Dennis, See answers below.
> > That really impressed me. Perchance, can this farm be used for > > building OpenSolaris/SFW packages? (I think the rules say that you > > have to be within two revs of bleeding edge.) > > The answer is a resounding "YES". > > In fact, previous to my server room move I had been providing a > dual Opteron based machine to Laszlo Peter for pkgsrc work and then > somewhere during the move that box went down and stayed down. I was > going to put snv_62 into it today and then slide it back in the rack > for people to use. I also have a slew of different hardware types for > free use by the community but it seems I have done a poor job of > letting people know that. I'll fix that. Can maintainers, build their packages in a zone? If so it might make sense to give each maintainer a segregated zone, or failing that a xen/vmware vm. (Or failing that an Sun4v LPAR). > At the very least I want to create a tree called 5.11 because we > already have 5.8 and 5.9 and 5.10 that all link back to packages built > on Solaris 8. The old rule has been that if it works on a previous > edition of Solaris ( like 5.8 ) then it will work on Solaris 9 and 10. Agreed. When you build this new tree, is would be very helpful, if we all compared the configuration options between SFW, CCD, and S11-blastwave, and use the SFW OpenSolaris group to resolve any conflicts. (We have to set this at the door. Introduction of new packages should happen here. Once it has been baked in at Blastwave, it is a candidate for inclusion. (remmber the blastwave maintainers develop good reads on the styles of the individual authors. Filtering at this level will be ideal, especially if the Blastwave maintainers join the OpenSolaris maintenance teams, and keep their team members aprissed of the authors penchance for breaking interfaces.) Are you willing to adopt the OpenSolaris build standards for the S11 tree? (Of course it would be fully expected that you would have input into these standards.) > However we all need to see the value of integration with Solaris > Nevada. It should be abundantly clear that we need a new tree and that > most of the packages ( 1680 of them as of today ) can directly just > slide over with little change. Maybe a recompile but not much else. > The current 5.11 branch is just a link back to the 5.8 packages today. > A new directory with both an "unstable" and "stable" branch for 5.11 > is needed and its trivial for me to create the branch. The build > infrastructure already exists and so does the community. > > What is the hold up here ? We need across the board buy-in. I will do everything I can to make this happen in short order. > I don't think it is the "best". To be the best it needs to be > more available to the community along with more facilities. I have a > pretty good thing going in there right now but the addition of more > build hosts for people would be a good thing. Thankfully I have been > working with some "Solaris Adoption" people and they have granted me > access to a chunk of the Sun GRID also. We just recently updated those > servers ( x86/AMD64 and UltraSparc ) to Solaris 10 Update 3 along with > patches and tools etc etc. That is not Solaris Nevada however. I misspoke. Instead of "best" please read it as the "most extensive". > I think that the Blastwave project is the "best" for users of > Solaris 8 and 9 but not necessary the best for Solaris 10 and Nevada. > We need to take a few giant leaps forward to really create what people > need long term such that all that software keeps working well out of > the box and freely. That was my dream back in 2002 and it is stiull > my vision in 2007. Perhaps, with a little team work, we can achieve > parts of this vision in the next 90 to 180 days. Perhaps. ;) But first we *all* need to come to a common vision. > That is a tough conversation that needs to happen right out here in > the open. It does need to happen out in the open, but I disagree that it needs to be tough. > All of the software at Blastwave has a prefix of CSW and that means > Community SoftWare. It is built by the community freely and openly > and the facilities have always been freely available year after year > after year and I have done *everything* that I can do personally to > help the process. When I see a community need I try to fill it. If this is to work, you must start thinking more as a community leader, as opposed to a hands on worker bee. You efforts will be needed to set standards, represent your community, and coodinate blastwave's efforts within the OpenSolaris ecosystem. You have a good team in place, delegate. Only step in when their is no-one else that can do what needs to be done. (Realize that alot of decision making will be made jointly with the OpenSolaris community.) > With things like the "How To Install Solaris 10" document I recently > released : > > http://www.blastwave.org/docs/s10u3_howto.html > That took a LOT of work to write and I am not done. There is more > work to be done there and I will extend it continually. I'm sure everyone appreciates this documentation. Unfortunately I think that this kind of documentation should be being done within the OpenSolaris docs community. One thing I think Sun desparately needs to address, is crediting third party contributors within Solaris itself. When it was just Sun doing the development, it was "works for hire", so no credit needed to be given. Now with unpaid volunteers joining the mix, Sun has to give credit where credit is due. (Maybe in the man pages? And.or the docs.) > As for community software, in order for the massive pile of CSW > software to be integrated into Solaris or OpenSolaris we need to close > ranks a bit and stop bickering with each other. Can we agree, that Blastwave needs to be a bit more disciplined and patient in their approach towards getting packages into OpenSolaris? Can we also agree that the Sun's OpenSolaris team and Sun management need to recognize the value that Dennis, and Blastwave are providing to the Sun's user base, and incorporate their vision into the OpenSolaris "big picture"? > I stand by my committment that I have never walked away from. I > personally told the community years ago that I will do *everything* > that I can to ensure that open source software can be built freely, > openly and distributed freely to all Solaris users everywhere on any > architecture or version. My mission statement has been to keep > Blastwave alive, fed, open and free to use by the Solaris Community. At this point I think everyone needs to commit to work together. If you are reading this, you should respond, either commit, or say that they will not commit. No abstains. Yeah or Nay. If we can quickly reach agreement, I will draft a project proposal for review. We are desperately short of time. Informed decisions need to be made quickly. (Oxymoron I know.) ;) Cheers, Brian P.S. - I saw that two more emails came in while I was writing this.. I will respond separately
