[osol-mktg] Re: [ug-discuss] Community Consolidation -- Marketing & UGs

[Kaiwai Gardiner]

>
> > Which brings a bigger question - does OpenSolaris need a home grown
> > community distribution along the lines of Fedora or OpenSuSE given the
> > current dearth of a distribution community? the current OpenSolaris
> Express
>
> If there's to be a homegrown distribution, it should be just that,
> homegrown. A community needs to step up and do it, if Sun does it, it
> really isn't "homegrown."


Sun needs to set it up, then gradually hand it over to a 'maintainance'
community who will keep the packages up to date, akin to the package
maintainers you seen in the FreeBSD ports tree, for example.

> CE respins are nice, but for those who aren't familar with OpenSolaris,
> the
> > idea of downloading something that changes every 2 weeks can be a
> daunting
> > experience - if there is a release, must I upgrade it? where does it
> leave
>
> That's what Solaris Developer Express is for. It's updated quarterly,
> not every two weeks.


True, but it doesn't address the issue of security updates, for example.

> me if I stay? which is why I bought up the idea of a community based
> > respository where by releases can be made available not only in iso
> form,
> > but 'apt-get' respository like form as to allow those who are unfamilar
> to
> > remain 'up to date' without a constant cycle of re-install and
> disruption
> > that goes with the territory.
>
> The whole update thing has been brought up before by others. Doing it
> should be a community project though. I don't think anyone should
> expect Sun to do it given the costs involved. There are of course many
> issues to overcome, including redistribution and licensing rights to
> some of the materials included in Solaris Express, as well as possible
> technological hurdles.
>
> I don't think the average Solaris developer will be interested in a
> version of Solaris that is akin to break-my-gentoo ;)
>
> I think the main point is that if this issue is to be addressed, the
> community needs to address it. There is no excuse for them not to,
> after all, Sun has already spent millions (very likely) on this
> project (beginning from its inception); its only fair the community
> gives back something.



Sun doesn't need to maintain it for the long term, but to alteast setup a
server, get that new boffin thats just been hired to get an apt-get srv5 pkg
thing going. Maintain it and gradually hand over control to the community;
have mentors in Sun to train up those in the community in how to create
packages, as they do in the FreeBSD community with new ports maintainers.

Setup a process, a testing, unstable and stable when it comes to updating
packages; if it is a security update, it is fast tracked from unstable to
stable; if it is a 'update' - libxml has been updated by x.x.1 then the
transition may need to be slower.

Matthew
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