want to establish a standard > and precedent for doing so, that all distros could leverage. (I'm > thinking mostly HW support issues). Huh? What prevents a distro from doing this? Please elaborate. > 8) Currently, by continuing to use closed source bits as the standard, > there is minimal incentive to close (open?) the loop. Not sure what you are saying. If its that the "closed" bits shouldn't exist, please work on that problem. I think we would all like nothing more. This is an important requirement to having a complete, truly open distribution, but not a reason to have OSH. > 9) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's Solaris distribution? I'm not sure, you might be right. We've been moderately aggressive about removing such support (more on the SPARC side actually) motivated mostly by a desire to minimize the test matrix. The secondary reason was code bloat. A harder issue is "minimum storage". Just how much memory and how big a disk does that old 386 have attached to it? :-) I guess its a valid reason for OSH - so that the community can determine the supported hardware list, but I'd (perhaps wrongly) tend to think that the need is actually more in unsupported ISA/PCI cards than processors. Seems like these could plug into any Solaris. (Seems to motivate the blastwave-like soultions we've discussed elsewhere more than OSH, but it does motivate OSH somewhat (particularly if that card is a NIC)). Discussion have been had elsewhere about including unsupported (by Sun) drivers on the distribution CD. Don't know where this has gone. Solaris used to run on 486. I'm sure we can find those sources and donate them to the community. SunOS 4.x used to run on 386 (A Sun product called roadrunner). However, having run a leaner Solaris (2.3) on a 486, I'm not sure this is really useful. I'm not that patient. ------------ Summary: This seems like a laundry list of ills with the current situation. I believe only a few of these ills motivate an OSH, particularly if you consider how long it will take a polished OSH to come into existance. Maybe I've verged too far accross the "let's not debate the need" line, but this entire posting seemed to assert the needs and most of them seemed orthoginal to an OSH. - jek3 From jek3 at sun.com Fri Jun 1 21:44:25 2007 From: jek3 at sun.com (Joseph Kowalski) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:44:25 -1000 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <46609887.9020208@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> Message-ID: <4660F5A9.2050306@sun.com> I cut the distribution down, but probably not enough. Others please feel free to cut even more. Perhaps the first mail should have gone to "announce" and follow-ups to "approach". I can't tell Brian's intent. Brian sent me private mail asking why I was against this. If he's unclear, I think others are unclear, hence this clarification. I didn't say OSH was a good or bad thing. At the moment, I'm neither for it or against it. I just said that more than 1/2 of the justifications appear unrelated to OSH. They can either happen or not independent of OSH existing. Waiting to work on the important ones in this list because of a mis-conception that OSH must happen first would be a very bad thing. I don't think anyone should be selling OSH as the cure for cancer. The first reason listed is a big one. In my mind, it is 99.44% of any reason for doing this. In all honesty, it may be a big enough reason by itself. #2 is probably important to a lot of folk. Its just not important to me. I'm a capitalist, not a "free as in speech" fanatic. No judgment implied. Few, if any, of the other issues require OSH to allow them to be addressed. A couple of them might be easier in an OSH context. None of these seemed important (IMHO). I probably do have a bias that I think the cost of producing a distro (even an unsupported one) is higher than I think many believe. That predisposes me to think at the moment there are better things to work on - like replacing those nasty "closed" bits, some of which has to happen before OSH can happen. That is a predisposition as to "when", not "if". At the moment, I really am neutral on "if". Clear? - jek3 From brian.gupta at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 21:54:30 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 00:54:30 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <4660F5A9.2050306@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <4660F5A9.2050306@sun.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706012154n4afed14n23b6c989091bd50a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/2/07, Joseph Kowalski wrote: > > > I cut the distribution down, but probably not enough. Others please > feel free to cut even more. Perhaps the first mail should have gone to > "announce" and follow-ups to "approach". I can't tell Brian's intent. > > Brian sent me private mail asking why I was against this. If he's > unclear, I think others are unclear, hence this clarification. > > I didn't say OSH was a good or bad thing. At the moment, I'm neither > for it or against it. Ah... I just said that more than 1/2 of the justifications appear unrelated to > OSH. > They can either happen or not independent of OSH existing. Waiting to > work on the important ones in this list because of a mis-conception that > OSH must happen first would be a very bad thing. > > I don't think anyone should be selling OSH as the cure for cancer. > > The first reason listed is a big one. In my mind, it is 99.44% of any > reason > for doing this. In all honesty, it may be a big enough reason by itself. If this is reason enough, why does it need to be limited to this? #2 is probably important to a lot of folk. Its just not important to > me. I'm > a capitalist, not a "free as in speech" fanatic. No judgment implied. > > Few, if any, of the other issues require OSH to allow them to be > addressed. > A couple of them might be easier in an OSH context. None of these > seemed important (IMHO). OpenSolaris was in my opinion a name that may have served a great marketing purpose at the time. (Not to mention commit Sun to open source in a pretty public way) Currently it is really really confusing. (Joseph you remember my complete bafflement when I came into the community. Do we really want to have this discussion when even a new participant comes in? (It really is non obvious to outsiders, I think this is a point that is really being completely underestimated by those involved in the process). At least I could get up to speed because I am a Solaris sysadmin. We really need to be targeting the guys who used to code SunOS and then moved on to hacking BSD and then Linux. It's this last group though that we really need to convince. I probably do have a bias that I think the cost of producing a distro (even > an unsupported one) is higher than I think many believe. That predisposes > me to think at the moment there are better things to work on - like > replacing > those nasty "closed" bits, some of which has to happen before OSH can > happen. That is a predisposition as to "when", not "if". At the moment, > I > really am neutral on "if". > > Clear? > > - jek3 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Chris.Quenelle at Sun.COM Fri Jun 1 22:46:21 2007 From: Chris.Quenelle at Sun.COM (Christopher D. Quenelle) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:46:21 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <11305354.1180763211951.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> +1 I'm more interested in finding a way to hook up user-contributed "unbundled" software in an easy to use way, than I am in finding another way to build and distribute the kernel and core drivers. Perhaps one approach is to give the distro a "test run" as a layer on top of Sun's Solaris. This approach also seems like a good way to get the blastwave community (et al) hooked in as soon as possible. This message posted from opensolaris.org From jek3 at sun.com Fri Jun 1 23:01:09 2007 From: jek3 at sun.com (Joseph Kowalski) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:01:09 -1000 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706012154n4afed14n23b6c989091bd50a@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <4660F5A9.2050306@sun.com> <5b5090780706012154n4afed14n23b6c989091bd50a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <466107A5.5000002@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > > > The first reason listed is a big one. In my mind, it is 99.44% of any > reason > for doing this. In all honesty, it may be a big enough reason by > itself. > > > If this is reason enough, why does it need to be limited to this? It was in what you elided from the reply. It implies that OSH must exist to solve those other problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Solving those ills is not dependent on the existence of OSH - implying such is a disservice. I assume the list was to motivate folk to join your project. I believe you were misleading them as to the benefits. Its only my opinion that #1 has significant importance. Others may believe it is some other number which is important and not dependent on OSH to address. Bad mojo... > > #2 is probably important to a lot of folk. Its just not important to > me. I'm > a capitalist, not a "free as in speech" fanatic. No judgment implied. > > Few, if any, of the other issues require OSH to allow them to be > addressed. > A couple of them might be easier in an OSH context. None of these > seemed important (IMHO). > > > OpenSolaris was in my opinion a name that may have served a great > marketing purpose at the time. (Not to mention commit Sun to open > source in a pretty public way) Currently it is really really > confusing. (Joseph you remember my complete bafflement when I came > into the community. Do we really want to have this discussion when > even a new participant comes in? (It really is non obvious to > outsiders, I think this is a point that is really being completely > underestimated by those involved in the process). At least I could get > up to speed because I am a Solaris sysadmin. We really need to be > targeting the guys who used to code SunOS and then moved on to hacking > BSD and then Linux. It's this last group though that we really need to > convince. I'm totally lost as to what you are trying to say here or how it relates to the included text above. The first paragraph of mine you included simply acknowledges that reason #2 is valid and may be important to others (just not to me). The second paragraph on mine you included is the main point I'm trying to make - those valid issues can be solved independently of OSH and therefore are not a justification for OSH. - jek3 From brian.gupta at gmail.com Sat Jun 2 19:46:35 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 22:46:35 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <46609887.9020208@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> Joseph, I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. Primary Drivers: ---------------------- 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to also be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which not everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some time. (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly impaired totally open source distro. If the missing closed source functionality turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to be made. 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally Solaris should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB HD. The community can determine the supported hardware list. 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I as a member of the community want to see our host prosper, and continue to be able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux vendor launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much opposition) Existing OpenSOlaris efforts that OSH must incorporate: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) Currently the barrier of entry to getting involved with OpenSolaris is high, both from a conceptual point of view, as well as a work required point of view. (I can't just download a ISO and install an up to date dev platform) OpenSolaris needs a quicker and simpler distribution method. (Which allows free mirroring ISOs, and binary and source packages, without lengthy legal reviews. This ties into the desire to have a completely unencumbered base distro set) 2) Currently the barrier to entry for immigrants is high. Driver support, that shall we say "does not lead the field". Installation and configuration can be confusing to those that have not studied Solaris. I think these are generally acknowledged as goals in the community, but this is where we have a distro that focuses on this issue specifically. (This is why there needs to be an optional method for leveraging closed source bits. Those bits would not be part of the base distro, but a method to leverage them would be included 3) Currently there isn't a standard interface/method for non-Sun distros to provide optional non open source bits as part of the build/install process. Most likely this is a legal and technical issue. (Part of the packaging and installation efforts currently ongoing) -Brian -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Richard.Elling at Sun.COM Sun Jun 3 11:20:01 2007 From: Richard.Elling at Sun.COM (Richard Elling) Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:20:01 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46630651.10102@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > Joseph, > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > Primary Drivers: > ---------------------- > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to also > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be built upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk missing the application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and perhaps unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? Or are you just confusing modular with layered? > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which not > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some time. > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly impaired > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source functionality > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to be made. This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) products, which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why would we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the approach is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making things work. As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those words to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes things simpler. How can we make things simpler? > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally Solaris > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB HD. The > community can determine the supported hardware list. Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry computers! :-) But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The compromises made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving forward versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun hobby, but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making a better Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more clever than that. > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I as a > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and continue to be > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux vendor > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > opposition) I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward to the next level, what would that next level look like? -- richard From freetown at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 01:08:29 2007 From: freetown at gmail.com (Giles Turner) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 16:08:29 +0800 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <46630651.10102@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> Message-ID: > > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making a better > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more clever than > that. Well, with Fedora 7, it looks like things have gone to another level. Look...no 'Core' anymore... > > > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I as a > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and continue to be > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux vendor > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > opposition) > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. > > If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward > to the next level, what would that next level look like? Maybe this? http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3680951 From brian.gupta at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 07:43:11 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 10:43:11 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <46630651.10102@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/07, Richard Elling wrote: > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > Joseph, > > > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > > > Primary Drivers: > > ---------------------- > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other > > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to also > > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be built > upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk missing the > application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should > drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and perhaps > unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? > Or are you just confusing modular with layered? I suppose I do mean modular. In particular I an referring to the ON consolidation. As I understand, the whole of ON is required to build a distro today. This seems odd to an outsider like myself, because Perl is in ON. Although there is talk of moving Perl outside of ON, it seems unlikely as other components within ON that rely on Perl. Saying for a moment that I am a distro builder. What if the driver for my distro doesn't need Perl, how do I go about removing it? (I am probably completely missing something simple, please forgive). Also when you say that application requirements should drive the distro, I think it's pretty clear, that we are talking about multiple drivers, that include, but are not limited to application requirements. > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which not > > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some time. > > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly impaired > > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source functionality > > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to be > made. > > This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) products, > which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why would > we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the approach > is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that > seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want > something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making > things > work. Well, for one, Article Two of the OpenSolaris.org constitution expressly forbids this. This is why I had another bullet that talked about developing a standard methodology, that all distros could leverage, for downloading and installing *optional* closed source packages, as part of the install process. As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those words > to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). Well, I was told that to contribute to NV, I had to be running on SXCE latest minus 2 or better. The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes things > simpler. How can we make things simpler? Complexity? It is more an issue of unfamiliarity, and a lack of bundled ecosystem. Part of designing and building this distro, would include building an ecosystem around the distro. When I install OpenSolaris, why is there not an option to grab "cc"? Why is there no standard OpenSolaris repository of packages? (How can this be "developed" without a real world implementation?) > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this > > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. > > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally Solaris > > > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB HD. The > > community can determine the supported hardware list. > > Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry computers! :-) If you are comparing CPUPower/Watt you are correct. From a chassis/watt perspective, many older computers had much lower power profiles. But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink > SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The > compromises > made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you > can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts > from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving > forward > versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was > eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make > automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at > going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. Hmm... I think you are missing something if you think that the primary driver behind the Open Source(Linux) movement was/is "market value". From my perspective, it was intellectual curiosity, needs to fill a functions for oneself or ones group (then giving that code away for others to leverage and enhance), geek factor, altruism, and pride/recognition (etc). All that market value stuff, is build on this as an afterthought. Also, could you link me to a page that might "explain the warts"? Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun hobby, > but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? Ok then, who exactly are we targeting? In my thought, we need to win back the educational, hobbyist and research hearts and minds. (OpenSolaris, not Solaris). > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making a > better > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more clever > than > that. Exactly. I just used Fedora as an analogy. Being more clever is very good. Let's start talking about what this means. > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I as a > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and continue to be > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux vendor > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > opposition) > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. Can you elaborate what you mean by this? (best platform for innovation). If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward to the next level, what would that next level look like? Going forward that is for us to create. In the beginning it would look alot like SXCE. (Plus and minus) -- richard > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian.gupta at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 08:04:40 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 11:04:40 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706040804s7ba3274fje48a54ae38acf2f8@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/07, Richard Elling wrote: > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > Joseph, > > > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > > > Primary Drivers: > > ---------------------- > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that other > > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros to also > > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be built > upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk missing the > application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should > drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and perhaps > unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? > Or are you just confusing modular with layered? I suppose I do mean modular. In particular I an referring to the ON consolidation. As I understand, the whole of ON is required to build a distro today. This seems odd to an outsider like myself, because Perl is in ON. Although there is talk of moving Perl outside of ON, it seems unlikely as other components within ON that rely on Perl. Saying for a moment that I am a distro builder. What if the driver for my distro doesn't need Perl, how do I go about removing it? (I am probably completely missing something simple, please forgive). Also when you say that application requirements should drive the distro, I think it's pretty clear, that we are talking about multiple drivers, that include, but are not limited to application requirements. > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which not > > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some time. > > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly impaired > > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source functionality > > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to be > made. > > This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) products, > which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why would > we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the approach > is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that > seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want > something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making > things > work. Well, for one, Article Two of the OpenSolaris.org constitution expressly forbids this. This is why I had another bullet that talked about developing a standard methodology, that all distros could leverage, for downloading and installing *optional* closed source packages, as part of the install process. As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those words > to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). Well, I was told that to contribute to NV, I had to be running on SXCE latest minus 2 or better. The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes things > simpler. How can we make things simpler? Complexity? It is more an issue of unfamiliarity, and a lack of bundled ecosystem. Part of designing and building this distro, would include building an ecosystem around the distro. When I install OpenSolaris, why is there not an option to grab "cc"? Why is there no standard OpenSolaris repository of packages? (How can this be "developed" without a real world implementation?) > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run this > > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying around. > > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally Solaris > > > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB HD. The > > community can determine the supported hardware list. > > Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry computers! :-) If you are comparing CPUPower/Watt you are correct. From a chassis/watt perspective, many older computers had much lower power profiles. But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink > SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The > compromises > made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you > can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts > from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving > forward > versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was > eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make > automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at > going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. Hmm... I think you are missing something if you think that the primary driver behind the Open Source(Linux) movement was/is "market value". From my perspective, it was intellectual curiosity, needs to fill a functions for oneself or ones group (then giving that code away for others to leverage and enhance), geek factor, altruism, and pride/recognition (etc). All that market value stuff, is build on this as an afterthought. Also, could you link me to a page that might "explain the warts"? Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun hobby, > but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? Ok then, who exactly are we targeting? In my thought, we need to win back the educational, hobbyist and research hearts and minds. (OpenSolaris, not Solaris). > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that will be > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and still leave > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making a > better > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more clever > than > that. Exactly. I just used Fedora as an analogy. Being more clever is very good. Let's start talking about what this means. > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I as a > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and continue to be > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux vendor > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > opposition) > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. Can you elaborate what you mean by this? (best platform for innovation). If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward to the next level, what would that next level look like? Going forward that is for us to create. In the beginning it would look alot like SXCE. (Plus and minus) -- richard > P.S. - It seems that there will be a list setup for this discussion in SFWNV. (I am not sure why not approachability, but it's probably for the best if the approachability community merges with the sfwnv, ccd, and ports communities. P.S.S. - Please do not include opensolaris-discuss in any future replies. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kristin.amundsen at sun.com Mon Jun 4 09:54:24 2007 From: kristin.amundsen at sun.com (Kristin Amundsen) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:54:24 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <466443C0.7040008@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > > I also propose that if you are in favor of this distro coming to be, > that you respond to this thread. Please do this even if you can not > contribute. It will give other like minded individuals moral support. > ;) Another "yay". -Kristin From Richard.Elling at Sun.COM Mon Jun 4 10:15:35 2007 From: Richard.Elling at Sun.COM (Richard Elling) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:15:35 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> perl is the poster child... see below... Brian Gupta wrote: > On 6/3/07, *Richard Elling* > wrote: > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > Joseph, > > > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > > > Primary Drivers: > > ---------------------- > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that > other > > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros > to also > > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be > built > upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk > missing the > application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should > drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and > perhaps > unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? > Or are you just confusing modular with layered? > > > I suppose I do mean modular. In particular I an referring to the ON > consolidation. As I understand, the whole of ON is required to build a > distro today. This seems odd to an outsider like myself, because Perl is > in ON. Although there is talk of moving Perl outside of ON, it seems > unlikely as other components within ON that rely on Perl. Saying for a > moment that I am a distro builder. What if the driver for my distro > doesn't need Perl, how do I go about removing it? (I am probably > completely missing something simple, please forgive). Also when you say > that application requirements should drive the distro, I think it's > pretty clear, that we are talking about multiple drivers, that include, > but are not limited to application requirements. [ignore the history that sys admins used to claim that they would not install Solaris because it didn't include perl] kstat is written in perl and is part of the Extended System Utilities package which also includes awk, compress, sort, and friends. So if you did a simple dependency graph, it is likely that a system administrator would want awk, therefore requiring perl. This is just one example of how interdependent complexity is a real problem and why thinking of software in layers will cause trouble. > > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which > not > > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some > time. > > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly > impaired > > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source > functionality > > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to > be made. > > This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) > products, > which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why > would > we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the > approach > is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that > seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want > something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making > things > work. > > > Well, for one, Article Two of the OpenSolaris.org constitution expressly > forbids this. This is why I had another bullet that talked about > developing a standard methodology, that all distros could leverage, for > downloading and installing *optional* closed source packages, as part of > the install process. > > As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those > words > to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). > > > Well, I was told that to contribute to NV, I had to be running on SXCE > latest minus 2 or better. Contributors should be aiming for the current target, no? > The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes > things > simpler. How can we make things simpler? > > > Complexity? It is more an issue of unfamiliarity, and a lack of bundled > ecosystem. Part of designing and building this distro, would include > building an ecosystem around the distro. When I install OpenSolaris, why > is there not an option to grab "cc"? Why is there no standard > OpenSolaris repository of packages? (How can this be "developed" without > a real world implementation?) If the proposal is to repackage everything, then that has a completely different set of constraints. This gets revisited every other year or so. For current Solaris customers, there are many constraints, which is why it is what it is. > > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run > this > > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying > around. > > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally > Solaris > > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB > HD. The > > community can determine the supported hardware list. > > Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry > computers! :-) > > > If you are comparing CPUPower/Watt you are correct. From a chassis/watt > perspective, many older computers had much lower power profiles. > > But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink > SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The > compromises > made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you > can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts > from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving > forward > versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was > eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make > automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at > going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. > > > Hmm... I think you are missing something if you think that the primary > driver behind the Open Source(Linux) movement was/is "market value". > From my perspective, it was intellectual curiosity, needs to fill a > functions for oneself or ones group (then giving that code away for > others to leverage and enhance), geek factor, altruism, and > pride/recognition (etc). All that market value stuff, is build on this > as an afterthought. You are nicely describing a market and I think you are trying to describe the requirements of that market. > Also, could you link me to a page that might > "explain the warts"? Hmmm... that would require a lot of work to assemble. All of the fixes implemented so far are in the bug database and ARC cases. The fundamental problem is that if you are counting every byte, then you make structures too small, spend too many CPU cycles managing small bits of memory, and performance suffers when you have a lot of memory. I think it is safe to say that machines will have more memory in the future, not less. > Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun > hobby, > but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? > > > Ok then, who exactly are we targeting? In my thought, we need to win > back the educational, hobbyist and research hearts and minds. > (OpenSolaris, not Solaris). Hey, you made the proposal, you should be able to identify the market. > > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that > will be > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and > still leave > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making > a better > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more > clever than > that. > > > Exactly. I just used Fedora as an analogy. Being more clever is very > good. Let's start talking about what this means. Yes. New thread needed. > > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I > as a > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and > continue to be > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux > vendor > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > opposition) > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. > > > Can you elaborate what you mean by this? (best platform for innovation). In my vision, Solaris is the best platform for innovation. Wanna develop new software? Solaris. Wanna deploy a big friggin' database? Solaris. Wanna build clusters? Solaris. ... > If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward > > to the next level, what would that next level look like? > > > Going forward that is for us to create. In the beginning it would look > alot like SXCE. (Plus and minus) Agree 110% SXCE is a good start, but only a start. -- richard From Eric.Boutilier at Sun.COM Mon Jun 4 10:30:17 2007 From: Eric.Boutilier at Sun.COM (Eric Boutilier) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:30:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Like minded individuals let's start working on an "OpenSolaris.org" distro right now. In-Reply-To: <46608CFE.2020404@sun.com> References: <5b5090780705312231k3c588c09m6b72e75122c2ec03@mail.gmail.com> <46608CFE.2020404@sun.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, Joseph Kowalski wrote: > Brian Gupta wrote: >> I also propose referring to this project as OSH (Just so we have a >> non-controversial name to call it). Naming is something that should be >> addressed later. Please, let's not belabor this point. > OSH = "Orchid Supply Hardware", a hardware chain much like ACE, > but without John Madden. Do you care? >> P.S.S. - This is really the time to step up and reply, if you are in >> favor of this. > I find it strange that it is to be assumed that such a distribution is a > "good > thing" on this group. You say this discussion is happening elsewhere; > could you point at those *ongoing* discussions? Good point. Which one(s) is being suggested to focus on? Speaking just for myself, my most recent favorite is this one: http://blogs.sun.com/anilg/entry/the_indiana_wishlist > That said, it seems like you are asking people to sign-up to make this > happen without the benefit being understood nor the costs being detailed. > I don't know about others, but I don't make that kind of commitment > for anything. > > However, if the purpose of this discussion is to detail the costs, while the > benefits are being pursued in some other discussion, then I'm all for it. Me too. --Eric > Is it? > > - jek3 > From brian.gupta at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 14:07:04 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 17:07:04 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706041407s6c9d17aay19a30541ab91d8eb@mail.gmail.com> On 6/4/07, Richard Elling wrote: > perl is the poster child... see below... > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > On 6/3/07, *Richard Elling* > > wrote: > > > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > > Joseph, > > > > > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > > > > > Primary Drivers: > > > ---------------------- > > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that > > other > > > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > > > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros > > to also > > > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > > > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > > > I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be > > built > > upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk > > missing the > > application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should > > drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and > > perhaps > > unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? > > Or are you just confusing modular with layered? > > > > > > I suppose I do mean modular. In particular I an referring to the ON > > consolidation. As I understand, the whole of ON is required to build a > > distro today. This seems odd to an outsider like myself, because Perl is > > in ON. Although there is talk of moving Perl outside of ON, it seems > > unlikely as other components within ON that rely on Perl. Saying for a > > moment that I am a distro builder. What if the driver for my distro > > doesn't need Perl, how do I go about removing it? (I am probably > > completely missing something simple, please forgive). Also when you say > > that application requirements should drive the distro, I think it's > > pretty clear, that we are talking about multiple drivers, that include, > > but are not limited to application requirements. > > [ignore the history that sys admins used to claim that they would not install > Solaris because it didn't include perl] Well, I think what sysadmins wanted was official support for Perl so that they could write scripts in Perl, and know that it was a stable method. (Vs. sh scripting). There was no need to include this in ON. > kstat is written in perl and is part of the Extended System Utilities package > which also includes awk, compress, sort, and friends. So if you did a simple > dependency graph, it is likely that a system administrator would want awk, > therefore requiring perl. This is just one example of how interdependent > complexity is a real problem and why thinking of software in layers will > cause trouble. Ideally the minimum would include a kernel, and nothing else. Obviously this is not particulary useable, so there should be an easy option to add modules and the busybox shell that is currently being developed within the opensolaris community. > > > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > > > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > > > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > > > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > > > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which > > not > > > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > > > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > > > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some > > time. > > > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly > > impaired > > > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source > > functionality > > > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to > > be made. > > > > This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) > > products, > > which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why > > would > > we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the > > approach > > is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that > > seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want > > something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making > > things > > work. > > > > > > Well, for one, Article Two of the OpenSolaris.org constitution expressly > > forbids this. This is why I had another bullet that talked about > > developing a standard methodology, that all distros could leverage, for > > downloading and installing *optional* closed source packages, as part of > > the install process. > > > > As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those > > words > > to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). > > > > > > Well, I was told that to contribute to NV, I had to be running on SXCE > > latest minus 2 or better. > > Contributors should be aiming for the current target, no? Let me try and say this again. Are we contributing to Solaris or OpenSolaris. The current structure blurs the line and confuses the issue. I'd like to think we are contributing to Open Solaris. Second best would be a clear understanding that we are contributing to Solaris. The hazy distinction as it currently exists is not ideal. > > The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes > > things > > simpler. How can we make things simpler? > > > > > > Complexity? It is more an issue of unfamiliarity, and a lack of bundled > > ecosystem. Part of designing and building this distro, would include > > building an ecosystem around the distro. When I install OpenSolaris, why > > is there not an option to grab "cc"? Why is there no standard > > OpenSolaris repository of packages? (How can this be "developed" without > > a real world implementation?) > > If the proposal is to repackage everything, then that has a completely > different set of constraints. This gets revisited every other year or so. > For current Solaris customers, there are many constraints, which is why > it is what it is. Ok let us start the conversation regarding these constraints. As a current Solaris customer, I am not aware of any constraints. I am assuming that it will still be possible to take all the granular packages and build a full OS with them. Does the fact that ON is one package vs twenty(arbitrary example) really make that much of a difference, when it comes to customer constraints? > > > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run > > this > > > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying > > around. > > > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > > > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally > > Solaris > > > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > > > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB > > HD. The > > > community can determine the supported hardware list. > > > > Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry > > computers! :-) > > > > > > If you are comparing CPUPower/Watt you are correct. From a chassis/watt > > perspective, many older computers had much lower power profiles. > > > > But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink > > SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The > > compromises > > made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you > > can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts > > from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving > > forward > > versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was > > eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make > > automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at > > going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. > > > > > > Hmm... I think you are missing something if you think that the primary > > driver behind the Open Source(Linux) movement was/is "market value". > > From my perspective, it was intellectual curiosity, needs to fill a > > functions for oneself or ones group (then giving that code away for > > others to leverage and enhance), geek factor, altruism, and > > pride/recognition (etc). All that market value stuff, is build on this > > as an afterthought. > > You are nicely describing a market and I think you are trying to describe > the requirements of that market. Meanwhile, young Linus Torvalds was hacking on a tiny kernel, just a toy. He announced it on comp.os.minix: I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. Also see http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch02s03.html for some historical info > > Also, could you link me to a page that might > > "explain the warts"? > > Hmmm... that would require a lot of work to assemble. All of the fixes > implemented so far are in the bug database and ARC cases. The fundamental > problem is that if you are counting every byte, then you make structures > too small, spend too many CPU cycles managing small bits of memory, and > performance suffers when you have a lot of memory. I think it is safe to > say that machines will have more memory in the future, not less. Why not make page sizes configurable at boot? It would be a pretty powerful feature. (As it is with Linux I think you have to recompile the kernel to change page sizes). > > Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun > > hobby, > > but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? > > > > > > Ok then, who exactly are we targeting? In my thought, we need to win > > back the educational, hobbyist and research hearts and minds. > > (OpenSolaris, not Solaris). > > Hey, you made the proposal, you should be able to identify the market. Please don't play these word games. I assumed you were including yourself when you said "we're targeting". I in fact took "we're" to mean Sun, and possibly the OpenSolaris community as a whole. > > > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that > > will be > > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and > > still leave > > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making > > a better > > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more > > clever than > > that. > > > > > > Exactly. I just used Fedora as an analogy. Being more clever is very > > good. Let's start talking about what this means. > > Yes. New thread needed. This thread is that thread to discuss. Feel free to let us know some of the things that would make our model better? > > > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I > > as a > > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and > > continue to be > > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux > > vendor > > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > > opposition) > > > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. > > > > > > Can you elaborate what you mean by this? (best platform for innovation). > > In my vision, Solaris is the best platform for innovation. Wanna develop new > software? Solaris. Wanna deploy a big friggin' database? Solaris. Wanna > build clusters? Solaris. ... I don't think you can make such an ambitious statement. e.g. Is Solaris the best platform for innovation in the embedded space? Is it the best platform for Smartphones? (Even Sun is advocating Linux here). Is it the best platform, for deploying nouveau clustering? Is it the best platform for developing new webservers? I think that while there is a desire to be that platform, there is one thing standing in the way. Sun. Sun seems to still have a "not invented here" attitude in certain areas. > > If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward > > > > to the next level, what would that next level look like? > > > > > > Going forward that is for us to create. In the beginning it would look > > alot like SXCE. (Plus and minus) > > Agree 110% > SXCE is a good start, but only a start. We agree. I add to this that the installation and packaging should be flexible enough to allow building a root image that just has a kernel and bootstrapping code, all the way to a full "fat" OS with a, Ubuntu universe like, collection of applications and tools. As you selected applications, the dependency data could trace dependencies all the way to the kernel module level. There would also be the option to build from pre-designed OS templates, e.g. - "Full OS - FOSS only" or "Full OS - FOSS+". brian From brian.gupta at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 14:43:01 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 17:43:01 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706041407s6c9d17aay19a30541ab91d8eb@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> <5b5090780706041407s6c9d17aay19a30541ab91d8eb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5b5090780706041443y7f0b783bkffa883545fdf5288@mail.gmail.com> On 6/4/07, Richard Elling wrote: > perl is the poster child... see below... > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > On 6/3/07, *Richard Elling* > > wrote: > > > > Brian Gupta wrote: > > > Joseph, > > > > > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. > > > > > > Primary Drivers: > > > ---------------------- > > > 1) There is a desire for a minimal/core OpenSolaris distro, that > > other > > > distro packagers can leverage to create their own distros. Building a > > > distro from this core *may*, in the future, allow other distros > > to also > > > be hosted at OpenSolaris.org. This OS core must, for the sake of > > > practicality, allow layers to be added on top to get to Nevada. > > > > I think this is the wrong model. If you presume that layers can be > > built > > upon each other to arrive at a end application, then you risk > > missing the > > application's requirements. In truth, application requirements should > > drive the distro, but the interdependencies are often unknown, and > > perhaps > > unknowable. Perhaps this is the problem you are trying to solve? > > Or are you just confusing modular with layered? > > > > > > I suppose I do mean modular. In particular I an referring to the ON > > consolidation. As I understand, the whole of ON is required to build a > > distro today. This seems odd to an outsider like myself, because Perl is > > in ON. Although there is talk of moving Perl outside of ON, it seems > > unlikely as other components within ON that rely on Perl. Saying for a > > moment that I am a distro builder. What if the driver for my distro > > doesn't need Perl, how do I go about removing it? (I am probably > > completely missing something simple, please forgive). Also when you say > > that application requirements should drive the distro, I think it's > > pretty clear, that we are talking about multiple drivers, that include, > > but are not limited to application requirements. > > [ignore the history that sys admins used to claim that they would not install > Solaris because it didn't include perl] Well, I think what sysadmins wanted was official support for Perl so that they could write scripts in Perl, and know that it was a stable method. (Vs. sh scripting). There was no need to include this in ON. > kstat is written in perl and is part of the Extended System Utilities package > which also includes awk, compress, sort, and friends. So if you did a simple > dependency graph, it is likely that a system administrator would want awk, > therefore requiring perl. This is just one example of how interdependent > complexity is a real problem and why thinking of software in layers will > cause trouble. Ideally the minimum would include a kernel, and nothing else. Obviously this is not particularly usable, so there should be an easy option to add modules and the busybox shell that is currently being developed within the opensolaris community. > > > 2) Currently their is no Open development platform. The only allowed > > > development platform is, a closed source, proprietary platform: Sun > > > Solaris (Express). Ideally guardianship for this development platform > > > should be moved into the community. (Yes this seems in opposition to > > > bullet #1, but keep reading) This is a "Free Speech" issue, which > > not > > > everyone cares about, but it is an important facet of the open source > > > movement. (After all it's not FreeSolaris.org). In addition by not > > > prioritizing this the status quo is likely to continue for some > > time. > > > (IE: Why fix "what isn't broken"? We need to put out a slightly > > impaired > > > totally open source distro. If the missing closed source > > functionality > > > turns out to be important, open source replacements are going to > > be made. > > > > This doesn't make sense to me. I kinda like NVidia (and other) > > products, > > which will likely be closed source for a very, very long time. Why > > would > > we handicap Solaris by not having NVidia support? OTOH, if the > > approach > > is to encourage open source, then that is a different task, and one that > > seems to be already in progress. At the end of the day, consumers want > > something that works, and limited resources may be best spent making > > things > > work. > > > > > > Well, for one, Article Two of the OpenSolaris.org constitution expressly > > forbids this. This is why I had another bullet that talked about > > developing a standard methodology, that all distros could leverage, for > > downloading and installing *optional* closed source packages, as part of > > the install process. > > > > As for "only allowed development platform," I've never known those > > words > > to have any affect on a developer, except in Redmond ;-). > > > > > > Well, I was told that to contribute to NV, I had to be running on SXCE > > latest minus 2 or better. > > Contributors should be aiming for the current target, no? Let me try and say this again. Are we contributing to Solaris or OpenSolaris. The current structure blurs the line and confuses the issue. I'd like to think we are contributing to Open Solaris. Second best would be a clear understanding that we are contributing to Solaris. The hazy distinction as it currently exists is not ideal. > > The barrier is complexity and I don't see how this proposal makes > > things > > simpler. How can we make things simpler? > > > > > > Complexity? It is more an issue of unfamiliarity, and a lack of bundled > > ecosystem. Part of designing and building this distro, would include > > building an ecosystem around the distro. When I install OpenSolaris, why > > is there not an option to grab "cc"? Why is there no standard > > OpenSolaris repository of packages? (How can this be "developed" without > > a real world implementation?) > > If the proposal is to repackage everything, then that has a completely > different set of constraints. This gets revisited every other year or so. > For current Solaris customers, there are many constraints, which is why > it is what it is. Ok let us start the conversation regarding these constraints. As a current Solaris customer, I am not aware of any constraints. I am assuming that it will still be possible to take all the granular packages and build a full OS with them. Does the fact that ON is one package vs twenty(arbitrary example) really make that much of a difference, when it comes to customer constraints? > > > 3) Current HW requirements are a bit on the high end. I can't run > > this > > > on an old 386, or for that matter on an old P/PII I have lying > > around. > > > And the thought is that Sun wouldn't include such projects in it's > > > Solaris distribution, for ecconomic and support reasons. Ideally > > Solaris > > > should be able to run on a 386 w/ 4MB of RAM (High end I know) > > > Realistically let's call the target i486DX, 8MB RAM, and 200MB > > HD. The > > > community can determine the supported hardware list. > > > > Stop global warming! Stop running old, weak, power-hungry > > computers! :-) > > > > > > If you are comparing CPUPower/Watt you are correct. From a chassis/watt > > perspective, many older computers had much lower power profiles. > > > > But more seriously, there was an effort, about 18 years ago, to shrink > > SunOS down so that you could run it on a 4 MByte workstation. The > > compromises > > made took years to undo, even as the technology evolved such that you > > can't buy machines that small anymore. We've been living with the warts > > from this effort for a long time. I see this as struggle of moving > > forward > > versus backward, along the technology curve. The horse and buggy was > > eventually replaced by the automobile, but it took a long time to make > > automobiles not look like buggies. My recommendation is to not look at > > going backwards as a feature, it has little real market value. > > > > > > Hmm... I think you are missing something if you think that the primary > > driver behind the Open Source(Linux) movement was/is "market value". > > From my perspective, it was intellectual curiosity, needs to fill a > > functions for oneself or ones group (then giving that code away for > > others to leverage and enhance), geek factor, altruism, and > > pride/recognition (etc). All that market value stuff, is build on this > > as an afterthought. > > You are nicely describing a market and I think you are trying to describe > the requirements of that market. Meanwhile, young Linus Torvalds was hacking on a tiny kernel, just a toy. He announced it on comp.os.minix: I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. Also see http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch02s03.html for some historical info > > Also, could you link me to a page that might > > "explain the warts"? > > Hmmm... that would require a lot of work to assemble. All of the fixes > implemented so far are in the bug database and ARC cases. The fundamental > problem is that if you are counting every byte, then you make structures > too small, spend too many CPU cycles managing small bits of memory, and > performance suffers when you have a lot of memory. I think it is safe to > say that machines will have more memory in the future, not less. Why not make page sizes configurable at boot? It would be a pretty powerful feature. (As it is with Linux I think you have to recompile the kernel to change page sizes). > > Incidentally, I happen to own 30 horses and 3 buggies, it is a fun > > hobby, > > but I don't think we're targeting hobbiests, are we? > > > > > > Ok then, who exactly are we targeting? In my thought, we need to win > > back the educational, hobbyist and research hearts and minds. > > (OpenSolaris, not Solaris). > > Hey, you made the proposal, you should be able to identify the market. Please don't play these word games. I assumed you were including yourself when you said "we're targeting". I in fact took "we're" to mean Sun, and possibly the OpenSolaris community as a whole. > > > 4) Sun (Ian/Indiana/Others) wants a second Solaris distro that > > will be > > > the Fedora to Sun's RHEL (Solaris). They wish to do this and > > still leave > > > a clear migration path from one distro to another. (Unlike Fedora). > > > > Yes! I think we can all get behind this sort of vision. But making > > a better > > Fedora than Fedora may not be the best strategy. We can be more > > clever than > > that. > > > > > > Exactly. I just used Fedora as an analogy. Being more clever is very > > good. Let's start talking about what this means. > > Yes. New thread needed. This thread is that thread to discuss. Feel free to let us know some of the things that would make our model better? > > > Although this may be considered a commercial driver outside of the > > > community, let's keep in mind who makes the community possible. I > > as a > > > member of the community want to see our host prosper, and > > continue to be > > > able to provide support to our community. (If this was a Linux > > vendor > > > launching a new community distro, there wouldn't be nearly as much > > > opposition) > > > > I don't think you're seeing opposition to a new distro. I think you're > > seeing a recognition that yet-another-distro doesn't necessarily solve > > the long-term problem of building the best platform for innovation. > > > > > > Can you elaborate what you mean by this? (best platform for innovation). > > In my vision, Solaris is the best platform for innovation. Wanna develop new > software? Solaris. Wanna deploy a big friggin' database? Solaris. Wanna > build clusters? Solaris. ... I don't think you can make such an ambitious statement. e.g. Is Solaris the best platform for innovation in the embedded space? Is it the best platform for Smartphones? (Even Sun is advocating Linux here). Is it the best platform, for deploying nouveau clustering? Is it the best platform for developing new webservers? I think that while there is a desire to be that platform, there is one thing standing in the way. Sun. Sun seems to still have a "not invented here" attitude in certain areas. > > If we accept the vision of a distro that can take OpenSolaris forward > > > > to the next level, what would that next level look like? > > > > > > Going forward that is for us to create. In the beginning it would look > > alot like SXCE. (Plus and minus) > > Agree 110% > SXCE is a good start, but only a start. We agree. I add to this that the installation and packaging should be flexible enough to allow building a root image that just has a kernel and bootstrapping code, all the way to a full "fat" OS with a, Ubuntu universe like, collection of applications and tools. As you selected applications, the dependency data could trace dependencies all the way to the kernel module level. There would also be the option to build from pre-designed OS templates, e.g. - "Full OS - FOSS only" or "Full OS - FOSS+". brian From Moinak.Ghosh at Sun.COM Tue Jun 5 00:19:20 2007 From: Moinak.Ghosh at Sun.COM (Moinak Ghosh) Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:49:20 +0530 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> <5b5090780706041407s6c9d17aay19a30541ab91d8eb@mail.gmail.com> <5b5090780706041443y7f0b783bkffa883545fdf5288@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46650E78.7010801@sun.com> Shawn Walker wrote: > On 04/06/07, Brian Gupta wrote: >> Ideally the minimum would include a kernel, and nothing else. >> Obviously this is not particularly usable, so there should be an easy >> option to add modules and the busybox shell that is currently being >> developed within the opensolaris community. > > That's where I think you strip out all of the value of Solaris. > Solaris, unlike Linux, is more than just a kernel. It's a complete > operating system. When you bring it down to just a kernel, you've lost > a lot of value. I strongly discourage that usage though people are > certainly welcome to on their own. > I tend to agree with this. Solaris is a platform that also embodies a lot of platform standards. Regards, Moinak. From Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM Tue Jun 5 05:17:15 2007 From: Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM (Mark Phalan) Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:17:15 +0200 Subject: [approach-discuss] Requst for contributor status Message-ID: <1181045835.25384.4.camel@phalan> In the immediate term it would allow me to use the beta of http://cr.opensolaris.org (I'm currently using cr.grommit.com). Eventually I would like to be nominated as a core contributor so I can participate in elections etc. I've made the following contributions to opensolaris: * I'm one of the founders/project leaders of the Fuse project (http://opensolaris.org/os/project/fuse/), helping to co-ordinate and organize our development efforts. * I'm one of the active developers on the OpenSolaris Fuse project * Created and maintain the opensolaris Kerberos pages at: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/security/projects/kerberos/ * As a Sun employee I've done a number of (Kerberos related) putbacks into opensolaris. Cheers, -Mark From brian.gupta at gmail.com Tue Jun 5 06:31:01 2007 From: brian.gupta at gmail.com (Brian Gupta) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 09:31:01 -0400 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <20070605074209.GK14245@cr> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> <46630651.10102@sun.com> <5b5090780706040743k63e10b05gc4e5b713bb9744e6@mail.gmail.com> <466448B7.7070304@sun.com> <5b5090780706041407s6c9d17aay19a30541ab91d8eb@mail.gmail.com> <5b5090780706041443y7f0b783bkffa883545fdf5288@mail.gmail.com> <20070605074209.GK14245@cr> Message-ID: <5b5090780706050631m63031db3t22b234e47642ad1f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/5/07, Mads Toftum wrote: > > On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 09:06:11PM -0500, Shawn Walker wrote: > > That's where I think you strip out all of the value of Solaris. > > Solaris, unlike Linux, is more than just a kernel. It's a complete > > operating system. When you bring it down to just a kernel, you've lost > > a lot of value. I strongly discourage that usage though people are > > certainly welcome to on their own. > > > Strongly agreed. Stripping Solaris that far down, much of the > compatibility between versions would be going away as well. Not good at > all. I understand your concerns. I am not proposing that this be the default. It will just be one set of many "sets" with the default being at least "baseline compatible" This goal for having smaller packages can also be considered a long term goal. I think it will be very useful in jump starting the appliance community. However, I do not want this one thing to be a sticking point. What do you suggest as the smallest build option? -Brian P.S. - I included appliances discuss to see if they have any interest in a mini build with not much more than a kernel.. and a shell environment. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Darren.Reed at Sun.COM Fri Jun 8 16:32:24 2007 From: Darren.Reed at Sun.COM (Darren.Reed at Sun.COM) Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:32:24 -0700 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [security-discuss] Requst for contributor status In-Reply-To: <1181045835.25384.4.camel@phalan> References: <1181045835.25384.4.camel@phalan> Message-ID: <4669E708.7020409@Sun.COM> Mark Phalan wrote: >In the immediate term it would allow me to use the beta of > http://cr.opensolaris.org (I'm currently using cr.grommit.com). > >Eventually I would like to be nominated as a core contributor >so I can participate in elections etc. > >I've made the following contributions to opensolaris: > >* I'm one of the founders/project leaders of the Fuse project >(http://opensolaris.org/os/project/fuse/), helping to co-ordinate > and organize our development efforts. > >* I'm one of the active developers on the OpenSolaris Fuse project > >* Created and maintain the opensolaris Kerberos pages at: > http://opensolaris.org/os/community/security/projects/kerberos/ > >* As a Sun employee I've done a number of (Kerberos related) putbacks > into opensolaris. > > +1 I didn't see any +1's in the security-discuss (and nor am I a "leader" there), but I'll give you a +1 simply because I believe you shouldn't have to through this step - you should have this capability "anyway". Darren From rac at eastlink.ca Mon Jun 11 23:24:44 2007 From: rac at eastlink.ca (MC) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:24:44 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <19565810.1181629514562.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> I enjoy this thread. Keep up the good work, Brian :) This message posted from opensolaris.org From Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM Tue Jun 12 06:26:13 2007 From: Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM (Mark Phalan) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:26:13 +0200 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [security-discuss] Requst for contributor status In-Reply-To: <4669E708.7020409@Sun.COM> References: <1181045835.25384.4.camel@phalan> <4669E708.7020409@Sun.COM> Message-ID: <1181654773.19915.10.camel@phalan> On Fri, 2007-06-08 at 16:32 -0700, Darren.Reed at Sun.COM wrote: > Mark Phalan wrote: > > >In the immediate term it would allow me to use the beta of > > http://cr.opensolaris.org (I'm currently using cr.grommit.com). > > > >Eventually I would like to be nominated as a core contributor > >so I can participate in elections etc. > > > >I've made the following contributions to opensolaris: > > > >* I'm one of the founders/project leaders of the Fuse project > >(http://opensolaris.org/os/project/fuse/), helping to co-ordinate > > and organize our development efforts. > > > >* I'm one of the active developers on the OpenSolaris Fuse project > > > >* Created and maintain the opensolaris Kerberos pages at: > > http://opensolaris.org/os/community/security/projects/kerberos/ > > > >* As a Sun employee I've done a number of (Kerberos related) putbacks > > into opensolaris. > > > > > > +1 > Thanks. > I didn't see any +1's in the security-discuss (and nor am I > a "leader" there), but I'll give you a +1 simply because I > believe you shouldn't have to through this step - you should > have this capability "anyway". > As far as I understand, "leader" just means someone who can edit the webpages (I am in fact already a "leader" of the security community despite not being officially a "contributor"). I'm not sure exactly how this process works so I'm sending this on to ogb-discuss. ogb-discuss: Is one nomination enough? ogb-discuss: Where do I go from here? Cheers, -Mark > Darren > > _______________________________________________ > security-discuss mailing list > security-discuss at opensolaris.org From Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM Tue Jun 12 06:32:30 2007 From: Mark.Phalan at Sun.COM (Mark Phalan) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:32:30 +0200 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [security-discuss] Requst for contributor status Message-ID: <1181655150.19915.15.camel@phalan> /Resending as I wasn't subscribed to ogb-discuss/ On Fri, 2007-06-08 at 16:32 -0700, Darren.Reed at Sun.COM wrote: > Mark Phalan wrote: > > >In the immediate term it would allow me to use the beta of > > http://cr.opensolaris.org (I'm currently using cr.grommit.com). > > > >Eventually I would like to be nominated as a core contributor > >so I can participate in elections etc. > > > >I've made the following contributions to opensolaris: > > > >* I'm one of the founders/project leaders of the Fuse project > >(http://opensolaris.org/os/project/fuse/), helping to co-ordinate > > and organize our development efforts. > > > >* I'm one of the active developers on the OpenSolaris Fuse project > > > >* Created and maintain the opensolaris Kerberos pages at: > > http://opensolaris.org/os/community/security/projects/kerberos/ > > > >* As a Sun employee I've done a number of (Kerberos related) putbacks > > into opensolaris. > > > > > > +1 > Thanks. > I didn't see any +1's in the security-discuss (and nor am I > a "leader" there), but I'll give you a +1 simply because I > believe you shouldn't have to through this step - you should > have this capability "anyway". > As far as I understand, "leader" just means someone who can edit the webpages (I am in fact already a "leader" of the security community despite not being officially a "contributor"). I'm not sure exactly how this process works so I'm sending this on to ogb-discuss. ogb-discuss: Is one nomination enough? ogb-discuss: Where do I go from here? Cheers, -Mark > Darren > > _______________________________________________ > security-discuss mailing list > security-discuss at opensolaris.org From satish.nandihalli at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 03:05:14 2007 From: satish.nandihalli at gmail.com (satish s nandihalli) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:05:14 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] Need to make a product to run automatically on boot. Message-ID: <19643573.1181815544199.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> Hi all, I recently used livemedia kit to bring up a product from a DVD. But i need to run the exe file after the live DVD boots. How could i make this come up automatically. Could anyone point me to some similar scripts in other similar softwares or give hints on the method to be carried out. Thanks, Satish This message posted from opensolaris.org From satish.nandihalli at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 03:12:31 2007 From: satish.nandihalli at gmail.com (satish s nandihalli) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:12:31 PDT Subject: [approach-discuss] need to integrate a display-driver pkg with liveDVD Message-ID: <16890053.1181815981940.JavaMail.Twebapp@oss-app1> Hi experts, I have a live destro for a product which requires gui. The display driver for the machine i am using is not present in Solaris 11 aswell. How could i manually integrate the driver pkg with the live Destro. This message posted from opensolaris.org From jek3 at sun.com Wed Jun 27 17:17:49 2007 From: jek3 at sun.com (Joseph Kowalski) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:17:49 -1000 Subject: [approach-discuss] Re: [sfwnv-discuss] Why we should have an OpenSolaris Hosted binary set. [OSH-thread] In-Reply-To: <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> References: <5b5090780706010811g7bce1cd5w15080f745593c957@mail.gmail.com> <46609887.9020208@sun.com> <5b5090780706021946y6b13e4f4o953b9fac780f65e9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4682FE2D.1000101@sun.com> Brian Gupta wrote: > Joseph, > > I have made an effort to incorporate your comments into a new list. .... Sorry to contribute to the discussion and then disappear. I found my way into the hospital and now just getting back into the e-mail. All I was trying to do was focus on the concept. Judging from the resultant thread, the concept(s) seem to being coming into focus. There seems to be different views on as to if OpenSolaris should be more of a distro, or more of a technology. I think this is a good topic I hope to hear more about. I am sorry that I spent too many words talking about wimpy processors and such. I'm sorry this distracted from the real meat of the discussion. (And its just a project, for whatever distro or technology). - cheers, - jek3