So heres what I understand from the recent storm. Sun asserted it's copyright, and put the name "Opensolaris" on Indiana without fully consulting the community.
The + of having an 'opensolaris' distro is immediate recognition; goto opesolaris.org and download opensolaris. "All the wood behind one arrow". The -, of course, is who gets to say what 'opensolaris' would be? Why is GNOME suddenly the default desktop for opensolaris, when theres a large userbase that would prefer KDE or XFCE (problem 1).. This leads to the definition of 'core' to define opensolaris (to something like ON+shell+tools). This scheme is fair to all projects/community members, but will not allow a downloadable/installable distribution named 'Opensolaris' to exist(problem 2). You'd have to go with 'built on opensolaris' or 'based on OS technology'. (problem 3: the problem of large/different descriptions, which dilutes the brand). Somehow 'opensolaris' has a better ring than 'Indiana, built on opensolaris'. My hunch is that in the long term this will have a bigger impact on opensolaris adoption, as it will allow random Joe to not worry about nomenclature; and click-and-install opensolaris. A 1000 of you go around to your favourite group and say "Get opensolaris" which has a _significantly larger_ impact than 10 groups of 100 going around and saying "Get A, its opensolairs", "Get B", "Get C, its derived from opensolaris"... So we need a way to address problems 1 and 2, which seem to be mutually exclusive. Having an "opensolaris core", will lead to many distros with a lot of problem 3s. We need to stick to the "opensolaris" nomenclature as well as allow for multiple distributions to share that. How? A proposal: - Change naming from Opensolaris to 'Opensolaris G' or K or X (standing for gnome, kde, xfce.. GKX are just suggestions, use giraffe, kite, Xenu, Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or whatever) - Indiana goes on to become Opensolaris G - i. Define a set of core requirements that allows a distro to be called Opensolaris <Word>. - ii. Define a set of requirements that allow distro to be called "based on opensolaris" - iii. Define a set of requirements that allow distro to be called "compatible with opensolaris" (The requirements for i will be significantly stricter than ii, which is higher than iii). (i) can be used by distributions directly aimed at the desktop/server community, (ii) and (iii) for DC created distros and appliance/custom distros for specific purposes. We'll be setting high expectations for (i) as they'll be used by a large audience) - All of the above will be privileges. A creator can go ahead and name his distro anything else if he so chooses. - Basically, define a nomenclature where a random guy is going to hear 1000 guys say "opensolaris" and learn about 10 low-level differences (GKX) later at get.opensolaris.org. (Ubuntu has done an admirable job of keeping it's brand united, yet varied, but we do see K/Xubuntu sidelined a little) I am very much for a (set of) distro(s) having the name 'OpenSolaris'. This can be, in my unable-to-express-how opinion, the single biggest factor in attracting users. (How different really are ubuntu, red hat and fedora to the avg desktop user? We get to not commit the mistake that the Linux world did.) Once there are many Opensolaris distributions, they would be judged by their merit/stability/support. As far as Sun is concerned, it would have to give up it's exclusive right to call a distro opensolaris, but gains a larger userbase looking forward. Is it worth it? Regards Anil _______________________________________________ indiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
