[osol-discuss] Why do we need Oracle's permission or vision for OpenSolaris?

[Rob McMahon]

IMHO, The Oracle/Sun provided OpenSolaris reference distribution (henceforth referred to as Indiana to avoid confusion) has done the community a disservice, in the sense that it has prevented a community from producing something itself.
All the other OpenSolaris based distributions such as Schillix, Nexenta etc all cater for particular niches, but what what's needed is a community produced version of Indiana. One with the same (or at least, similar) goals with an identical/similar architecture including aspects such as IPS, Automated Installer, Zones, etc.
1. Oracle agrees to continue to provide the source code for OpenSolaris (nevada), along with constituent parts (such as IPS/pkg). Oracle continue to provide bug and security fixed updates to the closed source binaries.
2. OpenSolaris 2010.xx is never released, but becomes Solaris Next.
3. The community steps up and produces it's own version of Indiana, tracking Solaris Next as best it can in a binary and package compatible way.
4. The community maintains it's own source code repository that developers can commit to, and Oracle takes community improvements that they want.
This frees Oracle from their obligation to the community, and allows them to maintain their secrecy and radio silence. But it forges an even stronger community that can stand on it's own legs.
Obviously the issue the community has is that we've never had the ability to produce the distribution itself. We don't have the ability to build all the packages that go into the IPS repo, nor produce the Live CD, nor do we have an installer. And of course, finding people to do the actual work would present a significant challenge.
The good news is that there is a community out there. There are the community members who have been involved with the OpenSolaris derived distributions. There are ex Sun/Oracle staff who have moved to other companies, such as Nexenta. There are projects such as OSUnix who are trying to produce their own OS from the OpenSolaris codebase by replacing the closed binaries/code (such as the internationalised bits of libc).
Not to mention, there's Blastwave and OpenCSW who are already building large amounts of software for Solaris/OpenSolaris, and if one/both decided to contribute, we have a huge source of software packages for the community based distro.
If the fragmented OpenSolaris community rallied round and came together, I'm quite confident a community based distribution could thrive. Indeed, if Solaris Next does become an "Oracle Hardware Only" OS, then an entire company providing support for the community based distribution would definitely have legs, and this could potentially afford to pay staff to work on building the distribution full time. Solaris is run by a very large number of people on Dell/HP/etc kit and these users would no doubt be eager to jump onto such a distribution.
I'm going to be talking about my thoughts on this at the London OpenSolaris Users Group later this month, if anyone is in London and wants to come along. And of course I'd appreciate peoples comments here on this thread.
Alasdair

+1 I've added distribution-discuss to this, where I've already tried to
say much the same thing, although you put it better. I'm sure there are
enough of us out here to get this rolling.

Rob

[Alan Coopersmith]

Obviously the issue the community has is that we've never had the ability to produce the distribution itself. We don't have the ability to build all the packages that go into the IPS repo, nor produce the Live CD, nor do we have an installer. And of course, finding people to do the actual work would present a significant challenge.

You should be able to build the LiveCD using the distribution constructor, if
you had a complete set of packages (so you can do this for 134 now, but not
yet for later builds). I also don't understand why you say you have no
installer when the Caiman project installers are all fully open.

Building the packages is probably the biggest technical challenge, especially
since right now a bunch of packages are still converted from SVR4 originals that
aren't publicly released - but since the results are released under licenses
that allow redistribution, you can use the existing ones until you develop the
ability to build replacements.

Fortunately, building the 4 biggest consolidations (ON, SFW, JDS, X) will give
you a majority of the packages from the "WOS" (i.e. the bits that used to be
installed by the SXCE installers - not including the traditionally "unbundled"
bits also in the repos like NetBeans, OpenOffice, Studio compilers, etc.) and
the majority of the sources to those consolidations are open. (100% in the case
of X & SFW.) ON, X, & JDS can be built directly into IPS package format today
from the externally released sources, leaving SFW & the smaller consolidations
for running through the SVR4->IPS conversion process.

[Alasdair Lumsden]

Post by Alan Coopersmith
You should be able to build the LiveCD using the
distribution constructor, if
you had a complete set of packages (so you can do
this for 134 now, but not
yet for later builds). I also don't understand why
you say you have no
installer when the Caiman project installers are all
fully open.

Hi Alan, many thanks for responding.

Good to hear the Caiman installer is fully open, perhaps there's less to do than I initially thought.

Post by Alan Coopersmith
Building the packages is probably the biggest
technical challenge, especially
since right now a bunch of packages are still
converted from SVR4 originals that
aren't publicly released - but since the results are
released under licenses
that allow redistribution, you can use the existing
ones until you develop the
ability to build replacements.

*nods*

Post by Alan Coopersmith
Fortunately, building the 4 biggest consolidations
(ON, SFW, JDS, X) will give
you a majority of the packages from the "WOS" (i.e.
the bits that used to be
installed by the SXCE installers - not including the
traditionally "unbundled"
bits also in the repos like NetBeans, OpenOffice,
Studio compilers, etc.) and
the majority of the sources to those consolidations
are open. (100% in the case
of X & SFW.) ON, X, & JDS can be built directly
into IPS package format today
from the externally released sources, leaving SFW &
the smaller consolidations
for running through the SVR4->IPS conversion process.

Thanks again for this feedback. Do you know if the SVR4->IPS conversion tool(s) are publicly available/open source?

Do you foresee any issue with the community producing a distribution that tracks OpenSolaris/Solaris Next in a binary and package compatible way?* Are there any challenges other than the above that would present a major roadblock?

*(Obviously the community understands Solaris is a trademark and derived distributions are not allowed to use Solaris as a constituent part of the name).

Lastly, do you think this is something Oracle are likely to object to or react to in a negative way? I understand you're not able to speak on Oracles behalf, I'm more curious about your feelings on this as a community member.

Cheers,

Alasdair

[Alan Coopersmith]

Post by Alasdair Lumsden
Thanks again for this feedback. Do you know if the SVR4->IPS conversion tool(s) are publicly available/open source?

Yes - see src/util/distro-import in the IPS gate. This includes
the conversion metadata files that specify how to merge, rename,
and otherwise transform the package contents on the way from the
SVR4 versions to the IPS versions.

Post by Alasdair Lumsden
Do you foresee any issue with the community producing a distribution that tracks OpenSolaris/Solaris Next in a binary and package compatible way?* Are there any challenges other than the above that would present a major roadblock?

We already have a number of community distros, I don't see any issues
with one more, assuming you respect the trademark issues. I'd get
advice from John Plocher there, since he spent more hours than anyone
wants to know working with the trademark lawyers when the original
OpenSolaris distro naming issues came up.

[Alasdair Lumsden]

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Alan Coopersmith

Post by Alasdair Lumsden
Thanks again for this feedback. Do you know if the SVR4->IPS conversion tool(s) are publicly available/open source?

Yes - see src/util/distro-import in the IPS gate.   This includes
the conversion metadata files that specify how to merge, rename,
and otherwise transform the package contents on the way from the
SVR4 versions to the IPS versions.

Perfect.

Post by Alasdair Lumsden
Do you foresee any issue with the community producing a distribution that tracks OpenSolaris/Solaris Next in a binary and package compatible way?* Are there any challenges other than the above that would present a major roadblock?

We already have a number of community distros, I don't see any issues
with one more, assuming you respect the trademark issues.  I'd get
advice from John Plocher there, since he spent more hours than anyone
wants to know working with the trademark lawyers when the original
OpenSolaris distro naming issues came up.

Thanks again!