Preliminary :
I want to write a much longer more detailed response but I
am very busy being a "worker bee" and putting snv_63
infrastructure in place for the community to use freely.
What I really want to say is "let's work together" and do
whatever it takes to get a better solution in place.
Also, while I have been doing this for half a decade now I
must submit that I am not a software guru and need other
people involved. The integration and long term concerns
require considerable thought and "white board" discussions
to ensure that we can get it right.
At the very least I will change the Blastwave homepage to
indicate that Solaris Nevada infrastructure is being added
to the stack and I also want my "How To Install Solaris 10"
document linked into the homepage. These are "worker
bee" things that no one else will do for me and its part of
the job. :-)
On 5/6/07, Lukas Rovensky <Lukas.Rovensky at sun.com> wrote:
> Hi Dennis,
>
> thanks for the long response.
I have another long reply. I hope that you can bear with me.
> Dennis Clarke wrote:
> > On 5/5/07, Lukas Rovensky <lukas.rovensky at sun.com> wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> this is a really interesting discussion -- I read all posts but I am
> >> deliberately replying to David's response.
> >
> > David Comay ?
> Yes.
I would need to go back and read up on that. I don't have the full
context here most likely.
> >
> >> I am from Solaris Revenue Product Engineering (== Solaris sustaining)
> >
> > I don't know what that means.
> >
> > In fact, I will say that it looks to be some sort of Sun Microsystems
> > Inc business thing.
> >
> That is true.
Maybe we should just agree that Solaris is the commercial distribution
of OpenSolaris and that Solaris users are affected by what we discuss.
It seems entirely reasonable to do "the right thing" for Solaris users
by simply doing "the right thing" for the OpenSolaris project.
Pretty simple and it keeps all of us from bantering about minor terms
that don't affect the larger picture.
> >> team and one of my responsibilities is to make sure that we (== Sun)
> >> can sustain open source products in SFW, that is products, which
> >> Sun supports (see [1]).
> >
> > What do you mean by support because as far as I know you don't support
> > anything in the CCD and never did. There is and never has been so much
> > as the ability to file a bug report or get an update even when that
> > update was a security patch.
> >
> As Alan Coopersmith said -- "SFW is not the CCD - it's the bits bundled
> into Solaris directly, which are at least minimally supported."
OKay, like PostgreSQL and Samba. Both are officially supported then
and both are right in there on the Solaris releases. Duplication makes
little sense and what we need is a common source for building,
testing, and release. Better yet let me be more open and simply say
that the duplication is an issue and that the PostgreSQL people in the
community would be better able to provide continual updates and
releases than the older slower Sun Inc. release cycle. I am sure that
we would be agree that testing and QA stages *must* exist and that
various strata of users ( production, desktop, developers + hobby
people ) must be given access to software that is also stratified in
terms of QA quality.
To sum that up, the developer wants the "nightly" build and the
"production" shop wants the tried tested and true release from nine
months ago or more. Both should be available complete with sources.
> > This is why a community project ( Blastwave ) was created in the first
> > place. At the very least we would have a way to get open source
> > software for Solaris that had some signs of maintainance, some support
> > in that there were people to communicate with and you could generally
> > do two things easily and freely :
> >
> > (1) get an update to a piece of software
> >
> > (2) do the update yourself on freely provided infrastructure
> >
> > In either of these cases you would be able to get a up to date
> > package released via a worldwide network of mirror sites. Quickly.
> > As of this morning there are 1680+ software titles available for
> > Solaris 8 upwards. Some of them are getting a little crusty but the
> > majority are well taken care of.
> >
> I understand why Blastwave was created + I agree it is very useful -- I
> am also one the Blastwave users (my vim comes from Blastwave). I
> personally think that it provides better value for end users than CCD.
Thank you. I use vim all the time as well as our own builds of Apache
which derive some tweaks from the CoolStack people. In fact, the very
same build tools and build options because I was contacted by the
CoolStack people about a year ago and asked to release the software,
primarily because I could get it out to the world faster.
Truth is, we have been working together for some time now.
> >> So, I know about advantages and disadvantages
> >> of SFW as well as of the real problems we (Solaris sustaining) have to
> >> solve.
> >
> > ? I don't see that you have anything to solve related to this
> > discussion. ?
> >
> Well, it depends. If the current model SFW + CCD stays as it is and CCD
> gets replaced by Blastwave nothing will probably change for me and my
> team. However, if SFW and CCD gets merged then there will be a change.
> I personally think that getting rid of CCD and finding a way how to
> have just one and common way of creating and maintaining open source
> software packages is a good idea.
This is the Grand Open Distribution Service ( GODS ? ) that would
clearly serve many purposes and resolve many ills of the past.
> >> (Note for Brian -- in general every fix for Solaris XY goes first to
> >> Nevada
> >> and then it is integrated to Solaris 10, 9, ... and this is true not
> >> only for
> >> ON but also for SFW.)
> >
> > Again, that looks to be some sort of Sun Microsystems Inc thing
> > related to the commercial distribution called Solaris.
> >
> >> What I would like to stress is that regardless of the actual solution
> >> to be chosen (merge everything, keep SFW separate) we have to keep
> >> in mind that it has to be clear how to sustain critical open source
> >> products
> >> in the future.
> >
> > Like Apache and PostgreSQL and PHP etc ?
> >
> > http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/apache2
> > Version: 2.2.4,REV=2007.02.19
> >
> > http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/apache
> > Version: 1.3.34
> >
> > http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/postgresql
> > Version: 8.2.3
> >
> > http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/php5
> > Version: 5.2.1,REV=2007.03.15
> >
> > http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php/samba
> > Version: 3.0.23,REV=2006.08.09b
> > The latest "stable" release is actually 3.0.24 from Feb 2007.
> > This needs a minor update and we will get to that.
> >
> > The list is long and it does need continual maintainance. That is
> > the purpose of an open source software service, that is be continually
> > maintained. Not simply dropped onto a CDROM or DVD image and then
> > forgotten.
> >
> I understand that -- but there are also packages:
>
> SUNWapch* -- Apache 1.x and 2.x
> SUNWsmba* -- Samba
> SUNWpostgr* -- PostgreSQL 8.2 and 8.1.8
Yes, the duplication woes we both see.
> These packages are currently maintained and supported by Sun and they
> are part of the SFW consolidation. So, there is a clear overlap. If
> these efforts can be merged than the situation can look like the following:
>
> - There is just one "base" package for the particular product - as you
> say below - this can be the starting point
Certainly logical.
> - Some of the packages will be maintained by people from Sun, some
> packages will be maintained by volunteers from community, and some other
> companies (than Sun) can decide to invest their resources to maintenance
> of these packages
A true open infrastructure. In fact this is what Blastwave does
because many of the people that maintain software inside the Blastwave
build stack do so from within corporations with needs. If a given
corporation or organization ( there are numerous I can point to ) need
package X up to date and integrated with a stack of libraries then
they ( the corporation ) simply assigns a developer or two to the
task. They get free access to the build stack and all tools and they
do what they do. Eventually we release the software to the "unstable"
tree. Bug reports get filed and changes made. Updates happen
continually and the software progresses towards a "stable" tree
release. All of this has been done for years and by developers that
actually are paid employees of Solaris based customers & corporations.
> - These packages can be then taken by any distribution based on
> OpenSolaris and the distribution can define some level of support for
> these packages
Precisely my thoughts. The specifics need to be hammered out but we
clearly agree on these goals.
> - What I am up to is simply to define a model, which will make possible
> to support these packages (by anyone who decides to do so) or in other
> words -- the way how the packages are created and maintained should not
> break eventual needs of a further support (e.g, an option to create a
> patch if this is necessary)
I agree. Clearly I have more to say on this but I am staring at some
snv_63 servers here to bring online. :-)
> >> When Sun (or anyone else) delivers an OpenSolaris based
> >> distribution then it has to be known what end users shall expect in terms
> >> of support and how this will be achieved.
> >
> > Are you talking about Solaris here or OpenSolaris ?
> >
> Solaris or any other OpenSolaris based distribution.
Based on my thoughts and statements earlier ( way up near the top of
this ) we are really talking about the same goal in either case.
> > If SchilliX has a website that tells the world about updates then
> > that takes care of that. If BeleniX gets updated continually then we
> > don't have to worry about BeleniX. If there is some grand unified
> > software service in place that will provide community built and
> > maintained software packages to end users of any or all of them then
> > we don't have to worry about that either. The software will get
> > maintained by those that need it. If Solaris users need access to an
> > up to date version of Apache 2.2.4 ( or whatever ) then they can just
> > type "pkg-get -i apache2" and viola they will have all that they need.
> > Each distro may implement the software specifics as they see fit but
> > we can certainly provide a generic starting point for all software
> > titles for all distributions.
> >
> That will be definitely great.
A utopia of some sort. We may at least head in that direction and
achieve a democracy or some sort of republic.
> >> There are two major categories of Solaris users today:
> >> - People who use Solaris in production environment and they need
> >> stability. They are often interested only in security fixes and
> >> not too much in the latest features.
> >
> > Again, this is Solaris and not OpenSolaris. Solaris as a product
> > has support and maintainance contracts that people can purchase and
> > when they call for support they get taken care of I presume. The open
> > source software ( like Apache ) may or may not be part of the product
> > called "Solaris". That is Sun Microsystems Inc's business and not the
> > business of SchilliX or BeleniX or marTux.
> >
> This is true. However, if SFW gets changed this will mean that the way
> how Apache is packaged can change and this can have direct impact on Sun
> Microsystems Inc's business (because Apache is now part of product
> called "Solaris").
agreed.
> I am not saying that OpenSolaris community shall
> consider what is good for Sun Microsystems Inc's business or not but I
> think that people from Sun should be part of discussions concerning
> changes, which may impact Sun Microsystems Inc's business. From my
> point of view I need to understand what is / will be going on and
> evaluate how this can impact the work I do.
At the very least we need to consider that I see some forty thousand
hits a day to the Blastwave software catalog from Solaris users.
Those users range from Solaris 8 upwards and the majority are still
Sparc users. I would safely say that the production users as well as
the developers are making their own choices and I can easily plot the
trends. This is one of the things that myself and Tom Goguen ( who
has left Sun ) spoke about many times, those overwhelming trends based
on hard data.
Ultimately the user decides what they want to do and they put their
purchase orders in the best place as they see fit.
> >> - People who use Solaris on a desktop -- they typically can
> >> sacrifice some stability in order to be able to get the latest
> >> features.
> >
> > You forgot developers that may have both worlds as well as strange
> > hardware all over the place.
> >
> True -- the above is just simplification of the situation.
>
> >> Similar view can be taken from the actual product's point of view.
> >> - For example, vim is important for end users but its unlikely
> >> that missing vim will cause problems in a production environment.
> >
> > Right .. so they can download the VIM package whenever they want it
> > and it gets installed . Updates provided continually as needed,
> > requested or required.
> >
> >> - However, samba is quite opposite type of product -- many people
> >> do not need to set up samba server on their laptop but samba is
> >> essential for many enterprises (Solaris servers and Window clients)
> >
> > Same as above.
> >
> >> The above simply means that different products have different
> >> support requirements and possible changes in SFW shall satisfy
> >> them.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Lukas
> >>
> >> [1] http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/
> >>
> >
> > Let us look at that link shall we?
> >
> > That page allows a user to download the "Solaris 10 11/06 OS
> > Companion Software DVD" which is part of the release called Solaris 10
> > Update 3. I go through some hoops and download that thing to find that
> > it contains some software packages that I need to manually pkgadd one
> > by one and resolve dependencies as I go. A bloody nightmare. All in
> > all you have maybe 150 software packages there for Solaris users.
> >
> > That page clearly says this :
> >
> > Now, you have two primary sources of freeware that work with the
> > Solaris 10 Operating System:
> >
> > ****************
> > There are in fact a number of places to get open source software
> > from that is every bit as unsupported as what you list there.
> > Actually,
> > the software found elsewhere is better supported than the CCD.
> > ****************
> >
> > 1. Freeware that is included on the Solaris 10 11/06 DVD in
> > separate and distinct modules, which is being made available as a
> > convenience to our customers
> > * technologies that users may expect to find with their
> > operating environment are now included with the Solaris environment
> >
> > ****************
> > Some of that means supported or not. Who knows.
> > It is a "convenience" to your customers.
> > ****************
> >
> Well this page clearly says that this SW ("Included with Solaris 10
> 11/06 OS") is supported and there are two levels of support provided by
> Sun (left column of the table at the mentioned page). Majority of this
> SW is part of the SFW consolidation.
>
> > 2. Freeware that is co-packaged via the Solaris 11/06 Companion DVD
> > * other useful and popular technologies are offered as an
> > unsupported value-add DVD
> >
> > *****************
> > unsupported. That is clear.
> >
> > Further down that page after your software list you have "Related
> > Links" in which you point to a number of places but strangely no link
> > to the Blastwave.org site that delivers tons of software to Solaris
> > users for five years. No link at all.
> >
> > I have no idea what the Companion CD is but it certainly is not up to
> > date, maintained nor supported. It is convenient software that Sun
> > Microsystems Inc. provides freely to Solaris users. It is not part and
> > parcel of the OpenSolaris project nor will it suffice to satisfy the
> > current modern user nor the future user.
> >
> > I find the whole CCD to be an afront to my senses. Something broken
> > that needs to be fixed or killed and this has been said many times
> > before in many ways for years and years now.
> >
> Again, I personally think that the way Blastwave is done and run
> provides better service to the end users than CCD.
Well, at this point I see a clear need and as per usual I respond by
building the infrastructure and then opening the door. I will have
the homepage at Blastwave updated in the next 36 hours and the build
stack will include Solaris Nevada machines with AMD Opterons and
Niagara hardware complete with Sun Studio 11 and 12. Anyone that wants
free access for software maintainance purposes will simply need to
fill in a web based form and submit a request.
Dennis Clarke
