[ug-bosug] OpenSolaris Binary Licence

[USM Bish]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2005 at 05:38:12PM +0500, Moinak Ghosh wrote:
> > I am not very clear on these Standards compliance issues. 
> > [some snipped]
> 
>    The interfaces  for the utilities -  behavioral semantics
>    and  syntax of  the command  line options  etc. are  also
>    governed by  standards like  SVID and SUSv3.  Internal to
>    SUN there are testsuites  that verify compliance to these
>    standards and any non-compliance is a bug.

Thanks for this info, Moinak. I  was not aware of the internal
Sun compliance issues. SVID compatibility, I am certain is not
built into GNU by design,  but, SUS (Single user Specs) surely
is. Since this is of importance to Solaris based things, it is
only appropriate that  requisite tools be built  with all such
considerations to replace proprietory binaries.

> 
> > If you  use gcc,  and specially glibc,  100% compatibility
> > with pure  Solarisbinaries may  stand broken,  whether you
> > like it  or not. The compatbility  is to be built  at more
> > core levels than userland utils and apps ...
> 
>    That  is upto  the user  if he  wants to  build a  custom
>    system he very well can  using OpenSolaris. Just get hold
>    of  whatever  sources  and  then  configure,  make,  make
>    install.

Yup,  this  is well  understandable.  Just  brought out  above
point since  compiling under  gcc and the  solaris development
platforms are both acceptable now.  

> 
>    Exactly.  No issues  if are  the tech-savvy  compile from
>    source guy. I might just  as well start with building the
>    kernel and everything above it.

The kernel comes quite late ... its binutils first ;-)

> 
>    And even  personally most  of the time  I find  it really
>    boring having to download and  build stuff. I'd just grab
>    a  latest  binary  package  and install  it.  But  binary
>    package on Linux is distro specific.

Yes, this is true, mainly for the rpm based distros. But most 
major distros have some version of  commonly used packages in 
their stable.

> 
>    The trouble  here is  that an average  SuSE user  will be
>    completely  lost  if he  is  suddenly  confronted with  a
>    Mandrake  system. We  do  not want  to  repeat this  with
>    OpenSolaris.

This  will never  happen to  OpenSolaris. OpenSolaris  is open
sourced to the  community but core control  still remains with
Sun.  The core  sections would  always stay  that way,  but at
'userland' levels things may digress.

> 
>    Why do you think standardisation will restrict freedom ? 

What I am  talking about is at the 'user  level', not the core
level of system  apps. To take a case in  point the developers
of  qt library  recommend qt  to be  installed under  /opt and
ld.so.conf duly modified. Check  out different distros and see
where they  lie. Why  do you  want to  take away  this freedom
?  The  configure  script  for most  apps  place  binaries  in
/usr/local but then different distros place these things under
/usr and othe places. All distros place mail spools under /var
but  then  people  handling mail  handle  things  differently,
varying upon load. Look at the variations in placement of docs
for  user apps.  If not  for these  variations, all  'distros'
would be the same ... a drab drab world, with the charm of the
'Start' button on Windows ;-) Though some like it that way!


> 
>  BTW porting glibc to OpenSolaris is a huge project I guess.

Don't try it ;-) Unless juggling with fire is a hobby ...

> 
>    Online manpages are available at  http://docs.sun.com
> 

Will go there. Thanks for the lead.

Bish
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