[LUAU] Open Source Pizza - October 18, 2005

[Jim Thompson]

On Oct 15, 2005, at 9:52 PM, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:

> This is for Jim-
>
> As I posted here a couple of months or so ago, I was "soliciting"  
> volunteering comrades to explore Sun's OpenSolaris.  I have found  
> out that, not only here, but everywhere else I asked, no one was  
> interested.  I remember you did predict this outcome.  But me  
> stubborn.
>
> So far, Sun's OpenSolaris project has been almost like a fraud.   
> Personally, I have never known this large number of arrogant and  
> ignorant people wobbling under the same roof.  If I have to rank  
> the various Linux distros (for desktops) from 1 to 10, I would give  
> OpenSolaris a solid minus one.

As pointed out later in the thread, semantically this can only be  
hyperbole, but (as not pointed out), as same, it works.

> I hope my conclusions are serious flawed.  Your own experience?

I didn't even bother to download it.

Sun has a couple problems.   One that stands out here is that  
McNeally believed his people who told him that "SPARC can do it all",  
forgetting that they couldn't keep up with the billions of dollars  
spend on "R&D" at AMD and Intel, and that Sun doesn't (and never  
will) own a fab (much less several, as in the case of both AMD and Sun).

McNeally said as much in a recent interview in "Always On".      
McNeally's other problems include a huge headcount hangover, and far,  
far too much real estate under lease.  You can lay-off workers, but  
leases run their natural course.   Its sad, because back when I was  
there, he was fighting to get Sun's headcount back below 10,000 while  
Bill Joy was ranting that "the number of smart employees is the log  
of the headcount".  Even after the layoffs, Sun's headcount is 31,000.

Sun is a conflicted company.   LIke most engineering firms, they're  
convinced that "better product" will convince the customer.    For  
most things, SPARC ran out of steam a long time ago.   This actually  
helped cause a mass exodus of Sun's server-buying base to Intel boxes  
running Linux (and Windows).

Sun is desperate to get them back.   Most people assume that Sun's  
"open sourcing" of Solaris is a marketing tactic.  "We're open source  
too!".   Yet Sun's "Open Source" license does not allow "Software  
Freedom", which was really the point of the original movement (and  
GPL, as Angela correctly details.)

"Open Source" is about lawyers, contracts, "group collaboration" and  
"survival of the fittest".  "Free Software" is about the lack of  
scarcity that we could have if people stopped trying to create  
scarcity in software in pursuit of profit.   Raymond and his cohorts  
have helped us all take a huge step backward, and only recently have  
some of them (such as Perens) recanted.

> Perhaps this is not a topic that should be discussed in public.   
> But since I had so much hope about OpenSolaris, I feel obligated to  
> report my experience.  Any disapproving opinion will be greatly  
> appreciated.  Wayne

Hey, I'll discuss almost anything in public.

More messages as responses to the other responses as I see a place  
where I can add value.

jim