I haven't been active in the OI/illumos community recently, as the infighting has made it not a nice place to be, however I will make a small comment (Tho I still use OI in a production server and have for over a year, but honestly I'm not sure I would choose Illumos based now.)
EVERBODY grow up, you're not toddlers! How the packaging system can be seen as a major stumbling block is beyond me, it is nothing, It is like arguing over VIM versus Emacs! The community is too small to support multiple majorly separate distribution, OI, SmartOS, illumian is 2 too many (and I've missed a few). Right now we need one good general distribution, with several 'heads' that when/if we gain the number of community supporters may diverge into different distributions. At the moment the community doesn't have enough working members (especially free volunteers which are the heart of any real open source OS). If people really want the ecosystem to thrive, then some compromise has to happen. I'd suggest solving the package issue once and for all, so we can laugh about how much prose was spent on it in the future. 1) Choose an interim solution that is clearly marked as temporary. This whole one system or another being 'toxic' is bullshit, it's a package system ffs Just until a system is ready to replace it, we need something. 2) The people most passionate about packaging on all side, form a small closed working group to design a new or modification to an existing system anywhere in the open source world, that when built will become the defacto illlumos base. 3) Implement that system and move over to it as the base packaging system for illumos based OS (ironically the obvious name of IPS <Illumos Packaging System> wouldn't be a good choice I'd imagine ;) ) Right now, what the Illumos ecosystem need, is not infighting but a clear easy to understand system. The challenge is not IPS versus Deb versus SRV4 but why use illumos based over Linux. Right now Linux wins pretty much hands down, the technical advantages Illumos based OS have simply don't out vote the chaos that almost any outsider sees. Sometimes its hard to see the forest for the trees, whilst IPS versus SVR4 may seem really important, its not, its just a tree. My 2p, Deano From: Garrett D'Amore [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 29 November 2011 03:12 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [discuss] illumian On Nov 28, 2011, at 1:16 PM, Michael Widmann wrote: Hi Well spoken everyone - one is missing that doesn't declare himself and should please said some thing on this : Garret .. I thought I sent mail on this topic at length already. I will resend it since it appears it didn't go through the list. That will be a separate message. Meantime, I'll answer the questions below best as I can. 1.) Garret in front of the curtain please 2.) Would it be frank to ask - could we donate for OpenIndiana? and if so where - and what do donate? You can donate to the PFIF which serves the entire illumos community. Right now we don't have a way to earmark funds just for OpenIndiana. And I still have to obtain the precise details for donating to the PFIF using the illumos "project" for accounting purposes. OpenIndiana had chosen right from the beginning to stand apart from the rest of illumos. IMO, looking back, this was not such a great decision. Ultimately, I think the goal of not having a "preferred" distro was noble, but really it turns out not to be so useful. Everyone understands what OI is, and it has become something of a "reference" for the rest of illumos. Ultimately, I'd like illumian to also stand in that role, together with OI. I think we need such references in order that we can reasonably validate test results, etc. A common baseline is important for development. I don't think any of the other distributions are suitable as a baseline here, either because they are niche, or deviate too far from the illumos core to be useful as such. 3.) Question: Is there a real problem with the name - or only this IPS / SRV4 Package hating generation conflict? The name was not a key motivator. IPS is toxic to us in every respect except one -- that the package delivery is fully described by parseable metadata rather than scripts (ignoring the oft-used SMF backdoor.) So it seemed to me that we could use the upstream for OI, including that metadata, to build a distribution using .deb format binaries. For the record, I also I think there is some great community value in this because there are many companies delivering software via .deb, but as far as I know IPS is adopted only by Oracle -- and indeed they seem to use a version that is ever-changing. So I don't think IPS is viable as an ISV solution -- and I doubt Oracle genuinely wants this as their model seems to move away from supporting ISVs but rather to "owning" the entire contents of the system with software that is produced exclusively by Oracle. 4.) UserLand discussions are slightly boring (IMHO) - cause the OpenSolaris / OpenIndiana Userland I'm personally used too not really interested in debian UserLand or anything else... I tend to agree. for us the main thing was that there is a lot of effort put behind OI, and it seems silly to reproduce all that effort in a competitive effort. 5.) What really matters: ZFS / DTrace / KVM / Zones / Crossbow - could we all work together to make a progress their - and maybe starting to innovate with an "open board" ZFS has a working group. It isn't as open as you might like, but that's by design - however anyone you think should probably be on this working group already is, or has an invitation to participate. What we haven't done is extend membership to folks who are not innovating in the ZFS code itself, because we want to avoid bikesheds and keep the discussions fairly focused on technical points. There's a minimum barrier to entry -- however if you think someone should be on it, send me an email and I'll share it with the board if I agree that the person appears to meet the minimum technical qualifications to participate. (You could also send to another ZFS WG member-- Matt Ahrens basically runs the working group.) 6.) Every Distro has it's beautiful side - could we hammer out (for people not knowing one of this either) which one is best for what case? (making a list together where each is aimed to be installed / used) There are not many functional distros for illumos: OI - the main one used by most people (server & desktop), follows in OpenSolaris' footsteps illumian (still in birthing throes) Nexenta Core Platform -- well not really, since that is OpenSolaris based, and has no future at present (Nexenta's efforts are focused on illumian at present) NexentaStor -- commercial, and storage focused -- includes some proprietary closed code StormOS -- NCP derived, very immature at this point SchilliX ? -- I'm not sure this is properly illumos based, as Joerg seems to be taking a different direction SmartOS -- Joyent's cloud/v12n/kvm distro. Of all these, OI is the only rational alternative for most folks at this point. I hope illumian would be a sister distro to OI, and quickly reach the same level of stability and functionality. 7.) Let the community vote for the userland and the winner should help the others to integrate .... (if it is illumnos / debian userland - please help OI to integrate) This is the reason distros exist -- to differentiate. I do not propose that the community should consolidate to one distro -- it hasn't worked for Linux, and I doubt it would be a good thing for illumos. Diversity breeds innovation. 8.) thanks to everyone who does a great job - on the core / the distribution / the integration of new things (nexenta - illumnos / alasdair - openindiana / joyent team - kvm / dtrace and tons of updates and fixes) Thanks. - Garrett Michael 2011/11/28 Alexander <[email protected]> Well said. Just let's work together, I do not understand why the name of the distribution can be an obstacle. I do not see any threat to OI, moreover, I think working together on the integration of new packages and the use of one illumos-userland will helps everyone. Let's just work, as Bryan said. Sent from my iPad On Nov 28, 2011, at 1:43 AM, Bryan Cantrill <[email protected]> wrote: On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 12:40 PM, Michael Widmann <[email protected]> wrote: Any comments on this joyents and nextentas? First, Joyent, Delphix, Nexenta and every other member of the illumos community contributes to illumos -- to the core operating system -- which in turn benefits everyone (OpenIndiana included). So we have in fact helped OpenIndiana (most significantly with our KVM port to illumos, which OpenIndiana included in its oi_151a release) -- and we will continue to do so. That said, I think it's important that we as a community recognize that what binds us is core OS technologies (ZFS, Zones, Crossbow, DTrace, KVM, etc.), and not how those technologies are packaged and distributed. A central aspect of the failing of OpenSolaris (in my opinion) was that we collectively (and Sun in particular) insisted on there being only One True Path for the entire system. At its best, this ethos manifested itself as endless discussions on governance and voting and constitutions -- and at its worse led to arguments, discord, politicking and fracture. But with illumos, we have a rebirth: we have not only fresh blood in terms of technologists, but also (I would like to think) more tolerance around those elements that are ancillary to those core technologies. As such, several distributions have flowered that would have not been possible in the shadow of OpenSolaris -- and I expect more to come. This is _healthy_ as it means that more people (not fewer) will be exposed to our core values as new distributions arise to fill new niches. As a community moving forward, we need to stay focussed on the values that bind us -- and that means leading with the technology, not pre-announcements or rhetoric or endless discussion. To that end, I would point to the illumos hackathon as a shining example of what we can and should be doing: similarly minded people coming together to advance the state of the art in operating systems! With that, I would like to ask that we cease the friendly fire and get back to work. Speaking personally, I am going to be spending the afternoon finishing up the ::scalehrtime dcmd that we found so invaluable on a nasty KVM problem this past week (patch to come on that one), and adding some code to the panic path that would make a similar problem slightly easier to debug -- work that I believe to be examples (if extraordinarily small ones) of the values that bind our community... - Bryan illumos-discuss | <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21572416-8e4bcc42> | <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Modify Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com/> illumos-discuss | <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175862-1c3587f1> | <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> Modify Your Subscription <http://www.listbox.com/> -- bayoda.com <http://bayoda.com/> - Professional Online Backup Solutions for Small and Medium Sized Companies illumos-discuss | <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now> Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> | Modify Your Subscription <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> illumos-discuss | Archives | Modify Your Subscription <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175539-f0d50499> ------------------------------------------- illumos-discuss Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175430-2e6923be Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21175430&id_secret=21175430-6a77cda4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
