[dtrace-discuss] Re: Questions for OGB Candidates from DTrace

[Stephen Lau]

Hi Bryan & the DTrace Community,
> Licensing Questions:
> 
> - DTrace is one of only a small handful of OpenSolaris technologies that
>   has actually been incorporated into other operating systems.  Thus,
>   your position on dual-licensing is very important to us; what is your 
>   position on dual-licensing in general?

In general, I have yet to see a project where dual-licensing has helped.
It didn't work for OpenOffice certainly.  All licenses have evils - dual
licensing only doubles the evils.

Dual-licensing only increases the likelihood of driving a rift in
between the community.  Distributors could choose to license their
changes solely under once license thus rendering it unavailable to the
distributors who license under the other.  It seems to me that it would
be doing a major disservice to the OpenSolaris Community.

> - Do you agree with the conclusions and decrees of CAB/OGB Position 
>   Paper # 20070207?

In general: yes.  I agree with the spirit of the paper.
In practice: I abhor the fact that the CAB felt the need to publish such
a paper.  I felt that it was unwarranted and unnecessary.

> - The OGB is responsible for the representation of OpenSolaris to 
>   third parties.  If a third party were to inquire about incorporating
>   DTrace into a GPL'd Program, what would be your response or position?

Depends... has OpenSolaris become GPL?  If it hasn't, then I would say
"piss off".  Though perhaps more nicely than that.

In all seriousness, I believe simplicity is better.  Simplifying the
OGB, simplifying licensing, and simplifying the community is a good
thing.  Part of this means an unwavering line-of-action on things where
people want "exceptions".  

Granting license exceptions is a slipper path we should not be walking
down.

> Constitutional Questions:
> 
> - DTrace is currently a Community Group, but some could argue that it would 
>   make more sense for DTrace to be a Project in (say) the Observability
>   Community Group.  In your mind, what is (or should be) the difference
>   between a Community Group and a Project -- and where should DTrace fall?

A project is a means to which develop code in a project-separate
repository until such time that projects are ready to integrate into
larger consolidations.  Communities are a more abstract grouping of
goals, ideas and projects.  It seems to me that DTrace should be a project
within the Observability group, yes.  This should not preclude
project-specific mailing lists (which are clearly still valuable after a
project has integrated), nor should it preclude additional related
project work from creating new successor projects.

> - The Draft Constitution says next-to-nothing about where the authority 
>   lies to make or accept changes to OpenSolaris -- only that Projects
>   operate at the behest of Community Groups, and that Community Groups
>   can be "terminated" by the OGB.  In your opinion, where does or should
>   this authority lie?  And do you believe that the Constitution should
>   or should not make this explicit?  Finally, under what grounds do you
>   believe that a Community Group should be "terminated"?

I've always believed the OGB should aspire to "govern less".  :-P
Community groups should only be terminated if they are actively doing
harm, or if they have gone dormant and have had no activity.

Yes, the OGB should wield that power - since communities are the basis
for governance.

> - The Draft Constitution says that Community Groups (and in particular,
>   the Community Groups' Facilitators) are responsible for "communicating
>   the Community Group's status to the OGB"; what does this mean to you?

It seems like a bug. 
How is the OGB to know that a group has gone dormant (as in the above
example)?  I don't envision a scenario where the community groups'
facilitators send the OGB an email saying "hey - we're not doing
anything here. just letting you know"

I think it perhaps makes sense to have an OGB-designated group of
volunteers (perhaps rotating) who periodically poll the various
communities to make sure things haven't gone idle.

But in terms of communicating status upstream from a presumably active
community to the OGB, the community group leaders makes the best sense.
i.e.: If the community wanted input from the OGB for some issue, then
it seems the most logical people to communicate said issue/status would
be the leaders.

(or did I misunderstand 'status' here?)

> - According to the Draft Constitution, "nominations to the office of
>   Facilitator shall be made by the Core Contributors of the Community
>   Group, but the OGB shall not be limited in their appointment to those
>   nominated."  Under what conditions do you believe that the selection of
>   a Facilitator would or could fall outside of the nominations made by
>   a Community Group's Core Contributors?

I can't imagine a scenario where the OGB should want to appoint someone
outside of the nominations provided by the community group's core
contributors.  It might make suggestions or provide suggestions for
mentors (i.e.: in the event that a newly created community has leaders
who might not have had leadership/facilitator experience and want some
guidance).

> - According to the Draft Constitution, "non-public discussion related to
>   the Community Group, such as in-person meetings or private communication,
>   shall not be considered part of the Community Group activities unless or
>   until a record of such discussion is made available via the normal meeting
>   mechanism."  In your opinion, in the context of a Community Group like
>   DTrace -- where a majority of the Core Contributors spend eight to ten
>   hours together every work day -- what does this mean?  Specifically, what
>   does it mean to be (or not to be) "considered part of the Community
>   Group activities"?  And in your opinion, what role does the OGB have in
>   auditing a Community Group's activities?

That's tough... the reality is the majority number of contributors
currently are employed by Sun - hallway conversations are a fact of
life.  I think the best effort we can make is to try and post some
periodic status/minutes of such conversations if they would involve or
influence the community at large.

Certainly I don't expect every engineer to post official minutes of all
such technical conversations in the hallway - but if it's a larger issue
or topic, then I think the community should be informed.

But overall - I would leave it up to the participants' judgement as to
what needs to be posted or not.  People will usually do the right thing.

> Potpourri:
> 
> - Historically, binary compatibility has been very important to Solaris,
>   having been viewed as a constraint on the evolution of technology.
>   However, some believe that OpenSolaris should not have such constraints,
>   and should be free to disregard binary compatibility.  What is your
>   opinion?

The OGB should never decide such an issue.
But my personal opinion is that innovation can be had while still
maintaining binary compatibility.  I don't see that it has stifled us in
the past (witness DTrace, Zones, ZFS, etc.)

That being said, more radical issues such as package management,
desktop, etc. can and should be given free rein to innovate and break
things if they want.  I don't see why such work couldn't happen on
opensolaris.org, and be layered on top of more "stable" components like
ON to form the basis for additional distributions to Sun Solaris.

> - If a third-party were to use and modify DTrace in a non-CDDL'd system, 
>   whose responsibility is it to assure that those modifications are
>   made public?  To put it bluntly:  is enforcing the CDDL an OGB issue?

No.  As long as Sun insists on owning the trademarks and protecting the
code, then Sun's lawyers should police that.  The OGB does not have the
means by which to sic a team of lawyers on someone.  

The OGB is a "governance board".  Not an "enforcement board".  

If OpenSolaris split off into a foundation with its own team of crack
lawyers, then sure - maybe it becomes an issue for the OGB to discuss,
though I would think in the event of such a foundation there would be
a separate "enforcement"/legal team for that.

> - Do you have an opinion on the patentability of software?  In particular,
>   what is the role of the OGB -- if any -- if Sun were to initiate legal
>   proceedings to protect a part of its software patent portfolio that
>   is represented in OpenSolaris?

It entirely depends on whether those legal proceedings involve, harm, or
help the community.  If they are enacted against someone in the
OpenSolaris community and would induce harm against the great community,
then I would think the OGB should stand up and protest or do whatever to
protect the community.

If said proceedings were enacted against someone who was violating the
CDDL or the terms of use for such code involved in the patent, then I
would say the OGB should give a "+1" to Sun legal.  ;-)

> - When you give public presentations, do you run OpenSolaris on your laptop?
>   Have you ever given a public demonstration of OpenSolaris technology?

Yup.  I've alternatively given presentations on Solaris Express
(currently running build 57) and Nexenta (dist-upgraded as of last
week) using StarOffice or OpenOffice.

I give demos predominantly on building and deploying OpenSolaris, how to
develop (i.e.: use the build environment), and on how to use Mercurial.

I've also in the past given demos of zones, BrandZ, ZFS, and of course
DTrace.

> - And an extra credit question:  Have you ever used DTrace?  When did you
>   most recently use it, and why?  The answers "just now" and "to answer
>   this question" will be awarded no points. ;)

Yup, though all my recent work has been involving SCM or tonic
operations stuff, so haven't had to use it for my day job recently.  My
probably most recent use has been in demos showing people how useful it
can be in drilling down to find an issue (i.e.: how to go from using
larger analysis tools like prstat, vmstat, truss to focusing down on
where to place more specific probes to get more info)

cheers,
steve

-- 
stephen lau // stevel at sun.com | 650.786.0845 | http://whacked.net
opensolaris // solaris kernel development