Slashdot Mirror
OpenBSD (Still) Seeks UltraSparc III Docs From Sun
An anonymous reader writes "There is a very interesting article on kerneltrap regarding OpenBSD's lingering battle with Sun over UltraSparc III documentation (that's right ... it still hasn't been resolved). Jeremy Andrews relates his efforts to get a position from Sun on the matter. In summary, he was completely stonewalled ... and that is exactly what makes the article so noteworthy."
The whole story leaves me with the idea that sun hopes to get most of the expensive development done by the OS community as they are preparing their own linux distro. As such nothing wrong with that..
For OpenBSD they couldn't care less other than to keep them waiting and to keep possible competition at a distance.
Just my first, uninformed, impression..
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
Wasn't Sun in part started by Bill Joy of the *original* BSD fame, of which OpenBSD is an off-shoot? You'd think that Bill would show the OpenBSD guys some love.
Yes, I know Bill Joy creating BSD was a long time ago but there is no need for such duplicity and passive hostility. Let's get it together Sun !
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
makes various choices in the open source community, from JBoss to a Linux training center.
At the same time, Sun is one of many who are struggling to be profitable. From the article, "Sun boasts their UltraSparc III as an "open" architecture, yet seem to recognize that there is insufficient information freely available for the open source community to support it with operating systems."
Is it purely a financial ploy perhaps?
--------
Free your mind.
Sun has always seemed to be in the bussiness of sharing , but oftens seems to do a stab in the back
No, Sun are in the business of making money. All the cool stuff they do has to be paid for one way or the other. A fab is possibly the most expensive artifact on the planet, short of an aircraft carrier. Sun are perfectly willing to provide documentation to anyone willing to meet them halfway and sign an NDA, which is fair enough, since they need to protect their opportunity to earn a return on their investment. (Note that I said opportunity, not right).
This is not a flame or a troll, but the OpenBSD people's position is "we want you to respect our terms, but we aren't willing to respect yours". Well, you can't have your cake and eat it - and no amount of ranting will change that.
The question is: if Sun can allow David Miller to write GPL'd code, why don't they allow the OpenBSD team to write Berkley'd code?
Sun seems to be a company with an identity crisis. Are they a hardware company that dabbles in software? Are they a software company who dabbles in hardware?
Either way, they are looking at a bleak future considering the proliferation of Linux, and the availability of cheap, relatively high performance x686 hardware.
If Sun is a software company, they are probably not comfortable with the fact that Solaris, recently the 'standard' OS for low-end scientific/technical computing (at least in the semiconductor industry) is being passed over in favor of the cheaper (faster) alternative Linux.
If Sun is a hardware company, they should be worried. The semiconductor company I work for, which previously used Sun machines exclusively, has found that a dual XEON running Linux outperforms the new SunBlades it owns. The blades cost about 4-5 times more than the XEON systems, and have about half the speed for our applications.
I am not surprized if Sun is starting to feel that it has to protect itself.
If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
Sun boasts their UltraSparc III as an "open" architecture
So what is open, SPARC or UltraSparcIII. I haven't the time to find out. Do you know, sql*kitten?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Because the Berkley'd code can be used in other commercial software with just a little copyright message, whilst GPL'd code can be used in other commercial software, but then requires the source code of that software to be released.
codegolf.com - smaller *is* better.
No, you have that wrong. The OpenBSD position is "What ARE the terms?" -- they haven't been offered anything at all.
I think they have been ignoring his requests because they realize Theo is not going to be happy with an NDA, and is going to call the bluff. On one hand, Sun says it's an open architecture, but on the other hand - they're telling people they need to sign an NDA to get the data. I believe Sun would have offered him the NDA a long time ago if they thought he would sign it -- just like they've done with other (Linux) developers - but they probably realize it's not going to work like that with him. I don't think Theo is as concerned about the actual documentation; I think his driving motivation here is to get Sun to "practice what they preach."
Theo is of the opinion that if you're going to say something is a certain way, it better be. Sun will need to either ignore him indefinately, thus avoiding the whole NDA paradox -- or they will change the policy and truly offer the documention in an open manner, as they claim.
What I find interesting is the comment near the end of the article that basically says Theo thinks they have everyone sign an NDA to avoid public discussions of architecture bugs in the US3. Am I the only one that remembers Sun having customers sign NDA's so they could get their faulty UltraSparc chips replaced with bad cache? I can't find a link to past discussions about this, but...
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
Sun seem happy to ship OpenSSH with Solaris 2.9 without attribution (the documentation refers to 'SunSSH' throughout) - they are of course allowed to do this due to the BSD licensing however rather than just leeching this work you might have thought they would have provided some support on the Sparc docs.
/usr/bin/ssh | grep -i openbsd
$ uname -a
SunOS dev-sun 5.9 Generic_112233-01 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Blade-100
$ ssh -V
SSH Version Sun_SSH_1.0, protocol versions 1.5/2.0.
$ strings
@(#)$OpenBSD: ssh.c, v 1.69 2000/10/27 07:32:19 markus Exp $
@(#)$OpenBSD: sshconnect.c, v 1.79 2000/09/17 15:52:51 markus Exp $
..... lots more lines
Given the lack of SMP support, then yes, OpenBSD doesn't make much sense on larger Sun boxen. However, running OpenBSD on a V100 or V120 makes perfect sense, particularly for firewalls. We currently use Compaq DL320/360s for this, but Intel hardware suck, and Sun hardware is a joy to work with remotely (particularly the Netra T1 and V100/V120 series, which can be remotely power cycled via the serial port). Does anyone know if the V100/V120s are supported by OpenBSD? They're not on the list of approved hardware, but they do have an UltraSPARC IIi, rather than the UltraSPARC III that is causing so many problems. I might have a go at installing it when we get our next batch in...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
What 'most cases' would you care to mention? In the cases where Linux is 'good enough', Sun will sell you an LX50. When Linux doesn't scale, when decent support is required, when the app doesn't even run on Linx...
Don't forget too that IT is more than just an OS. There are support issues, consulting services, account management, reference sites and other things to take care of to keep customers happy.
But even staying with pure technical issues, what 'most cases' are you referring to?
...beyond what is found in, for example;
p df
[warning 5+mb download]
http://www.sun.com/processors/manuals/usIII_um.
?
If that's not good enough, fine, what areas need
more info? What exactly are they looking for?
I think Sun has a few more important concerns right now than helping a rather obscure version of BSD run on their proprietary hardware.
What I find funny about this whole article is the underlying hypocrisy. I'm not pointing at you necessarily, but I am pointing at a bunch of two faced Linux advocates posting here.
If this story was about GNU not getting the docs for use with Hurd, there would be a major hue and cry. If it was about Linus and Alan having to sign a proprietary contract before getting Sparc docs, Sun hardware the world over would be burning in bonfires. But it's OpenBSD, so they don't care. Linux people are telling Theo to "suck it up" and sign an NDA. Hey wake up you nimwits! Non-Disclosure Agreements are the very antithesis of Free Software. You cannot be an honest Free Software advocate while arguing that OpenBSD needs to sign an NDA. You cannot say that freedom is for Linux users but not for anyone else. You cannot say that it's wrong to dominate and subjugate Linux users, but that it's okay to shackle OpenBSD users under onerous restrictions.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Good hardware. Bad management. But that latter one is the fundamental reason I've recently decided to drop the Sparc Architecture in projects I work on. The one I do have that architecture is relevant is BICK. It lets you build a Linux bootable ISO image to make a CDR that can boot your own customized CD based system on either Intel x86 or SUN Sparc architecture even from the same CD. The reason I did that wasn't the trickery of doing 2 architectures on one CD, but rather, because I have worked with SUN machines many times, and having such a tool would be cool (e.g. carrying around one rescue CD for both architectures). However, for several reasons I have decided to drop SUN Sparc from the next version. This serious attitude problem Sun has is a major component of the reasoning (and is also why I will not select SUN hardware for future use in my business). The fact that they won't work with the OpenBSD team isn't by itself the reason I do this, but it is quite representative of an overall problem with SUN that is the reason.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars