[indiana-discuss] Distro proliferation and causes of incompatibility (Was: Name of Distro?)

[Eric Boutilier]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Ian Murdock wrote:
> The divide here seems to be that OpenSolaris started life as "Solaris'
> kernel.org" as opposed to the "community version of Solaris". So,
> rather than creating a single binary distribution to begin with,
> Sun released the source code to the kernel and some other pieces above
> the kernel, built a "distribution" around it called Solaris, and
> encouraged (or at least didn't discourage) others to build distros too.
>
> In my view, that was a mistake. First of all, I'm not sure what
> having multiple distros buys us. Some here have suggested that
> multiple distros is what made Linux succeed where others (e.g., FreeBSD)
> didn't. I disagree--Linux took off before there was any concept of a
> distro (I know, I built one of the first ones, and it was done
> to accelerate something that already had traction). The reason
> Linux took off had more to do with the BSD lawsuit than anything
> else. There were other reasons too, but that was the main one.
>
> I _do_ know the downside of having multiple distributions:
> incompatibility. The vast majority of the world sees Linux as a single
> platform, but in reality it's a collection of about five _mostly_
> compatible platforms.

I totally agree as I think everyone does. that is indeed a problem in the
Linux world, but it's intrinsically less of a concern here (way, *way*
less, IMO).

In short, in OpenSolaris land, the existing standard base of compatibility
is a completelely different animal than Linus' is:

In terms of Linux, the attributes of the base (Linus' kernel project) led
to all those incompatible distros. By contrast, the intrinsic attributes of
our existing base and the environment from which it generates (which I
trust you've noted are radically different/better in this regard) leads to
far more, though admitedly not absolute, unification and compatibility
across distros and other projects, IMO.

Eric

> Mostly compatible doesn't cut it in the world of SLAs though. 
> 
> How many people know that DesktopBSD is a FreeBSD distribution that
> may be more suited to first-comers? Probably not very many outside the
> BSD community, because the "official" FreeBSD distro monopolized the
> name. So people come to try out FreeBSD and think it makes a horrible
> desktop and jump back to Linux, even though they might've become
> hardcore fBSD users had they just started with the other one.
> 
> What if someone in the community makes a fabulous desktop distribution
> that's even better than what Indiana comes up with, but people still
> download the Official OpenSolaris(tm) Distro because hey, it's the one
> that carries the trademark...
> 
> 
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The problem isn't users wondering "Where do I download Linux?" 
> as some have correctly pointed out is a non-issue. That was the
> problem we solved in the early '90s when we created the first distros.
> The problem today is, say, the ISV wanting to target "Linux". Ok.
> What distributions? Keep in mind that from a support point of view each
> distribution costs as much to support as a wholly different OS. _Mostly_
> compatible doesn't cut it. I'm very surprised this argument
> doesn't resonate better around here. Do we really want that for Solaris?
>
> -ian
> -- 
> Ian Murdock
> 650-331-9324
> http://ianmurdock.com/
>
> "Don't look back--something might be gaining on you." --Satchel Paige
>