I have a slightly different take on this. BTW: I have a little head start here because Brian and I had a fairly lengthy e-mail exchange on this. I'm really glad that more are in on the discussion now.
David.Comay at Sun.COM wrote: > Brian, > >> It seems like there is a lot of duplication of effort going on here. >> >> We have: >> >> sunfreeware.com - /usr/local ?? >> blastwave.org /opt/csw >> opensolaris.org - SFW >> opensolaris.org - CCD >> >> It seems the same packages often exist on more than one of these >> repositories, and many times all. (Please let me know if I missed any >> other repositories). Also with the ports community talking about >> setting up their own repository we are getting up to five! > > There are a number of reasons for this duplication - some of it is > historical, some of it is that these "communities" serve different > interest and some is just organizational. For example, the SFW effort > comprises software which is currently supported by Sun Microsystems in > its Solaris product while the CCD effort incorporates packages which > are not supported by Sun but are packaged to make it easier for users > to get commonly-used open source. > >> I see opportunity here. Why are we pushing to continue with a CCD? Why >> not throw those efforts into actually making approved SFW packages, >> that will become part of OpenSolaris and eventually Solaris? >> >> I would like to see the CCD and SFW communities merge. One idea for >> CCD packages, is to make the new spot to introduce packages into SFW. >> These packages would follow the same path, and other requirements as >> SFW. They would also be protoypes for including a new package into >> Solaris. Clearly since these have the potential to impact namespace, >> they would be required to have a full ARC proposal and review. >> >> Once they have been introduced as a "CCD" package, they could >> relatively easily be considered for inclusion into Solaris SFW. > > With respect to CCD and SFW, I've been thinking along the same lines. > In general, I completely agree with this although longer term I don't > see a need to introduce any more CCD packages. Instead what I would > propose is that all such externally-derived open source be integrated > into the SFW effort. CCD could continue to exist for Solaris 10 but > for future releases, externally-derived open source could come through > SFW. I don't think the distinction of "supported" and "not-supported" goes away that easily. For example, there are probably a lot of folk who use KDE on Solaris and even more that would like too. Given more "Window System" engineers, I think we would use them to better support Gnome than additionally support KDE. Some things just won't be supported (by Sun, who knows what might happen under OpenSolaris, but they are hard pressed to provide support). I think the concept of SFW is right on (although the implementation is a bit messed up and often misunderstood). I think the concept of CCD is simply bad. We should not be providing a recompilation and packaging service. We should be providing assistance to the ultimate code maintainers to provide Solaris "packages" just like they provide RPMs (or whatever) for Linux. Let's turn our "recompile" junkies into "Solaris Packaging Evangelists" (easier said than done - different skill set - but hopefully you get the idea). In addition to the "Sun must limit its support burden", there are a couple of reasons for this. First, it puts us on fairly level ground wrt the more conservative Linux distros - the ones that lock down on a version for the life of the distribution, delta fixing really serious problems. (The obvious analogy is "like Red Hat, not like Fedora".) You get stability between well defined "flag points", plus you have the option of putting newer (perhaps not supported) versions on the system (directly from the maintainers). Second, there is an unavoidable latency introduced by placing a "CCD" service in the loop. The Linux distros don't have this latency. Having such a latency will probably kill us. Part of the "charm" of FOSS isn't that its particularly stable, but the rapidity with which fixes to affected components appear when instability happens. For non-Sun-supported software, we need to cash in on that rapid turnaround. >> Maybe the combined effort would result in a /opt/sfw tree that uses >> pkg-get!! (Both would become part of the OpenSolaris effort, as part >> of the SFW community) > > Perhaps pkg-get or perhaps something else but I believe providing a > repository of SFW "packages" that can be downloaded via an apt-get-like > facility would be tremendously useful. I couldn't agree more that an improved repository, hosted (hopefully) by OpenSolaris (ignoring who ultimately pays the bill), would be a great thing. I only differ (I think) on where those packages come from. I think we should host packages built by the maintainers. Its probably worth it to play with Ubuntu or Debian here. They clearly decompose the packages they offer along the lines of license and support. After installing Ubuntu, the first thing I do (because I'm old and my eyes aren't what they used to be) is update the nVidia driver. They make it clear (but painless) that I'm downloading something from them, they aren't going to directly support. Its also clear that its not true FOSS for the religiously inclined. (Note: It was always possible, but a bit more painful in earlier Ubuntu releases. I suspect its gotten less painful based on customer feedback. (Hummm, maybe I should ask my Ubuntu buddy about that.)) > dsc - jek3
