On Thu, 31 May 2007, Simon Phipps wrote:
On May 31, 2007, at 13:36, James Carlson wrote:
I don't think anyone is saying that you can't create a distribution
yourself without bothering with any project, community, or governing
board. You can. Knock yourself out.
But that's not what's happening. If a Sun-sponsored team went off outside the
scope of the community and created a distribution like the one being proposed
as "Indiana", all hell would break loose here.
What I understand Keith to be saying (and what I agree with here) is
that if you're going to do that in the name of OpenSolaris itself --
not just "PlocherX" but "OpenSolaris Reference Release" -- then that's
logically something that ought to be a deliberate decision of the
community, and not something that "just happens" or (worse) "happens
because some executive at Sun says so."
Right. So the situation we have is:
* A number of members in several OpenSolaris discussion fora mooted the idea
of OpenSolaris producing a distribution. Irt's a pretty obvious idea and
people keep asking where to find that distribution, so many of us (me
included) felt it was a reasonable proposal.
* Some of those people actually started sketching out a plan in a forum.
* Meanwhile, Ian Murdock was hired by Sun and he felt this was an idea worth
investing in
* Ian got Sun's management bought in to the idea of a new investment in this
community
* One of those management was so excited he commented to the press during
JavaOne, creating fear among those who resent "management interference"
* Ian rapidly got staff allocated and came back to the community with news
that Sun would commit resources to a community distribution
* Glynn has started the process of co-ordinating the community decision by
creating an outline proposal and submitting it to both the OGB and the
Discuss list for discussion.
We are now at the stage where (as John Plocher said) for some reason some
high-profile individuals are "throwing up logistical barriers to this effort
instead of facilitating them", something that has not seemed to happen to a
project proposal on OpenSolaris before.
I disagree, what's actually happening here, I think, (and as others have
pointed out) is turmoil over some troublesome questions:
Is the designation "The OpenSolaris Distro" claimable by a
project? And if yes, does the Indiana project get to claim it?
Eric
I'm not sure it's necessarily an unmitigated good thing to have a
single privileged reference release (what happens to distributions
that decide to innovate in a different direction?), but, as a
community member, I'd like to see something more concrete about what
the reference will contain before deciding whether to endorse it.
I agree it may well be a mixed blessing but until we as a community get the
work started we just won't know. It is ridiculous to criticise the effort for
not being fully-formed, since one of the main fears expressed here has been
that of "Sun management" presenting a fait accomplis.
Thus, as a community member, I'd like to see a team form and get started. I
would really like to see the OGB we elected facilitate rather than obstruct,
please.
S.
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