From: James Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It effectively shuts down the possibility of alternate distributions that focus on different needs and different areas.
I think you're correct in capturing the power of a reference distro, but not necessarily the effect of it. Nexenta and Belenix (as examples) have no reason not to scratch their own itch and provide the kind of experiences they want to provide regardless of what a reference distro does. When you're talking about a reference as a general purpose OS, though, it gives developers a place to point so they can have the largest footprint and largest area of compatibility for people running their software, which helps draw developers in. So, if the Nexenta folks want to provide the GNU/Ubuntu-like experience, but still support a third party app built for OpenSolaris, they have a definition around which they can mold their own distro. I recognize that this begs the question of why not just define a standard instead of produce a distro and let arbitrary distro producers implement the standard -- I think the answer to that is softer, but is largely about practicality. If there are a set of bits defined as implementing a community agreed upon standard, a developer can write/test directly on those bits rather than on a set of bits that fit the letter of the community defined specification, but may in reality differ from another distro's interpretation of the specification. It also leaves wide open the idea of non-general purpose OpenSolaris as a prime area to deviate from the reference. A really simple example of this is a little NAS I have at home which runs some arbitrary Linux. It would probably be faster and more reliable if it were OpenSolaris w/ ZFS instead of Linux with who-knows-what. That's a great application for OS that has no reason at all to care about a reference -- I would think there are lots of similar opportunities for non-destructive divergence apart from the appliance space. However, I'm not sure I understand the point of having a specific
OpenSolaris reference distribution, or its risks.
(No, I'm not saying I'm opposed, or that I'm standing in the way [any
more than trying to discuss the issue is apparently seen by some advocates as "standing in the way"], but rather that the implications aren't at all clear to me.)
Agreed 100% Rich
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