[opensolaris-summit] Brandorr's comments on proposed Summit topics

[Alan DuBoff]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, Philip Brown wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 10:25:13PM -0700, Alan DuBoff wrote:
>> ... For a long time I've hoped that we would see open source software 
>> install in /usr/bin:/usr/sbin as it should, but it's not clear if 
>> Indiana will take things to that extent yet. But I did sit in the 
>> session that was given at IDF today in San Francisco, and I got the 
>> impression that Ian could be thinking that way (and if so, I would 
>> support that thought;-).
>
> My opinion on that, is that it should depend on "who do you call, for an 
> 'indiana' system, if something in /usr/bin breaks?"

I have a really tweaked vision from the way things are currently done at 
Sun, and I'm sure many folks won't agree with the way I see things, but 
from my perspective that is simple.

Sun basically sells support, something they're not great at today, but 
that will need to change.

If you don't pay, you go to somewhere like here, or other place on the 
inet (yahoogroups, usenet, etc...). Pay $x and you can call a live body to 
talk your problem through with, but it doesn't get any resolution per se, 
other than the bug can get logged if it does exist.

Pay $xx and get the ability to have updates over the wire for a year.

Pay $xxx, Sun will not only work the issure with you, they will provide a 
live body to look into and/or fix the problem. People could get help in 
broken software, not in the sense that Sun would provide broken software 
that people need to pay for to get fixed, but more so that the Sun 
engineer will work with the open source code and/or folks to resolve it.

Pay $xxxx, Sun will develop and extend open source software for you. This 
is very much in the professional services realm.

> There is still some fuziness in my mind, as to what indiana is.

Don't feel bad, there is in my mind also. Each time I attend one of Ian's 
presentation, things are becoming more clear, and I thought he gave a 
pretty good presentation at IDF this week.

To me it looks like Sun is going to be working towards providing a binary 
distribution that will update over the wire, and includes all of the open 
source software you would expect in today's climate.

> Even if indiana is supposed to be a more "do it yourself" option, I 
> could still envision some situationally dependant reasons where 
> "everything goes in /usr/bin" may not be the best choice.

I personally think Nexenta got a lot of things right. The one thing I 
don't like is that is has a GNU personality by default. I really need to 
have SysV compatibility, first and foremost for OpenSolaris to provide 
backward compatibility to S10 and before. However, Indiana will most 
likely only install to ZFS, I hope my understanding is correct about that 
because I think ZFS is one of the best technologies that Sun has at the 
moment. This evolution in inevitable, IMO.

I also don't think that Sun is the only player in this space, and others 
such as Blastwave could offer their own distribution and provide their own 
support, just as Sun does, just like Nexenta could, Belenix could, 
Shillix, Martux, etc...or OTOH, they could just continue to be what they 
are and not offer support.

> That is to say, even if Sun is not the force behind "supporting" an 
> indiana based install.. SOMEONE/some group/forum will be. For that 
> entity, there will still be value for knowing something about what to 
> expect from stuff in /usr/bin.

I think Indiana will be a product that Sun will offer support for.

I don't forsee Sun offering support for all other OpenSolaris 
distributions though.

> 1. this user just "happened" to have installed some experimental version 
> of grep in /usr/bin, instead of the usual debian package

That's ok with me, pony up to the $xxx plan and you'll get a live body to 
help you figure that out.

> 2. this version of grep has some bugs or altered functionality in edge
>  cases

That's ok also, pony up to the $xxxx program and an engineer will look at 
it and help assist in getting it to work.

At some point, should the use be willing to pay, Sun can work on resolving 
it on a per hour basis, just as professional services have been done for 
ages.

> 3. This other version was what caused [foo] to not work right.

That's ok also, foo was covered in the $xxxx plan <wink>, but in the 
$xxxxx plan maybe you can get 2 engineers, or the $xxxxxx plan.

At some point, just like everything else in life, we find what is feasable 
to us and/or fits within our budget. For those that can wait and/or find 
their own workaround, the open source software will work fine for them.

Sun can also have releases of Indiana that are considered stable, for 
instance, and if people need more feature and/or function, they can add 
updates to it, you can get that in my $xxx plan above!;-)

> If you dont set up some kind of expectation of, "dont muck with bin like 
> that", then messes like that will be bound to happen.

I'm fine with that happening, if the user wants Sun to help, cough up for 
support, or shut up and find a resolution yourself. The sources are there, 
as they say!;-)

> In the case of Debian, even though I'm not aware of any explicit rule 
> against that sort of thing... I think the person would be lambasted for 
> wasting peoples time. There is some amount of expectation that "a debian 
> system", would have the debian version of grep installed.

That is bound to happen in the opensolaris community and actually we've 
seen quite a few flame-ups happen on this very list over controversial 
issues.

> In the case of Indiana... I think it would be beneficial to have some 
> kind of explicit statement of what to expect from /usr/bin, and what 
> kinds of things should be installed "elsewhere". (and where "elsewhere" 
> should be!) In addition to avoiding timewasters like the above, i think 
> it would help to build confidence in what to expect from "Indiana".

Why so? I think that whatever Sun decides, it's their product and 
ultimately the folks that will want to use it will not care about much of 
that. They really don't care if it's in /usr/bin, /opt/sfw/, or 
/usr/local/your/mamma/wears/army/boots...if that makes sense. They just 
want to use their software to check their mail and surf the web in most 
cases.

> But, all this again depends on what exactly Indiana is supposed to be.

I agree, it's been morphing, and I think it's heading in the right 
direction.

Will you be at the summit?

A lot has happened over the past 5-6 years, heh? Solaris x86 is more of a 
contender today than it ever has been. When we get AcroRead, the world 
should rejoice!<wink> (I did say *when*, because I believe that it will 
be here at some point)

--

Alan DuBoff - Those without dreams will never have dreams come true...