Thanks for the clarification Alan :)
On 6 Jul 2010, at 22:46, Alan Coopersmith wrote: > Ben wrote: >> While OpenSolaris isn't an open source project, isn't Indiana an open source >> project? > > That question seems to be confused about both what OpenSolaris is > and what open source is. > > "Indiana" was the code name of the project to build the distro > that was then given the name "OpenSolaris". It's been open to > some amount of community participation, but the core release > management of that distro was always unfortunately done behind > closed doors at Sun - Sun announced the schedule it chose based > on the availability of Sun's resources to produce & test it, and > alignment with Sun's other product releases & events like JavaOne, > we didn't take community votes on release scheduling. Sun was > open about many parts of the process, but not all (I certainly > went to weekly distro engineering/planning meetings that were > not open to the public and which we were not allowed to share > all the information from with the public). > > Much of the code for the OpenSolaris distro comes from the open > source project OpenSolaris - in that project (really, that family > of related projects hosted on opensolaris.org) the community has > been able to participate in various ways, though again, the bulk > of the work and some key decision making was always done by Sun > employees. > > OpenSolaris, in both forms, is mostly open source - the source for > most of it (with some notable exceptions due to third party code > that never got replaced) is available under an open source license. > That's not the same as community developed or community controlled, > but then many corporate-sponsored open source projects are that > way - final decision making for Ubuntu lies in the hands of its > "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (who just happens to be the one > providing the financing), Fedora similarly has a project leader > who works for Red Hat. And while Linus isn't beholden to one > specific corporation, it is still he, not the community, who > has ultimate decision authority over the Linux kernel. These > projects may all be more open and transparent about their > decisions and schedules than OpenSolaris has been lately, but > that doesn't make the licenses stop complying with OSI's > definition of open source, though it may not be what some people > think of when they hear "open source". > > -- > -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersm...@oracle.com > Oracle Solaris Platform Engineering: X Window System > _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
