CDDL gets OSI Approval - Media Reactions
19 Jan '05 - 16:52 by benrSlashdot has reported on the CNet article "Sun license gets open-source nod" reporting on OSI approval of CDDL. There are two things I want to point to, the first is a paragraph from the CNet Article:
"But building an open-source community can be difficult--particularly for Sun. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has irked some by not making Java open-source software. And Sun has already tried several other licenses for sharing its code: the Sun Industry Standards Source License, the Sun Public License and the Sun Community Source License." [CNet: Stephen Shankland]
Difficult? No, because the community already exists! Long before "developers" were calling for the open sourcing of everything under the (no pun) sun, system administrators were asking for the codebase for the purposes of both expanding functionality and better debugging and anaylising system performance and reliablity. As the open source movement has come into being more and more folks just plain wanna hack on it. Will OpenSolaris get the sort of massive dev base that Linux has? Maybe or maybe not, but then look at QNX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Plan9, so on and so forth... they don't have Linux size development staffs but they are no less legitament.
Secondly, I find it really unfair to compare Java with Solaris on any basis. The Java and Solaris sides of the house both inside and outside of Sun are vastly diffrent. Most of us on the Solaris side of the house can't stand object oriented languages like C++ or Java, but prefer the language that God intended us to use: C. Furthermore, I'd say, from my point of view, that there is a long heritage of hackers and zealots on the Solaris and systems side. The following that Solaris and SPARC have is nearly fanatical compared to the "it's pretty kool" following that Java has. There are exceptions, naturally, but UNIX hardliners and Sun zealots can't be matched on any basis by polo shirt wearin' Java developers. (No bias, really.)
Ok, our second quote comes from a well made comment on /. in responce to the news:
"While I certainly welcome Solaris to the open-source table, my question for Sun Microsystems is "all right, and what are you prepared to do to help a community form?" They don't have to do very much; just a developer's mailing list, Bugzilla and responsiveness from Sun engineers would do worlds.
Sun has already taken the biggest step by open-sourcing Solaris. The remaining steps are tiny by comparison, and quite painless. So, come on, Sun. Take those last couple of steps. Please. I, and many other open-source geeks, look forward to it." [rjh on /.]
The point is well taken, but I can thankfully say that Sun's already been in motion. Sun has spent a lot more time than you can possibly know working toward the opening of Solaris (due to NDA, I can't tell you how much, but it's a long long time). The OpenSolaris Pilot, to which I and many others, are a member of is just a part of that commitment. Sun has taken those of us in the community who know how to do this best under its wing and asked us to help guide them. And don't think that they are playing favorites! I didn't get picked for the OpenSolaris Pilot, it was me who tracked down Jim Grisanzio, the OpenSolaris Community Manager, and told him that Sun couldn't do this without my help and that I'd really like to get involved... a week later I was onboard and I immediately started getting all the long time Sun/Solaris community activists together and joined up. Now, together, we're helping Sun on the right course and they are treating us like first class citizens who got involved on the ground floor. And people are still being added to the pilot even now! (You could be added too!!)
Even though we on the Solaris side don't really jive with the Java side of the house, the managers and executives at Sun has learned from the experience and are doing things right from the ground up as best as they can. Remember, this is a massive task... and one of the biggest driving forces inside of Sun behind this effort is none other than Jonathan himself! I can personally and truthfully tell you that he is really exicted and worried about every detail of this project for reasons beyond just the bottom line, he actually and honestly cares about the community and taking care of us because he has seen with his own eyes that the community already exists and we simply just aren't being given the chance to get involved. The OpenSolaris project is fixing that and Sun is finally opening its arms wide to welcome us home like they should have done years and years ago. We have mailing lists, we have sites, we have code repos, we have almost every Solaris internal developer intimately involved and talking with us every day, we have blogs, we have projects in the works, we are reviving old and dead projects that don't mean much to Sun but do to us in the community (stay tuned), and much much much much much more! You will be blown away. And the best thing of all is that I know all this because I am helping make it happen myself, just like so many others are... and we're lovin' it!
Hi; I’m the guy from Slashdot you quoted. First, thanks for the response. I don’t know if you meant it as a response-to-me or a response-to-the-world, but it answered some of my outstanding questions about Solaris.
Something lingers, though: namely, your comment about how I couldn’t know how long things had been in motion and whatnot. If Sun is opening Solaris in order to reap the benefits of transparency, why is there such need for opacity? I understand the need for NDAs where outside vendors with their own IP are concerned, but for Sun’s plans to open-source Solaris—why the secrecy? Why not say “these are our plans, they’re subject to change, but here’s where things stand right now with the open-sourcing of Solaris”?
Insofar as your “You could be part of the OpenSolaris pilot, too!”, well—honestly, I don’t think I’d be a good candidate, all told. :) I have literally zero Solaris experience and esoteric hardware. But if the pilot program is still this open, why not publicize that broadly? Take out an ad on Slashdot saying “join the OpenSolaris pilot program! Click here to apply!”. (Given how cheap Web ads are nowadays, you should be able to afford something like that with the change in your couch… ah, for the salad dot-com days of yore.)
Robert J. Hansen (Email) (URL) - 19 January '05 - 23:52
Kool, thanks for commenting Robert! The benifits of opening Solaris really go 2 ways: it gives us in the current community, whether SA or developer, access to the code behind the stuff we’re already using and excited about, and then also gives back to Sun over the longer term as we they get direct feedback, contribution, enhanced code level bug reports, security reports, etc, etc. So we all win.I’d agree that the pilot phase being NDA seems alittle wierd at first.. but honestly, it was the real genious behind the whole project. At this phase anyone can ask to join, but it’s not being advertised which means the current hardcore members of the active community already in existance for years can get in on the ground floor and help in the whole process. Due to the massive scope of opening the code there were two options for Sun: 1) decide how to open it, what license to use, what time frame to go on, etc, etc, all in house with Sun staff, or 2) start the proccess, then get a “small” group of community members together to help us make the final decisions prior to commiting. It was the wisdom of some really kool people to get us involved prior to openning the doors. Sun knows that if they screw up the release it’s gonna hurt the whole projects adoption and possibly smear the whole thing (look at the Java efforts) so they are moving slowly and cautiously soliciting help whereever it can. As an example (I don’t think I’ll get in trouble for this), we in the pilot program have already seen the license for OpenSolaris and have had a chance to help Sun tweek it prior to it being decided on. This is something that would have been hard to do by simply opening the doors wide open and having 500 people on the mailing list duking it out.
The next phase that OpenSolaris will move to will be, as you suggested, very open where we’ll want lots of people to get way more involved and not have just a select group of people. Even though you might not want to join the pilot, the really kool thing here is that unlike many other efforts in the past there isn’t some elite group of people in the in-crowd who are the only ones that get to help out… in the pilot anyone that asks (and obviously is an appropriate fit) can be accepted in to contribute too. This is a serious sign of the commitment that Sun has to the project.
Big big big things coming! :) Stay tuned.
benr - 20 January '05 - 01:51
“Most of us on the Solaris side of the house can’t stand object oriented languages like C++ or Java, but prefer the language that God intended us to use: C.”C++ is not object oriented but merely supports OOP. It is a multi-paradigm language unlike Java and C and much of its power comes from this. However being atheist I can’t comment on God’s intents in reference to this issue ;-)
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