>Rob asked: "Where do we get started to form a >Community Distro, based on the latest sources including IPS. Not a cut >down version, or replacing the userland (no offence there, that's good >work too), just a take on Solaris Next based on the latest available >bits."
You already have 'community distros' and forums like Nexenta, Korona (KDE4Solaris), and Belenix as the OpenSolaris-based communities currently providing recent updates to either the desktop environment or backporting kernel patches. Understand that the OpenSolaris project was always a part of the bigger picture in creating the next Solaris OS major update. Sun provided source code and kickstarted the OpenSolaris project forum. The 'Indiana distro' was just a channel to provide binaries of various project consolidation work (i.e. JDS, X, g18N/i18n, Docs, Caiman, GRUB, etc) in a bootable CD format. Project Indiana was the start - but not the end. The intent was to have this core distro kickstart and assist other developers to create distros of their own. At all times, some other group, like Belenix, could launch and spearhead their own distro. The intent was not to keep providing a full core distro forever - it was moreso to get developers into creating their own distros using the OpenSolaris kernel and core environment. See: http://www.genunix.org/distributions/ and http://dlc.sun.com/osol/on/downloads/b144 . Example: In two options: I can provide you with apples or teach you to raise an apple tree to provide yourself with apples. Most people will chose the former option and blame someone if the apples are not fresh or came in a plastic bag versus a wood basket. Oracle actually took the source IP it bought and is continuing to work on the updates to 'Solaris' (i.e. Solaris 10u9/11) and maintain the tested release of OSOL 2009.06 (SRU10+). Eventually, those tracks will consolidate to the next new major release of the commercial Solaris product for 'production/data center' use and major OS migrations - superceding all previous legacy incarnations of Solaris OS, OpenSolaris 2009.06, and the proposed OpenSolaris 2010.03. Hence, the fork is inevitable by prior design. Look at Milax, Nexenta, or Belenix. They have their own community forums and distributions based on the Opensolaris sources. So start by helping the existing distro providers that can provide OpenSoalris-based consolidations on physical media. Many of them have what people need or can help make it happen or conduct talks of a unified 'community distro' supported by the former OpenSolaris-based distributors. But as in any science project, its good to have people 'do their own thing' while 'also' working in a collaborative fashion to provide a community distro and forums in a unified effort. Start with existing distros in just updating them with the newer kernel(s) - don't try to update a bunch of consolidations and packages just yet. Sometimes, just getting a chance to stand on home plate to swing a baseball bat and striking out is better than just sitting only on the benches... ~ Ken Mays -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
