[ug-discuss] Re: [osol-mktg] Sponsor Project Indiana

[Eric Boutilier]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2007, Venky wrote:
>>> You are saying that the other OpenSolaris based distributions
>>> are created outside the OpenSolaris community?  Is this
>>> by virtue of them having their own websites and distribution
>>> mechanisms?
>>
>> Yes, and most importantly their own discussion mechanisms (if any).
>> The actual tasks of defining and constructing the distributions (a
>> combination of editorial decision and engineering activity) are
>> conducted elsewhere than opensolaris.org by people who are indeed
>> members of the OpenSolaris community.
>>
>> The main novelty of the various proposals for an OpenSolaris
>> distribution including the Indiana proposal is to have at least one
>> distribution constructed collaboratively inside the community. I
>> believe the key factor here is transparent decision-making.
>
> All or most of the current distributions have transparent
> decision-making.  They just don't happen to have dedicated lists
> on opensolaris.org.  Most of the decisions for BeleniX happen on
> the ug-bosug at opensolaris.org list, for instance.  If all it takes
> to become an official OpenSolaris distribution is to have a
> dedicated mailing list, maybe the BeleniX team should ask one.
>
> Come to think of it, it might be a good idea anyway to have
> distro-specific mailing lists on opensolaris.org.
>
>>> Was the OpenSolaris website even equiped to handle such a download
>>> and was that perhaps the reason that those other distributions
>>> went elsewhere?
>>
>> I believe that the resources necessary for building a distribution
>> are available on opensolaris.org, although the resources needed to
>> sustain it (mainly a repository for hosting the package system I
>> think) are not. It's perfectly possible some tuning and refactoring
>> will be necessary as whatever system we all create gains momentum.
>
> Most of the distributions (SchilliX, BeleniX and probably even
> Nexenta) started before the OpenSolaris website was capable of
> supporting them.  That shouldn't make them any less worthy of
> being called OpenSolaris distributions.

+1000 (on all counts).

Eric