[indiana-discuss] Name of Distro?

Thu Jun 21 10:54:25 PDT 2007

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Chris Mahan wrote:
> I'm going to top post for once.
>
> I'm going to agree with Shawn this time. I feel Sun is keeping a leash on
> OpenSolaris so that people don't get the idea that they cam swoop in and
> take over the project.

In this regard, FWIW, as someone who is generally proud to be a Sun
employee, I'd like to echo and amplify what stevel said yesterday:

> ...
> I'm opposed to any action that makes Sun look like a prick
> who doesn't care about the community.  It reflects poorly on
> me, regardless of what hat I'm wearing.
>

Eric

>
> People say that Sun has every right to do that, and that we should feel
> grateful because Sun didn't have to open source the code the way they did.
> My reply to that is that Sun wants people like me and other linux fans to
> get on board the OpenSolaris bandwagon, so they should at least do the
> things that will get us to get on the bandwagons, rather than watching from
> the sideline (and maybe clapping once in a while).
>
> But I feel Sun can't fathom the day when Rick, Mike, and Jim (fictional
> characters all) reach out, take the code that's under CDDL, and pump out a
> polished, iso-ready distro called "The Ugly Step-Child", or TUSC for short,
> put it on sourceforge, and have screamingly fast servers in a few places
> serve x86 isos at 600KB/s. That day, people will scream and shout about
> forking and incompatibility, and all sorts of silly things. But The Ugly
> Step-Child might just work really well, and Rick, Mike and Jim might
> incorporate a foundation with a local lawyer for a few thousand dollars as
> the Ugly Step-Child Foundation and have a Ugly Step-Child Foundation
> Contributor Agreement, and take donations via PayPal, and put the source
> code in HG and let people hack away at the code in the middle of the night.
>
> Now, what would Sun do then, huh? Well, they could still fiddle with the
> license, making version 1.1 more difficult (since Sun is the License's
> steward (see http://www.sun.com/cddl/cddl.html section 4.1), so the Ugly
> Step-Child would have to, in order to protect itself from future
> shenanigans, limit their software to version 1.0 (can they do that?)
>
> But the other trick is that Sun would then not be able to take changes in
> The Ugly Step Child and incorporate them into Solaris (No Sun Contributor
> Agreement) and the Ugly Step Child would start to diverge more and more...
>
> Now, there's plenty of people out there who would say the fork would die.
> That may well be. But what if Rick, Mike and Jim really got their act
> together and did it well, and a community of several hundred people,
> including dis-illusionned ex-Sun engineers (they exist out there I am sure),
> rallied around them, make The Ugly Step-Child carrier-grade and user
> friendly at the same time, with spectacular package and patch management,
> with good driver support, and with full, completely open source code...
>
> But I'm dreaming. It would not happen. Because Sun is involved. At least in
> the license (which a fork could not change, not having a contributor
> agreement).
>
> And finally some people say that people only want a good binary and don't
> really care about the source code. That may be true for the majority of
> users, but these people already use Windows XP. The linux people Sun it
> trying to attract in general do care about the availability of the source
> code under a Free license. Even more so than stalwart Solaris admins out
> there.
>
> So I'm going to echo Shawn: this whole situation stinks of "if you're not
> with us your against us"-ism and Sun is "God" and we are mere mortals and
> when the Sun Priests speak, worshipers follow. Those who want that are
> waiting for OSX Leopard (aptly named I might say).
>
> What to do?
>
> Sun forms a foundation with a board that includes 5 members, only two being
> Sun employees, and funds then to the tune of 5-10 million dollars, then
> grants them copyright to the Open Solaris codebase, along with the
> OpenSolaris trademark. And maybe some servers.
>
> This would allow the foundation to change the license under which Open
> Solaris and derivatives might be offered under, and use the OpenSolaris
> trademark.
>
> Also, Sun should make changes to their stewardship of the CDDL.
>
> I don't mean to hijack the thread or start a flame war, but these are
> essentially deal-breakers for me as far as OpenSolaris is concerned.
>
>
> On 6/21/07, Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 21/06/07, Ian Murdock <Ian.Murdock at sun.com> wrote:
>> > compatible doesn't cut it. I'm very surprised this argument
>> > doesn't resonate better around here. Do we really want that for Solaris?
>> 
>> Your argument is irrelevant. The point is that the use of a trademark
>> under the control of Sun makes this a Sun project, not a community
>> project.
>> 
>> It also in turn makes the Indiana project appear to be no more than
>> the Fedora project is accused of being, a way for RedHat to get "free
>> labor" and testing.
>> 
>> If you want to avoid another mistake, then make this a community
>> project, not a Sun one. Otherwise, you will have lost a lot of respect
>> in the minds of many.
>> 
>> Even if this is successful once you do name it whatever it is that you
>> have apparently decided to do so by fiat, you will have only proved
>> that Sun could care less about the efforts of the community that is
>> already here and has already spent many hours creating distributions
>> that are great in their own right.
>> 
>> Quite frankly, I absolutely refuse to be involved with a project that
>> is little more than something run by a dictator and is not a community
>> project.
>> 
>> This project is turning more and more into something that appears to
>> be little more than a PR stunt by an employee as a representative of
>> Sun and I have never been more outraged in the two years that I have
>> been part of this community.
>> 
>> So far every decision and bit I've seen about this project has been
>> discussed, designed, and proposed all internally to Sun before anyone
>> in the community ever saw it. Not only that, every time the community
>> disagrees with any decision being made, it appears as if it doesn't
>> matter anyway since apparently Sun has decided to hire someone to
>> solve all of their problems completely ignoring what the community has
>> tried to accomplish with their own distributions.
>> 
>> The issue of compatibility is not one that will be solved by a name.
>> It is a technical problem, not a naming one.
>> 
>> --
>> "Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright
>> 
>> Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst
>> binarycrusader at gmail.com - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/
>> _______________________________________________
>> indiana-discuss mailing list
>> indiana-discuss at opensolaris.org
>> http://opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
>> 
>
>
>
> -- 
> Chris Mahan
> http://www.christophermahan.com/
> chris_mahan at yahoo.com
> chris.mahan at gmail.com
> cell 818.943.1850
>