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Torvalds on Opening Solaris
An anonymous reader sent in a link to this interview with Linus Torvalds, where the questions center on Sun's movement toward the open source world (and Linus' dismissive view of the threat posed by Solaris), as well as a few questions about 2.7 and the future of Linux.
That's just the perfect reply. If you've accomplished something great, don't be humble - that's fake - but state the facts and stay grounded.
What I don't understand is how this guy keeps himself grounded...
The owls are not what they seem
I wouldn't be suprised if Sun came out with a responce to this article. I mean Linus essentially just called thier operating system a joke. I wonder what kind of responce Sun will have to that.
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!
In my past life I was an SCO engineer (yeah hate me for it, but it was waaaay back)... and the more Linux evolved--disassociated from UNIX--the more I loved it. Posix/SUS was meant to be a basis for a manufacturer-neutral standard system interface. Linux kernel/gblic internals have been extraordinarily creative in working toward that rationale.
Sigs cause cancer.
I think Linus is being a bit too dismissive towards Solaris. Sure it's not going to completely crush Linux like McNealy wants to believe, but if it ends up being good enough it could slow down the growth of Linux and become a major competitor on x86.
You raise a good point, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think that seeing how other people are doing things and getting exposure to new ideas is important in all walks of life, including programming. I definately understand the reason of not having enough time, but just not wanting to check it out doesn't sit with me well.
I have recently attended a talk at our local NOVA (Northern Virginia) LUG by Harry Foxwell focused on Solaris 10. And while Harry is a respected scientist and a great presenter, I couldn't help noticing some things that were not exactly in the Open Source spirit if you will. The talk was 90% about Solaris Containers (aka Zones or N1 Grid Containers), and being a believer of giving credit where credit is due, I was somewhat disheartened not to hear ony mention of FreeBSD jails and several statements about how Solaris Zones are primarily based not on any OSS work, but rather prior Sun work on Trusted Solaris. While I believe the Trusted Solaris stuff was partly true (in Linux this is called capabilities, BTW (POSIX 1003.1e/1003.2c)), it wouldn't hurt to briefly mention the origins of the concept of separation, FreeBSD jails, and the fact the Linux Vserver provides the same functionality for Linux (Linux Vserver was mentioned, followed by some condescending analogy of Linux and transformer robots and how Linux developers can "transform" Linux into supporting anything.) The truth of the matter is that FreeBSD jails appeared in 1999, Linux Vserver in September of 2001 and Solaris Zones in 2002. The talk could also use less of "Solaris is for real, Linux is not" comments, especially considering this is a talk at a Linux User Group.
The bottom line is - I salute Sun open sourcing Solaris, but they still need to work on improving the attitude towards other open source OS's, particularly Linux and FreeBSD. The strategy of insisting that Solaris is just better, isn't going to get Sun very far, simply because it isn't true in many respects.
Just a paragraph below your quote. And it's not like he dictates every move for Linux. If there are (and on Solaris/SPARC there sure are) better things in Solaris than Linux, I'm sure he'd welcome any improvement suggestions.
That doesn't take away it's downright arrogant to say you don't need anything the competitors might offer, and really, any other commercial-software spokesman would be modded +5 Ignorant.
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Why does Solaris have to be seen as a "threat"? A threat to whom, exactly?
I don't understand. It still baffles me whenever this kind of mentality gurgles up, like when Jimmy Wales said that Britannica would be "crushed out of existence" as if that should be one of Wikipedia's goals. What, is Britannica somehow a net negative on the world?
Come on, get a grip.
Another one bites the dust
So is making stupid judgement calls without reading the article.
From the article
People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time.
Linus doesn't know the OS or the codebase and plans to leave the analysis in the hands of the experts.
He's busy. There's nothing arrogant about that.
Agile Artisans
That doesn't take away it's downright arrogant to say you don't need anything the competitors might offer, and really, any other commercial-software spokesman would be modded +5 Ignorant.
He doesn't say he doesn't need anything from Sun Solaris. Instead, he says that he doesn't think Solaris has anything left worth taking. He goes on to say, from the article, "But more importantly, if I'm wrong, that's OK. People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time." Yeah, a lot of arrogance there.
Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86. (Editors' note: Drivers enable an operating system to communicate with specific hardware such as a video card or network adapter.)
Oh really? I guess Linux was a joke for the longest time, then, considering its lack of hardware support. In fact, I guess it's still a joke compared to windows, if driver support is all that (apparently) matters. Why is Linus ripping on the new kind on the block for the exact problem his OS has had since its inception? This is disgusting hypocrisy.
He should be proud of what he's accomplished, and I'm grateful for his and other's work--but to take this snide attitude when another OS comes along, because it has some of the same problems his OS did originally, is pretty sad.
-Dan
For Linus its actually very dangerous for him to 'ever' look at another operating system code again. What happens if tomorrow Sun sues, cause we violated a patent on an implementation in Linux, its going to look very stupid if Linus was quoted "yeah I'm going to rip any technology i can out of it" - all he should know is just concepts and high level features, that are thrown out on the kernel mailing lists, and then the kernel team devises a a way of implementing them. Its a sad legal environment that we live in, but Linus will constantly need to worry about getting 'tainted' with other code, all he should be seeing is GPL submitted code, that the submitter authenticates that it came from him and is in a legal position to let others use it.
"Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86."
I'm sure the comment will be taken all out of context...can't wait to see the mud slinging that ensues. Check Schwartz's blog/marketing tool for the comebacks in the next few days. Torvalds comments are mostly true for the non-server market, and Sun first and foremost is going after the server market with Solaris x86 although they are actively porting JDS to Solaris x86 which I think will run into problems that Linus mentions above.
To personally counter some of Mr. Torvalds other claims, historically Solaris x86 was a non-starter, but with a company like Sun pushing it now fully (especially on x86-64), it shouldn't be hard to find proper driver support for the majority of server installs from IBM, HP, Sun (of course), and Dell going forward. Where they're going to have to work hard is getting all the ISV's to port apps to another Unix with very small marketshare. Money always helps in that department and Sun is not shy about the fact that they have billions in the bank...so it could happen.
As for Linus' comments about Linux being superior to Solaris, I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps from a licensing perspective, and some aspect of the kernel might be as tight...but...
Solaris 10 has some neat features that don't fully exist in Linux or lack the polish that is found in Solaris.
Zones, fair share schedulers, zfs looks neat..., dtrace is amazing,
If Linux can polish up some the projects that do similar things as the above mentionned items than I think there isn't much reason to consider Solaris anymore.
Did you miss: ...the myth of how a single person or even a single company makes a huge difference in the market. It's the belief that things happen because somebody was visionary and "planned" it that way.
He is simply stating that his interest lay elsewhere. If his personal goals were to clone solaris, then checking out solaris would be important. But that's not his goal and he has more effective things to do with his time. If the project lead for solaris was checking out linux to come up with ideas for solaris, he's wasting his time and talents if he had no experience with linux.
Also understand that Linus is in no way a commercial spokesman. he does not make a "product" in any sense. He doesn't charge anyone for his labor nor charges people for the results. He is not competing against anything except for his previous releases.
Moreover, Solaris wasn't hidden in a cave before. Hiding the source doesn't hide useful features, just an implementation of them.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Linus once in a while says something definitive that makes people rush out to do hard work and prove him wrong. In this case he'll probably be drowned in detailed studies of what Solaris does better, and perhaps even code for Linux with some of the improvements. Assuming that Solaris does anything better of course.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I think that a lot of commentators have misunderstood Linus' answers. When Linus blandly said that he's not even going to bother studying Solaris/x86 in detail, he meant that he's not a Solaris expert. The Linux development model, by its very nature, means that any new technology of sufficient value would be easily incorporated in Linux. Linus simply meant that because he has created a dynamic atmosphere that encourages the adoption of ideas, he really doesn't need to inspect a competitive OS with a fine-toothed comb himself. If Solaris 10 does have features that get widely adopted by it's customers and proves itself over time, it would be a trivial issue to incorporate the feature in Linux (if it makes sense).
He's not dismissive of Solaris; he simply has a lot of confidence in his development model.
IMHO, of course.
Only old Koreans don't question digital signatures.
In Soviet Russa, digital signatures question you!
How can I know if those are Natalie Porman's grits, if they aren't digitally signed?
You forgot "imagine a beowulf cluster of signed articles."
Netcraft confirms it, I need to read up on my Slashdot trolling phenomena, you insensitive clod!
Solaris and Linux, for that matter, are based on the Posix operating system standard - which means for all basic services and interfaces in-scope they are basically identical.
The real question for Linux isn't so much 'what will we implement', as 'how will we implement this standard feature better'. Threads, drivers, signals, interprocess communication, and a host of other Posix features are nothing new under the sun.
Finally, you can not discount the impact SCO's lawsuit has had on FOSS; developers are much less likely to view questionable source code for fear of including infringing material inadvertently. In the case of SUN's x86 release - what are the terms and conditions of the use of the code? I am betting they won't GPL the code - instead using a much more restrictive license.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I happen to be very receptive to this argument, because my biggest problem with Linux is hardware support.
Most of the Linux kernel code is drivers. It's relatively easy to provide stability and integration for only a small base of hardware.
Sun hardware support should be better than Linux, not worse, since closed source and and stable api take away two of the biggest reasons vendors won't support linux.
That's also the only Solaris/Intel problem specificially mentioned by Linus in the interview, and the precise reason he called Solaris/Intel a joke.
Oh, I read that... and it's statements like this that really piss me off about Linus.
Yes, the whole operating system, with it's superior threading, source compatibility with the most popular commercial UNIX going, and unrivaled stability is a "joke" because it doesn't have as much driver support as the trendiest OS going.
That's just such a stupid thing to say it makes my head spin. Linus really does live on his own planet sometimes.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
From TFA:
It seems to me that they have taken some action besides just grandstanding. They have resurrected the x86 version and added several interesting features--containers, DTrace, and ZFS, for example--that are available today in beta versions of Solaris 10.
Did I miss something ? I thought that ZFS wasn't available in the beta stuff yet ?
Sun are in a hole. At the moment, they're writing to their enterprise customers asking that they (their customers) contact their ISV's and request software for Solaris x86. This is a bloody dangerous thing to do and could cost a lot of people in a lot of companies their jobs in the medium term.
Think about it - 10 of your customers (and you only have 20 or 30) phone and ask for your app on Solaris x86. They may be doing this because they genuinely want it, or more likely because they want to keep in Sun's good books and use this favour for improved discounts down the road. So you hire some new developers, move some existing developers from your Linux / Solaris on SPARC port and get going on the x86 port. You bring it to market and NO-ONE buys! So you lay off the extra people you hired, you lay off a couple more people because your profits are in the shitter because of the development commitment you made, and you hire off some more people just because redundancies always spawn more redundancies. And all this because Sun are trying to make a grassroots movement where there isn't one!
> Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard.
Last I heard? Come on Linus, please don't let what could be a healthy discussion degenerate into childish name calling. Such comments are usually the preserve of those that don't have anything constructive to add.
Solaris 10 is not meant to run on grandma's Pii Celeron.
/dale
You're missing the whole point, and showing your overall ingorance of, Solaris 10. Because of what you said, I greatly doubt that you've even tried to use Solaris 10 in its intended environment and are talking just as Linus did - based on anecdotes which are greatly dated and no longer valid.
It's designed to run on modern, high-end SPARC, x86, and now AMD64 platforms. Does it run on a hacked up Intel box where the average age of the components varies between 5-8 years? Hell no, and I'm glad Sun isn't wasting resources trying to make sure it does.
given he's apparently paid all the Solaris trolls to come out of the woodwork and diss Linus for a one-paragraph comment.
Sun is history. Period. Forget about them.
If they had been smart five years ago, they (and HP and IBM) would have ditched their proprietary Unix platforms and handed over the enterprise features to Linux (like SGI did with their file system) and concentrate on adding value with system management tools. They would have had a prayer of competing with Microsoft then.
Now, they're going to end up doing that anyway - after they've lost to Microsoft and Linux.
I have no sympathy for Solaris users. You backed the wrong horse. Tough. Deal with it.
In ten years, the only people running any other Unix OS except Linux will be the same sort of people who still run IBM System/3 minicomputers.
In other words, morons.
Linus is right. He doesn't have to care about Solaris - he's going to get all of Solaris's useful features in Linux sooner or later anyway - one way or the other.
Like the saying goes, "If you aren't part of the steamroller, you're part of the road." Or as Linus quipped about Gates' book, "Anybody standing in the road looks like roadkill to me."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!