Having been stranded at JavaOne while this thread was ongoing, I haven't
been able to read each message in this thread, and I'm sure whatever I
add here has already been hashed over, but nonetheless, here goes... :@)
As a long-time Linux user (since RedHat 4.2) and former Sun fan (with a
newly piqued interest in all the things Sun is currently doing), I think
you have to lose the fear. I highly doubt anyone at Sun would be so
stupid as to enforce a change in the userland experience for Solaris
users. This would be death, and I can only assume that folks at Sun
already know this. What I gathered from all of the "making Solaris more
like Linux" statements is more of a testament to how Sun intends to woo
developers and users - being more interactive, reducing the barriers to
entry, proactively expanding the OpenSolaris community, reaching out to
would-be developers, and creating the tools that ease the transition for
both developers and users. Part of that is making updates easy via
fetching from repositories. When I first started getting a handle on
OpenSolaris, it came as a surprise that I needed to use one of the
outside projects, like Nexenta, in order to get the same repository
experience as I get on Linux. The reason that Nexenta even exists is
because users felt the need to fill a void that Sun has not yet filled.
Personally, I think having one entity that controls both the operating
system kernel and userland tools is a good thing. One of my pet peeves
about Linux is that each distribution has a vastly different user
experience.
Coming from a Linux background, I don't expect OpenSolaris to look and
feel like Linux, but I do expect the OpenSolaris community to actively
engage with people like me. My impression is that, due to Sun's long
proud history (and BSD roots), some in the OpenSolaris and Sun
communities feel it is beneath them to recognize what Linux has been
able to accomplish. This is not the way to win over Linux users, and I
hope it is not the opinion of the majority of Solaris users.
-John Mark
Gueven Bay wrote:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/-Sun-hopes-for-Linux-like-Solaris/0,130061733,339276057,00.htm
http://news.com.com/Sun+hopes+for+Linux-like+Solaris/2100-1016_3-6182526.html?tag=nefd.lede
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=17881
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/05/10/030226.shtml
You know what, I totally disagree with this move: Don't make Solaris Linux like, BUT teach us Linux
guys the Solaris way. As I read here again and again the "POSIX way" - what ever that
means, at least I don't know, and I am sure many "young"(as in age and as in new to Unix)
Linux users don't know,too -.
Instead of this "strategy" to mangle Linux like use into (Open)Solaris I would make all engineers working on
(Open)Solaris stop coding, take them to a studio and record with all of them teaching videos - beginning with
"What is a Terminal?" over "SUN coreutils and GNU coreutils the differences" all the way up to
"So, you want to code the SUN libc from scratch, boy?" - make the videos under a free Creative Commons and
post them at video.google.com, (And please, don't link in your answers these bad videos from the various user groups
wher you either don't understand the speaker or you don't see his slides or both)
The important thing is : Teach, Show, Translate the Linux skills of the
ten-thousands of Linux users into Solaris skills, Make the transition easy by
explaining, showing.
Instead of coding, porting, hacking GNU bash into Solaris just show, explain and make it easy to code scripts portable between GNU Bash and KSH.
Transfer the engineers to the documentation department and let them make multi-media conferences with the users (GNOME meeting , Skype, and with all that).
There is a reason, that (Open)Solaris has the userland and libs and all that
what it has. May it be history, may it be engineering decision (backwards
compatibility, POSIX compatibility) may it be what it is: But you don't get the
people into the system(OpenSolaris) if they don't understand.
Knowledge is the key!!1!one!!: Either the Linux users today are too young to ever have
learned the Unix history, or they are maybe old enough but they are stuck in the Linux
land(maybe even by force of the employer:"You have to learn that, because we become
modern now and use Linux") .
In both cases they don't have the knowledge and don't understand what Solaris
is.
Bring them enlightenment (not the window-manager) then you will have users.
For example I have still two questions:
1) What is this "POSIX way" thing?
2) Why does under Schillix my Backspace key not have the function I expect it to have? (*LOL*)
PS: I hope , Mr Murdock, you are reading this Mailing List or Forum because my
posting here is my answer to the above linked press articles.
This message posted from opensolaris.org
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