[LUAU] solaris day

[Jim Thompson]

On Jun 14, 2005, at 6:56 PM, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:

> Jim Thompson wrote:
>
>
>> The CDDL is yet another reason why the OSI (started by Perens,   
>> Raymond and others to "re-brand" Free Software) was a really bad  
>> (and dangerous) idea.
>>
>> I complained to Larry Rosen (who approved CDDL as an OSI- 
>> compliant  license) and others about this back at TPOSSCON.
>>
>> I'm concerned about "Free as in speech".  Its not clear that the  
>> CDDL  permits software Freedom.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>
> Aloha all, Larry is a good friend of mine.  His treatise "Open  
> Source Licensing" was about the only time he was able to make some  
> money from his long-time involvement in the so-called free software  
> movement.

I've spoken to Larry a couple times.  (It would be going way to far  
to call him a friend.)   IMO, he did more harm than good by assisting  
OSI in their quest to re-brand Free Software
and "make it safe for the business community"?    Doing so was never  
a primary concern of the LInux community.  Linus certainly doesn't care.

> Personally, I happen to like CDDL "a lot".  (I do have freedom to  
> express my opinion, don't I?)  As I mentioned previously, file-for- 
> file, CDDL is no different from GPL, except that CDDL allows  
> proprietary code to be included in the same software package.  Most  
> of those proprietary codes are expected to be device drivers.  The  
> decision to use the CDDL licensing scheme also allows SUN to  
> greatly expedite the debut of OpenSolaris before they are able to  
> completely replace the third party codes--if ever--which they have  
> no right to open.

Yes, you have complete freedom to express your opinion.    The CDDL  
looks like it took a lot of work, and Sun "went as far as they could"  
while still preserving the rights of proprietary software  
companies.   As for the "only difference" being proprietary code  
(allowed by the CDDL), perhaps true, but thats a HUGE difference.    
Its like stating that the only difference between humans and fish are  
a few chromosomes.   True, but a bit of a composition fallacy if you  
ask me.

But "Open Solaris" is not Free Software.    The difference can be  
quite important.

> Anyway, we all know that Solaris on x86 was substantially less than  
> desired, but Solaris 10 is a totally different story.   For use as  
> a corporate desktop, JDS/Solaris on Athlon64 is indeed more  
> polished and smoother than anything I have seen (especially the  
> myriad of Linux desktops).  You should experience it yourself.   
> Don't believe anything I said.

I have a desktop, it runs OS X.   I have several more linux and  
FreeBSD computers as well.   All of these (including the released  
parts of OS X) are much more Free than Open Solaris.

> Another potential advantage of working with OpenSolaris is that you  
> "may" get a chance to communicate directly with the kernel  
> developers.   One of the SUN engineers I happened to talk to told  
> me that she is 100% involved with two babies: one of her own and  
> the other the part of kernel she is working on.  SUN allows her to  
> work at home, OTOH, the open-source nature of Solaris allows her to  
> talk to the world at large.

At the risk of coming off conceited and arrogant, I don't need "a  
chance" to speak with Sun's engineers.  I once was one, and in  
addition to a lot of navel-gazing and muttering to myself, I still  
maintain several relationships with people who were at Sun "back in  
the day" (1988 - 1992, IIRC.)  Prior to leaving Sun I worked directly  
for Bill Joy.   After leaving Sun  I ported SunOS 4.1.3 (Solaris 1.1)  
and various releases of Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.x) to Tadpole's  
hardware.    The rest of Tadpole's engineering team was located in  
England, btw.

One of the machines that Scott picked up last Friday was a Netra  
T1.   One of the last projects I did before I moved to the islands  
was radically improve the "tulip" driver for the on-board Ethernets   
**under Linux** for a big Sun Consulting customer.

Many developers I know (open source or not) work at home.   Doing so  
is one of the classic "hacker responses" to cube farms and other  
environments where it is impossible to not be interrupted.

> I am interested in organizing an OpenSolaris workgroup.  If anyone  
> is interested, please send me a line (LUAU at hawaiilinux dot us).   
> I will to be out of town, but will contact you once I get back &  
> can collect a reasonable number of interested souls (very unlikely,  
> I am afraid).  Mahalo,  Wayne

Heck, lets drop it on a PeeCee and show it at one of the up-coming  
"tech events".   Maybe benchmark it against Linux.   I don't see any  
reason to separate this from HOSEF.   HOSEF's mission is Open Source  
Education, not Free Software advocacy.

jim