Sun Developers Refute OpenSolaris Vaporware Claims

daria42 writes "It looks like an anonymous post on OSNews.com claiming OpenSolaris is vaporware was the last straw for two frustrated Sun Microsystems developers. They have responded furiously on their official Sun blogs, saying that they are currently working 'feverishly' on the project, and that it was taking so long because of the need to get rid of legal encumbrances to releasing the code. 'OpenSolaris certainly exists,' Sun kernel developer Alan Hargreaves says on his Sun blog. 'You only have to speak to anyone involved in getting it out there. There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun.'"

Comments

"Vaporwear"?

[stealth.c]

Is it clothing?

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[mattmentecky]

I think you just planted the seed for a marketing joint venture for fashion designers and porn producers abound.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[Daniel Ellard]

Thank you, slashdot editors.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[macaulay805]

Is it clothing?

Guess

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody seen Robert Altman's "Ready to Wear"? Remember the big climactic fashion show with the nude models?

"It's the new, new, old thing, and everyone can afford it!"

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[spiralscratch]

I understand that some emperor somewhere has started to clothe himself in vaporwear.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[stealth.c]

No, I haven't, but I really hope Sun doesn't sell this technology to Steve Ballmer.

>shudder

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just planted the seed for a marketing joint venture for fashion designers and porn producers abound.

Spray-on latex clothing?

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[wheany]

Don't you get it, you're supposed to pay them to get to catch these kinds of errors in the stories, before they hit the front page. They just push "accept" or "reject" and then (in theory) watch the daddypants@ -address for warnings.

Now there's a business model.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[The Monster]

Is it clothing?

That's what the consultants told the Emperor.

...and a child said: "Mommy, why is the man with the crown naked?"

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[LittLe3Lue]

If the quetion lies within the definition of vaporwear:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q =define:vaporware
"description of software/features that is/are not currently available but may never be available"

In other words: When a company claims to be working on or completing software that is unlikely to exist or to ever be completed. Prime examples: Duke Nukem Forever

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61935, 00.html
"The company's perennial absentee title, Duke Nukem Forever, is still vaporware. The first-person shooter, now in its sixth year of development, earned almost as many votes as all the other nominations combined."

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[caluml]

Clothing that is bio-degradable, activated by human sweat. You wear it, and after an hour, it starts disappearing. The ideal gift for people you either really like, or really don't.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[el_womble]

The Emperors new code?

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No... its not clothing!
It's stuff that programmers use to get high!

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[stealth.c]

Wow. Just... Wow.

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[somethingwitty]

The beginning of the end for Sun?

Re:"Vaporwear"?

[shadowknot]

That would be a scary sweat stained experience!

Vision of the Future?

Stuff that matters

[fembots]

Seriously who would need to refute claims like that? The sooner they get this thing out, the sooner the rumors will vaporize automatically. The rest is just a waste of time.

Tell me which one would you believe more - Microsoft claiming that they're working on patches to fix some exploits "as we speak", or they're asking users to download the patches now?

Re:Stuff that matters

[passthecrackpipe]

"Give them a break, if I was working on something and people kept annoying me about it, I'd be sure as hell tempted to quit and give them the finger."

If I was them, I'd *first* do all the legal stuff, then decide what to release, *then* announce and release it at the same time. Sun, instead, has opted to announce, and then announce again, and keep that up for a year or so, then announce again, then release some code that isn't really Open Solaris, and then get some devs to "respond furiously" about being bugged for code that was promised over a year ago, but nobody has really yet seen.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

bugged for code that was promised over a year ago

You are obviously not familiar with corporate marketing. Or, for that matter, with marketing in general. Do you get mad at George Lucas because he promised Episode III almost five years ago (when he started Episode I)? Do you get mad because they started marketing it a year ago? Do you get mad because they started to release teaser trailers a couple of months ago? Do you get mad because they started running real trailers a few weeks ago? Shouldn't they just keep quiet about the whole thing and just release the trailers when the movie is done and out?

Of course not, they have to create buzz to let people know what is coming and to build an audience.

Sun didn't promise to release the code a year ago, they announced they would be releasing it. They've been pretty consistent in saying that it would be end of Q2. There's not been any reason to doubt that it will happen when they say.

Re:Stuff that matters

[ArsenneLupin]

They've been pretty consistent in saying that it would be end of Q2.

Yes, but Q2 of which year? My bet is on 2014.

Re:Stuff that matters

[_Hiro_]

Ah, so it's a Working Designs joint venture!

Re:Stuff that matters

[smilheim]

Announce product pump/hype it up delay product creating more anticipation profit!

Re:Stuff that matters

[peragrin]

Actually Sun did promise it by the first of the year.

then in december it became June.

June is still possible, though My bet was for August 2005.

Lucas promised episode III after I and II,

Sun has been promising Open Solaris for the year, but they have also prmised it in the past, and then withdrew those sentiments.

Re:Stuff that matters

[rishistar]

"There is no OpenSolaris," read an anonymous post on operating systems news Web site OSNews.com. "Show us the code or quit mentioning it."

To refute this they have gone ahead and released a few lines of code....

#include <stdio.h>

Thats as far as they can go right now until the legal issues are cleared up though.

Re:Stuff that matters

[inc_x]

They need/want to pay another 25 million to SCO before they write the next line ;-)

Re:Stuff that matters

[christophersaul]

And while you were working on it, you could listen to all the moaners at Slashdot telling you to open source it as it would be a good idea.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Untrue. You hype it early so that hopefully some vendors will wait for it instead of going to competitors.

Re:Stuff that matters

[vandon]

Most likely, they're having to re-write large sections of code to remove/replace things. Sun and Veritas are close and there's probably a lot of Veritas code in the Solaris kernel and OS.
Sun is probably going to try to shoehorn the Linux JFS/Ext3 filesystem into the kernel. I guess they could just release it with UFS only, but who'd want to run a server on a non-journaled filesystem?

Re:Stuff that matters

[coolGuyZak]

"Tell me which one would you believe more - Microsoft claiming that they're working on patches to fix some exploits "as we speak", or they're asking users to download the patches now?"

Tell me which one would you belive more - Microsoft claiming the they're innovating Longhorn "as we speak", or that it's available at your local Office Max now?

Would be a much more fitting example. Quite frankly, I think that Sun will eventually release OpenSolaris. When it happens, I'll take a gander at it, as will the rest of the net. Then we'll move on.

On a wholly unrelated note: Is it possible to take CDDL code and place it in a GPL'd project? I know GPL > CDDL "no workie". But they said in the article that a proprietary vendor could take their code... why would an open one not be able to?

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

"They are, for all practical purposes, giving away thier code."

No, they're just talking about giving it away, that's what makes it vaporware. They're stringing people along in hopes of saving their once great, but currently failing company. Smart customers already know to move their Unix apps to Linux as soon as possible.

Re:Stuff that matters

[2short]

On your wholly unrelated note:

"Is it possible to take CDDL code and place it in a GPL'd project? I know GPL > CDDL 'no workie'."

No. You don't have rights to release CDDL code under the GPL, so you can't release code from each together, because to release code together with GPL code, you need to be able to release it all as GPL.

"they said in the article that a proprietary vendor could take their code... why would an open one not be able to?"

Because the open developer would need to redistribute the code under the GPL, which they don't have rights to do. The proprietary vendor can just not redistribute the code at all. Don't blame the CDDL, both developers can do all the same things with the CDDL code; but the open developer can't do as many things with the GPL'd code as the proprietary vendor can do with code he owns.

The GPL places restrictions on what you can do with the code. That's absolutely fine if those restrictions are what the author wants, but they are definitely restrictions.

Re:Stuff that matters

[dvdeug]

Of course not, they have to create buzz to let people know what is coming and to build an audience.

They're creating a buzz to keep customers on Solaris. Perhaps they shouldn't be surprised when people--often their competitors--create a counter-buzz to remind people that there are open source operating systems out there and that this one isn't out there and may never be out there. (And we've seen enough promised and expected programs disappear before release or slip release dates that we shouldn't flat out believe that we'll see the program when they say we will.)

Yes, it's corporate marketing. That's why we shouldn't accept it at face value, that's why we should complain about it and poke at it and try and convince other people to take it with large amounts of salt.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Just cause you don't know about the ninja chickens, doesn't mean you have to call me a prick. prick.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

"but who'd want to run a server on a non-journaled filesystem?"

My servers run Knoppix from the CD. Is that journaled or what?

Re:Stuff that matters

[geminidomino]

Sure, the smarmy comment that set these guys off and launched the tirades ("Show us the code or quit mentioning it") was probably un-called for. That's not the point. The point is someone, either the submitter, or the Sun guys in thier blogs don't know what Vaporware means.

Source: The Jargon File
vaporware: /vayprweir/, n.
Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place).

OpenSolaris IS vaporware at this point, and nothing is going to change that accept a release.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. 25 million for #include ? Ooops. Now I've gone and stolen SCO's valuable intellectual property.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell did you get Insightful?

fembots always gets modded up, look at his/her comment history

Re:Stuff that matters

[Spectra72]

Why on earth would you think there is a lot of Veritas code in Solaris? Nevermind that Sun has (and has had for a long, long time) products that compete directly with Veritas. Solaris Volume Manager is a replacement for Vertias Volume Manager and why use VxFS when UFS is just as good? Why pay for the Veritas licenses as well?

UFS is a Non-journaled fileysytem?? Ever hear of mounting UFS with "-o logging"? It's only been around since, oh I don't know..SOLARIS 7, which was released in 1998.

Sun and Oracle are close too, is there a lot of Oracle code in Solaris?

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they just created the post, then replied to it to create buzz. Remember, the post is an anonymous post. Doing so, they have successfully placed OpenSolaris on Slashdot. How many of you would have been reading about OpenSolaris and its release date if it weren't for this "controversy"?

Re:Stuff that matters

[Jason Earl]

Yes, and the term "vaporware" fits that sort of behavior to a T. Vaporware means software that is being marketed without an actual release. So far OpenSolaris is nothing but marketing. When Sun originally made its OpenSolaris announcement the release date was supposed to be in November of 2004, then later they pushed it back to January 2005, and now the release date is July 2005.

Until Sun actually releases an OpenSolaris product then OpenSolaris is vaporware by definition. If Sun (or anyone else) has a problem with that monniker, then the correct action is to release some source code. Heck, even if the code is incomplete it would still stop from being "vaporware."

Re:Stuff that matters

[passthecrackpipe]

I am highly familiar with corporate marketing, and no - I am not mad at anybody. I was just pointing out the flaws in the OP's argument. However, please look up defintion of vapourware, and get back to me.

Re:Stuff that matters

[HiThere]

They *claim* to be working on it. Proof is hidden. Given that proof is hidden, belief is dependent upon trust. How much to you trust Sun?

Personally, I don't give them much trust at all, but I do expect something to be released which they will call OpenSolaris. How crippled it will be, and in what way, I can't exactly forsee. (I do include "not at all" among the plausible answers, but it's not especially given a high probability.)

Re:Stuff that matters

[HiThere]

I wouldn't go that far. Just a bit earlier someone was claiming that because DTrace had been released the vaporware tag was inappropriate.

They need to release a working system before the term vaporware becomes inappropriate. And then they have no right to gripe if we judge the product based on what they actually release.

That said, many vaporware projects have eventually turned into real products. By no means all of them, and possibly not the majority, by many.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Grishnakh]

You are obviously not familiar with corporate marketing. Or, for that matter, with marketing in general. Do you get mad at George Lucas because he promised Episode III almost five years ago (when he started Episode I)? Do you get mad because they started marketing it a year ago? Do you get mad because they started to release teaser trailers a couple of months ago? Do you get mad because they started running real trailers a few weeks ago? Shouldn't they just keep quiet about the whole thing and just release the trailers when the movie is done and out?

Of course not, they have to create buzz to let people know what is coming and to build an audience.

This is a terrible analogy, and I don't need to be a marketing expert to see it.

Episode III is a movie, not a computing platform. Computing platforms are tools that people and businesses use to do other things (like run reservation systems on, etc.). Without computing platforms, their businesses don't run. Their choice of computing platform can make a big difference in the success of their business, just like your choice of car can make a big difference in your success (your employer will like you more if you show up on time every day, instead of calling in every week that your car broke down again).

Movies are entertainment. You watch it, and you're done. Watching Episode III does not prevent you from watching 10 other movies that same week. Deciding whether or not to watch Ep III will probably not affect your job success.

Moreover, Lucas is not advertising Ep III in order to convince you to not watch other movies in the meantime. It doesn't hurt him if you watch another movie before his comes out, or even if you watch another movie when his comes out, but you still watch his before it leaves the theater. He just wants you to watch it.

Sun's motivation is different. They're trying to prevent defections to other platforms. If customers get tired of Solaris and move to another platform, Sun loses customers and marketshare. So they create vaporware in order to prevent these defections, just like how Microsoft is constantly talking about how great their next version of Windows will be (although it never lives up to those claims).

Lucas promised long ago that his movies would be released along a specific timeline, and as far as I can tell, he's met those goals. His challenge now is just to convince people like me who were highly disappointed with Ep 1 & 2 to bother with Ep 3. This has nothing to do with "vaporware". The product will arrive when promised, just as his past products have arrived when promised, and it's just a question of whether people pay to see it or not.

Sun, however, is making promises just to keep people from abandoning them. OpenSolaris is something all-new, so there's no past track record to judge this project by. But their motivations are highly suspect, which leads to a well-deserved label of "vaporware".

Re:Stuff that matters

[PHP Addict]

It's not officially vaporware until the project has died and gone to hell. Or at least, know one knows if it's vaporware until then. If there is still a pending release, which all the developer backlash would suggest, then it's just delayed, not dead and buried.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Jason Earl]

OpenSolaris is currently a vaporware project that is very likely to turn into a "real" product. I get that. For now, however, OpenSolaris is clearly a vaporware product. Sun has been using the forthcoming "open source" version of Solaris for some time as a reason for their Solaris customers to upgrade to version 10 instead of jumping ship to Red Hat. OpenSolaris has clearly been a major part of Sun's marketing scheme, but right now that's all OpenSolaris is, a marketing gimmick.

When OpenSolaris is finally released then customers can compare the newly open Solaris against existing Free Software systems. Until then it is unfair to compare systems that don't exist with ones that do exist.

Re:Stuff that matters

[aliquis]

yes! :D

Re:Stuff that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that SDS/SVM is comparable to VxVM, you are fucking crazy. Maybe you don't see much difference on your SS5, but on my 15k domains SVM/UFS can't hold a candle to VxVM/VxFS.

Advice to developers

[gowen]

The more time you spend "responding furiously" to "anonymous posts on OSNews.com", the less time you're spending actually being productive.

You'd be better of ignoring the cynics, the nay-sayers, and the anonymous blowhards, and continuing doing something productive.

Arguing on the internet is like ... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Re:Advice to developers

[tka]

which is different of what you are doing now? You're arguing how they should do it..

It's not like they are in a big flame war, they are just stating what the status is currently.

Re:Advice to developers

[gowen]

which is different of what you are doing now?

It's different because I haven't got anything better to do :)

Re:Advice to developers

[tka]

Yeah, sure.. :D

Re:Advice to developers

[MrMickS]

Move along, nothing to see above. The parent rather than being informative is merely making a cheap shot.

There are many examples wherein an oft repeated untruth is more widely accepted than the reality. What is so bad about people putting their comments into their blogs? Oh, I get it.. if they were real open sores developers then they would only have time for the project. The rest of life would be as nothing to the all encompassing goal of making it work.

Re:Advice to developers

[northcat]

You know, during the BitKeeper issue, Linus Torvalds was also responding to "some guy" in that mailing list (or forum) post.

Re:Advice to developers

[generic-man]

Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics. It's lots of fun, you can be mentally defective and still play, and you get a gold medal if you win!

Re:Advice to developers

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got a nerve, complaining about cheap shots and then using the term "open sores" instead of "open source". Actually, that's not a cheap shot, that's just childish.

Re:Advice to developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Banglalore is new silicone valley!

Mmm... I've spent a few nights in Silicone Valley, and it was wonderful!

Re:Advice to developers

[sfjoe]

The more time you spend "responding furiously" to "anonymous posts on OSNews.com", the less time you're spending actually being productive.


I suspect that the wrong people are being fingered here. I only have rumors to go on but I would suspect a large part of the delay is due to the PHBs. They have to develop complicated spreadsheets, write tons of emails, give approvals to other people's approvals, take twenty seven 8 x 10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is.
You can't hurry a good bureacracy.

osnews...

[Freggy]

Hey, give these guys a bit of time, will you? Sun developers, don't take it too personally, osnews is known for being the trolling site bu excellence in free software land.

Re:osnews...

[Anonymous Coward]

osnews is known for being the trolling site bu excellence in free software land.

What? When did Slashdot get knocked off its seat?

it's useful to know open solaris is in the works

[Senor_Programmer]

prior to release. planning and all that.

For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[zeromemory]

While I'm inclined to believe that Sun is really try to open up the source to Solaris, the fact that they've only been able to put up a website (which notably has more links to press releases and news articles than source code) and the source for DTrace in the months since they've stated their Great Plan to open-source Solaris, it's no wonder that members of the community are calling an open-source Solaris vaporware.

Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[owlstead]

Knowing Sun, they are not going for a "it barely works" first release. These guys are quite serious about maintaining correct code. This is one of the things that OSS does *not* excel in particularly.

People are always screaming at Sun to open source things (e.g. Java) but I wonder if the software quality would remain at the same high level as it is now. The good thing of Open Solaris is that drivers will be hacked, and Sun could take advantage of that. Let's hope it won't screw up their version management.

From what I've seen, solaris is a very high quality, stable operating system. The only crash I ever saw from Solaris machines at the university was related to the floppy drive cable, which messed up communications inside the sparcstation.

Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[HiThere]

You say this as if Java were of exceptionally high quality, but having used Java, Python and Ruby I would rate Python and Ruby fairly high, and Java somewhat below.

I'm noy claiming that Java doesn't have it's advantages. It has a several year head start, so if it didn't have ANY advantages, that would speak quite poorly of it. But haveing used all three my preferences are Ruby, Python, Java in that order.

OTOH, Ruby needs to work on diagnostic error messages, and needs more work on it's libraries, so for some projects I'd prefer Python (or Python + Pyrex). I've never done anything for which I would find Java a better choice, though I'm sure such projects exist. (And I'm also sure that some would place Perl up in this selection, but I've never used it, and so can't speak to its virtues and vices.)

There are people who scream for Sun to "Open Source" Java, but having seen the licenses that they chose, I'm just as happy for them to leave it closed, so that others can develope various different Java compilers. (And that also says how anxious I am for OpenSolaris. Yes, I consider it vaproware, but this doesn't bother me at all. It fits the definition of vaporware. Sometime, after its release, then it won't fit that definition any more, but for now it does.)

Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[RealAlaskan]

Knowing Sun, they are not going for a "it barely works" first release. These guys are quite serious about maintaining correct code. This is one of the things that OSS does *not* excel in particularly.

You're right: a perfect first release isn't the way most Libre projects proceed. They put together something that shows how good it could be, if only it were complete, and worked, then release it as version 0.0.1, and get some help.

Sun seems to be trying to release a completed masterpiece. No help wanted, thanks very much.

It's sort of like the difference between making a bazarre, and making a cathedral. Gee, that's a great metaphor! Maybe I should write an anthropology paper about the different development methods around that. I could title it: ``Sun's bizarre development model will build a cold, empty cathedral, but they could have had a sunny, open bazarre.'' Maybe just ``The Cathederal and the Bazarre'' for short. I bet I'd be famous!

Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[kenh]

Yes, I consider it vaproware, but this doesn't bother me at all. It fits the definition of vaporware. Sometime, after its release, then it won't fit that definition any more, but for now it does.

No, it doesn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware/ It has not been announced with a certain release date that has been missed - IIRC, they have not announced a date certain that has been passed... If they had, you'd be right - but I think thye have not...

According to their roadmap http://www.opensolaris.org/roadmap/index.html they plan to have a buildable release 2QCY05 (2nd quarter Calendar Year 2005) - which gives them until June 30th to do so. Any calls that OpenSolaris is Vaporware before then are premature...

Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware

[HiThere]

OK. It fits my definition and usage for the term vaporware. I am a native speaker of english. There are others with slightly different usage patterns.

In other news..

[asterix_2k1]

twelve thousand monkeys furiously coding for 3DRealms posted that Duke Nukem Forever should be out anytime soon...

Re:In other news..

[jgardner100]

Yes but Duke Nukem is actually past it's release date. I can't believe that we are wasting time calling something "vaporware" before it's release date. Make /. look a little bit biased you konw.

Re:In other news..

[peragrin]

Open Solaris was promised for in June of last year for novemember 2004, then it became January, 2005 then June 2005.

Sun has got a good track record so far.

Vaporwear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the kind of underpants you have on when you're going commando?

What about a sample?

[Vo0k]

Following the standard FOSS policy "release often", release some parts of the system that are ready - some demon, some apps, and keep adding. Linux wasn't built in a day, and the first versions required Minix to compile it, it was a long process of creating it. Why not release OpenSolaris piece-by-piece, so people interested in it could start working on the non-encumbered parts?

Imagine this: I'm running commercial Solaris. I have some app provided by the system, that does the work in a realy kludgy way, with some of my custom wrapper scripts to let it work at all. I know I can fix it and make it work as it should with a few simple changes to the source of the app. I don't need whole OS. I need sources of this one single component. And they lay there on the harddrives of SUN employees, ready to release, waiting till some completely different parts are finished, and in the meantime I lose $1000 a day because the kludge doesn't do its job well enough. So why won't they release it?

Re:What about a sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

and in the meantime I lose $1000 a day because the kludge doesn't do its job well enough. So why won't they release it?

Then you pay for a support contract - you'll save your money in no time.

They don't *owe* you OpenSolaris. Let them do it in their own time.

Re:What about a sample?

[Otter]

That may or may not be a good idea, but do you think it would result in people bitching at them any less? It's not like an anonymous poster at OSNews has a burning need to look at Solaris' scheduler code.

Re:What about a sample?

[blastwave]

It will get released when everything is ready.

I don't work for Sun but I have been in the OpenSolaris pilot from Day One and I can tell you that I have been working like mad with it as have others. Myself and James Dickens worked night and day over the past weekend to build the OS on an E4000 as well as a LX50 machine for both enterprise class implementations and server room work. You can see the results of the workstation build at Blastwave.org and you need to watch James Dickens blog as well as mine to see progress that happens OUTSIDE of Sun. Not to mention the PowerPC port project at BlastWare which will also make progress when some other bits are in place. There are partnerships in place to work on the PowerPC port and GENESI is behind this as well as others.

Power is a big deal folks. Think of OpenSolaris on your IBM big iron also.

So go make a coffee and relax. Its coming real soon now.

Dennis Clarke
Director Blastwave.org
http://www.blastwave.org/

Re:What about a sample?

[Vo0k]

Except, he couldn't bitch it's a vaporware, seeing separate components clicking together and thing being built before his eyes.

Re:What about a sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

a twelve year old pre-teen drop his X-Box
Now that's really amazing. Did it run quad-speed 8x DVD?

Re:What about a sample?

[Alex]

Imagine this: I'm running commercial Solaris. I have some app provided by the system, that does the work in a realy kludgy way, with some of my custom wrapper scripts to let it work at all. I know I can fix it and make it work as it should with a few simple changes to the source of the app. I don't need whole OS. I need sources of this one single component. And they lay there on the harddrives of SUN employees, ready to release, waiting till some completely different parts are finished, and in the meantime I lose $1000 a day because the kludge doesn't do its job well enough. So why won't they release it?

Doesn't sound much like you've ever used Solaris.

Alex

Re:What about a sample?

[Plutor]

Release a sample? That's a great idea. Maybe it should be some flagship feature behind Solaris 10. Like DTrace? Which was released open-source in January? You are a marketing genius.

Re:What about a sample?

[illumin8]

I need sources of this one single component. And they lay there on the harddrives of SUN employees, ready to release, waiting till some completely different parts are finished, and in the meantime I lose $1000 a day because the kludge doesn't do its job well enough. So why won't they release it?

If you wrote an app on Solaris that generates $1000 a day and you can't fix your bugs because you don't have access to the Solaris source code, you need to check your head because I'm sorry, but you're an idiot...

Sun has always had a binary compatibility promise. If you write your code to spec and use their APIs properly you'll never have to worry about a new version of Solaris breaking your app.

If you can't be bothered to learn how to write proper code, and just want to kludge something that might work right now, but breaks when you install Solaris 15 - Xtreme Edition, how is that Sun's fault?

BTW, you can also look at the Solaris source code right now if you sign a license agreement. The code isn't free as in speech, but if you need to look at it to fix a bug and you're a paying customer, I'm sure they'll let you see it.

Re:What about a sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, and James Dickens is da' bomb! He hangs out in #solaris on irc.freenode.net all the time. :)

Re:What about a sample?

[Iamnoone]

FYI - The header on your page http://www.blastwave.org/articles/BLS-0026/index.h tml links to opensolaris.com (looks like a domain squatter owns that) and not .org like your other pages.

Re:What about a sample?

[blastwave]

Good catch !

Fixed that as well as a few other small things that were bothering me.

thank you

Dennis

Re:What about a sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It will get released when everything is ready.

I don't work for Sun but I have been in the OpenSolaris pilot from Day One and I can tell you that I have been working like mad with it as have others. Myself and James Dickens worked night and day over the past weekend to build the OS on an E4000 as well as a LX50 machine for both enterprise class implementations and server room work. You can see the results of the workstation build at Blastwave.org and you need to watch James Dickens blog as well as mine to see progress that happens OUTSIDE of Sun. Not to mention the PowerPC port project at BlastWare which will also make progress when some other bits are in place. There are partnerships in place to work on the PowerPC port and GENESI is behind this as well as others.

Power is a big deal folks. Think of OpenSolaris on your IBM big iron also.

So go make a coffee and relax. Its coming real soon now.

Dennis Clarke
Director Blastwave.org
http://www.blastwave.org/"

Now wait a minute! How am I supposed to track your progress? I don't think you plugged your website in your post.

what month is it?

[Daniel Ellard]

OpenSolaris is supposed to appear in July. Did I oversleep today, or isn't it still May?

It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release.

(I don't work on Solaris/OpenSolaris, so I have no special knowledge about the project, except that I know people are working are working on it.)

Re:what month is it?

[Richard_at_work]

Slashdot as a community seems to have the opinion that if the announcement of something isnt accompanied by that something straight away, then its classed as vapourware, purely because slashdot bases its opinions on the workings of the opensource community, and that is completely unfair. If I announce an opensource project, I can immediately give anon read cvs access to the tree, regardless of whether theres anything in there. Sun cant do this tho, they have announced OpenSolaris to essentially placate the calls for opensourcing any and every closed source app that has been appearing in the community, and as the article states they need time to ensure theres no legal issues with the code. If Sun hadnt announced when they did, there would still be a lot of shouting down of Sun about an opensource solaris, even if Sun was doing this work in private. At least this way people get to know whats happening.

Re:what month is it?

[markus_baertschi]

Until it's released it's vaporware. Vaporware is something announced, with no real stuff available. Open source Solaris fits this description nicely right now.

If it takes until July to get ready, what was the point announcing it so early ?

Markus

Re:what month is it?

[zotz]

"OpenSolaris is supposed to appear in July. Did I oversleep today, or isn't it still May?

It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release. "

Why is it being called OpenSolaris? We know Solaris exists. Is it being called OpenSolaris because it is to be open source Solaris?

If so, the Solaris part may exist now, but the open part doesn't. I noticed something about legal encumberances to releasing now... All closed promoters please note the problems you get into using non-Free code in your programs. You can't do what you want with your own software. (I know I am only presenting one side there.)

all the best,

drew

Re:what month is it?

[dvdeug]

Slashdot as a community seems to have the opinion that if the announcement of something isnt accompanied by that something straight away, then its classed as vapourware,

It's tiring to hear all the noise about how great it's going to be, especially since we've seen many things be promised and never delivered. Perhaps we're a little cynical, but it's deserved in a lot of cases.

One of the favorite stunts a company has to attack its competitors is to announce that it will have what its competitors have now real soon now. As a developer for a Linux distribution, we and many of our competitors have an open source Un*x system out now. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't downplay promises from Sun; it's an attempt to keep people from running to us, Sun's competitors, for what they need, without actually having a competeting product (in the field of open source operating systems.)

Re:what month is it?

[SEE]

It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release.

True. But, given that we're currently seven months past the originally-scheduled November 2004 release, and five months past the then-scheduled January 2005, such unfairness is fortunately not occuring.

Not that I don't have sympathy for the developers, but the wait has been more than twice as long as the time originally promised.

Re:what month is it?

[supabeast!]

Yeah, but you have to remember that this is the Open Source Community. People who upload every buggy, unstable, alpha version of every piece of code they write to public CVS servers and then blog about it have a really hard time understanding that saner more intelligent people might prefer to actually stick to a schedule and only release the code when it's ready for use.

Re:what month is it?

[JonAnderson]

Hmm. Cynicism is fine to a point (we all remember MS's NT mantra IITNR (its in the next release)). The problem, as others have stated, is the sheer amount of legal checking and code that has to be unencumbered. Sun made an estimate of how long this would take when calculating a release date. This has turned out to be more work than estimated and thus the projected release date has slipped. I am confident that it will be out before the end of Q2 or early Q3 at the latest. I think the benefit of the doubt should be given in this case, especially considering Sun's track record of contributions to open source and open standards, rather than assuming something nefarious is going on. Isn't it better to wait a bit longer but get the quality right? (something that the software industry as a whole ALWAYS seems to get wrong).

Re:what month is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW they are saying July... after letting the (self-imposed, mind you) deadline slide several times already.

It's completely fair to start calling it vaporware two months before the deadline due to the fact that they're something like 0 for 3 with their deadlines so far.

Re:what month is it?

[cahiha]

Slashdot as a community seems to have the opinion that if the announcement of something isnt accompanied by that something straight away, then its classed as vapourware,

You bet we have that opinion: this kind of long-term announcement is calculated to manipulate people. That's exactly what constitutes vaporware.

If Sun hadnt announced when they did, there would still be a lot of shouting down of Sun about an opensource solaris, even if Sun was doing this work in private.

I doubt anybody would give a second thought to an open source version of Solaris if Sun hadn't announced it: the open source community doesn't need an open source version of Solaris, and people don't expect this sort of thing from Sun.

At least this way people get to know whats happening.

You're a fool if you make any long-term plans based on Sun's announcements. Given their history, they are just as likely to put large chunks of Solaris under the "Sun Community License", set up a "Solaris Community Process" to manage it all, and require you to sign over your intellectual property to them for the privilege of fixing their bugs.

Re:what month is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

that saner more intelligent people might prefer to actually stick to a schedule and only release the code when it's ready for use.

Well, it's too late for Sun to stick to their schedule, since they already missed it twice.

Re:what month is it?

[ThousandStars]

This may explain in part Apple's silence regarding new products: they can't be accused of vaporware if they don't announce until it's done. Otherwise, the armchair commentators on /. and elsewhere shout for blood if a product isn't instantly available -- this deal with Sun is a good example.

Re:what month is it?

[Cyno]

Sure, they should get the benefit of the doubt, but the more they push the OpenSolaris RealSoonNow(TM) advertisements we'll push back with *cough*vaporware*cough*.

Don't let it hurt your feelings, just focus on getting the code out and the rumors will go away.

Right now OpenSolaris is almost as stable and secure and revolutionary as Longhorn.

You don't hear us touting the awesome new features that will be available in Linux 3.0 kernel or KDE 5.0 or X.org 6.9, do you? They will be out in a year or two. But the community doesn't leverage that vaporware for political gain. That's the reason you're taking heat.

Re:what month is it?

[Cyno]

All closed promoters please note the problems you get into using non-Free code in your programs. You can't do what you want with your own software.

That's an excellent point. I wonder who was saying this exact same thing about the GPL a few months back...

Re:what month is it?

[Bios_Hakr]

I've not really looked into this whole OpenSolaris thingy, so forgive me if I make a mistake here.

Here's my take on it: If I wanted to open a product that was laden with other people's IP, I'd make a list of all the source files. Then, I'd have my people go through them, one at a time, until a file was certified as 100% IP free. Then I'd have that file uploaded to a server.

Release early and often is a great idea.

I'd probably take about 20 minutes to count all the files and make a progress bar. Everyone would know what was out there. They'd have a pretty good idea of what was to come. And they'd know the progress of the project.

Holding onto your entire batch of cookies until the last one is out of the oven is a great way to piss off the children.

Re:what month is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You don't hear us touting the awesome new features that will be available in [...] X.org 6.9"

There's a topic every month or some with some beta/hacked X,org screenshots...

Re:what month is it?

[aliquis]

To bad I've already made a post so I can't mod you up.

Re:what month is it?

[Cyno]

That's open source code, available to everyone to test, hack, QA, document, etc.

Very different than OpenSolaris, which as of now is still not open. Its like RedHat saying "We'll give you OpenRHEL in a few months.", and trying to convince me that they are an open source company because they are planning on releasing source code some time. Except RedHat already has released almost all the source code to RHEL because most of its components are GPL, like the kernel and core libraries.

Sun, on the other hand, doesn't have an open source linux distribution. But they're trying to convince me that they are an open source friendly company. If they kept their mouth shut about OpenSolaris instead of using it like an advertisement, or just simply announced it under the radar, then we'd already think they were a good OSS company because of OOo. But their execs have tarnished their image in the eyes of many FOSS advocates, like me, because they can't stand the GPL.

Its not my fault they can't deal with the level playing field the GPL enforces on all Linux companies. Guess they'll have to try harder to get a piece of this pie. Personally, I'd rather they go without.

Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[dpbsmith]

So what's the big deal?

Why not take some substantial CHUNK of partly-finished code, some chunk for which the licensing issues HAVE been resolved, slap on a disclaimer about it being pre-alpha, buggy, etc, and post it somewhere?

If it's open source, there shouldn't be Apple-Steve-Jobs-like issues about maintaining secrecy until the actual moment of release.

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[gr8_phk]

Because their license doesn't allow you to take the code and use it for other projects. A chunk of Solaris isn't worth crap then without the whole thing.

It may be open source - you can see the source - but it isn't really good for anything but getting free labor to work on Solaris. At least that's what I've read on /. and Groklaw. I'd guess they can't release source until they hide all the good stuff in a way that they can easily patch it back in on the closed source side.

IMHO sun is not a friend of free software or even plain open source.

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[finkployd]

So Sun claimed it would ship in July, it is currently May. Where is this secrecy you speak of?

Finkployd

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[justins]

Why not take some substantial CHUNK of partly-finished code, some chunk for which the licensing issues HAVE been resolved, slap on a disclaimer about it being pre-alpha, buggy, etc, and post it somewhere?

They did. Sure didn't seem to help.

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding me? Sun and FOSS are best friends.

Drinking buddies, they are. Honest. No shit. I saw a Solaris server and a small Linux cluster stumbling up the street from Basil T's the other night. They were sloshed. Out of their friggen CPUs I tell ya.

One of them dumped core in the middle of the sidewalk. I had to walk around it, it was disgusting.

The smell of alcohol venting from their cooling fans was enough to make you woozy. I am still wondering if they were able to negotiate the intersection at Front St without getting hit. I think they were headed to the Dublin for another round, so if you saw them there, post back so that I can rest easy, knowing they made it that far....

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[JonAnderson]

IMHO sun is not a friend of free software or even plain open source.

You are obviously a poor troll, an idiot or 10 years old (these are not mutually exclusive). http://www.sunsource.net/ Sun has made some very significant contributions over the years which are pretty fundamental to the way a lot of us use computers in our everyday lives. Get a clue before you post.

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[owlstead]

Because people would go an alter the code, like they are supposed to. Then you will have questions about integrating that code into the branches that still have to be released, messing up your time schedule. Knowing the way applications are developed, you can be pretty sure this will happen. But that's just my guess on why they shouldn't do this.

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[gr8_phk]

The project list includes GNome? They may have contributed something, but what? There's something for using X with Solaris. There's a bunch of things I never heard of. And finally, half of it is dependant on JAVA - not libre or even open source. I had a great deal of appreciation for OOo last year, but they're really rolling in the JAVA dependancies lately. And besides, the license for Open Solaris really honestly doesn't let you use it for anything but contributing to them - no forks, no lifting nice pieces to put into your own projects. I'm not trolling, I'm flaming. Please at least mod me down for the right reason ;-)

Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not take some substantial CHUNK of partly-finished code, some chunk for which the licensing issues HAVE been resolved, slap on a disclaimer about it being pre-alpha, buggy, etc, and post it somewhere?

That's an interesting idea, but it presumes that there are individual working, useful subsystems for which all the licensing issues have been resolved so that they are not giving away someone else's property. It's entirely possible that some licensing issue may affect files that are spread throughout the system, so that there is no substantial chunk that has already been cleared.

I'm not saying there aren't pieces that could be released. I'm just saying we can't take it for granted that there are.

Not "Official Sun Blogs"

[scarhill]

From the site:

The individuals who post here work at Sun Microsystems. The opinions expressed here are their own, are not necessarily reviewed in advance by anyone but the individual authors, and neither Sun nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.

Sounds about as official as a Slashdot post to me.

We all benefit when companies allow and encouragew their employees to blog. Calling blog posts "official" may sex up a /. article, but isn't really accurate.

Anonymous comments

[bigtallmofo]

"There is no OpenSolaris," read an anonymous post on operating systems news Web site OSNews.com. "Show us the code or quit mentioning it."

Who gets infuriated by anonymous comments with no substance at all?

You shouldn't spend too much brain power responding. The proper response is to respond anonymously with some stock comebacks:

"Says you!"
"Your mom!"

That'll learn'em.

Re:Anonymous comments

[jayloden]

oddly enough, those kinds of comments still get to you sometimes. I'm not much of a programmer, but I do have one piece of software that gets used a lot - it's a virus removal tool for Windows - and I occasionally get those types of comments in my email. Things like "your program ruined my computer, asshole" with no valid return address and no way for me to even respond to it.

I don't know about the guys at Sun, but that kind of stuff really pisses me off, because I KNOW it's not true, and that millions of people before that have used my program, and I want to set the record straight. Anonymous troll or not, I sure as hell have to fight the urge to respond to something like that. I imagine it has to be the same type of thing; you're working your ass off trying to get something ready, to give away to people for free, no less, and they're complaining about it, or accusing you of things that aren't true.

-Jay

Re:Anonymous comments

[Anonymous Coward]

I finally tracked you down, Jay! Your software ruined my computer you son of a bitch!

both do and do not work for Sun

[Threni]

> There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun

Wow! Quantum programmers!

Re:both do and do not work for Sun

[zeromemory]

Wow! Quantum programmers! So, may if we put them in a box hooked up to a poisonous gas tank...

Re:both do and do not work for Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! Quantum programmers!

Not any more, jerk. You changed their employment status by observing it!

Re:both do and do not work for Sun

[sysadmn]

Well, Sun pays them, but doesn't actually get any work out of them.
Kinda like around here :-) It's a variant of the Heisenberg principle. You can know exactly what we're doing, but we'll spend all our time preparing status reports and PowerPoint (oops, OpenOffice) presentations and defending our decisions. Or we can actually do productive work, but you'll have no idea what it is until it is done.

Re:both do and do not work for Sun

[killmenow]

I don't usually advocate moderating AC comments...but that was funny.

vaporware actually means something

[justins]

"Vaporware" refers to software which the publisher never intended to release, news of which was intended to have an effect on the market.

Slipping on your release date would make just about every software product "vaporware", you retards.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm, no. "Vaporware" is in reference to marketing hype of software before it's released... usually much before, resulting in people trying to position themselves for the hyped up release. The "intention" that you mention is a side effect. Ultimately announcing "XBox Next" or even "Longhorn" a year ago is considered vaporware until it manifests itself as hardware or software.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[_Hiro_]

One flaw with your logic, though.

By your definition of Vaporware, a slip in release date would not be enough to show intent to not release, just a product delay. A complete removal of the release date, however, would.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[killmenow]

Yes, vaporware does mean something. But your definition is by no means the absolute truth. Many software projects that were very much intended to be released never make it out the door for many reasons (usually poor management) but they are very much vaporware.

As many others have said, Duke Nukem Forever was actually meant to be produced. They really tried (and supposedly still are) but it is a perennial favorite in Wired's vaporware awards. Why? Because it's vaporware...even though it was originally intended to be released.

Now, as for calling people retards: you should know better. To call you a retard would be an insult to those in the world who actually are mentally retarded, regardless of your IQ.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[JonAnderson]

The definition of vapourware in this story was declared in the OP. Your definition of vapourware is, like your post, irrelevent.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[Cyno]

"Vaporware" refers to software which the publisher never intended to release

Yeah?

Wikipedia says it refers to software which was announced early by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[justins]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says

You can just stop there. Seriously.

Re:vaporware actually means something

[justins]

It's just another word to critize something or someone you don't like.

Evidently so, yeah.

Thank You Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Though Linux wasn't the first or the last open source project, I think it's amazing on some level that Sun Microsystems is mad about somebody accusing them of not giving their OS away for free.

Though it may be due to their loss of Solaris marketshare, the fact that so many resources (and apparently bare emotions) are devoted to open sourcing this software shows how far the business world has come in accepting the concept of free, open code.

I mean, they're practically saying, We're going to give this stuff away for FREE! You'll see! We'll be laughing then!

Believe me, we're laughing now.

Re:Thank You Linus

[squiggleslash]

Nobody's accused Sun of not giving their OS away for free. They've been doing that since Solaris 8 (well, there's the cost of the media, but you could always obtain more licenses for free anyway.)

The issue here is about Sun making an open source version of Solaris, a version Sun can sell at any price, we don't care, as long as people who obtain it aren't saddled with restrictions that prevent them from being able to make changes and distribute those changes in an open source fashion.

Both do and do not work for Sun?

[BVis]

'You only have to speak to anyone involved in getting it out there. There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun.'

Both do and do not work for Sun? I wasn't aware the Heisinger Uncertainty Principle applied to employment. If I called to verify employment, would that change his status?

Re:Both do and do not work for Sun?

[bigtallmofo]

Poor little Heisinger... Always taking credit for his cousin Heiseinberg's work.

Re:Both do and do not work for Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it's Heisenberg, and second, it only states that some things aren't simultaneously knowable, and that measuring one thing affects another.

What you're more likely thinking of is quantum superpositions, which are an entirely different thing.

Re:Both do and do not work for Sun?

[ifwm]

There should be a mod -1 for "failed to look up and confirm the information I think to be true" so I could use it on you.

Come on man, this is a science geeks website. You should have known better.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The AC

[Himring]

Sun Microsystems' developers have responded furiously to claims the company's decision to open-source Solaris was a mere public relations stunt.... "There is no OpenSolaris," read an anonymous post on operating systems news Web site OSNews.com. "Show us the code or quit mentioning it."

That anonymous coward guy -- who's always sending flames up my ass -- sure gets around....

Well duh!

[Vapebait]

'There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun.'

What, like everyone?

Re:Well duh!

[goldspider]

More like nobody. You can't have people that both do and do not work for a company; they either do or they don't.

Nonetheless, you are correct in that it was an idiotic statement.

Re:Well duh!

[_Hiro_]

More like nobody. You can't have people that both do and do not work for a company; they either do or they don't.

What about Consultants and Contractors?

Re:Well duh!

[Tpenta]

For goodness sake, read the whole sentence.

My point was that there are folks on the pilot who are not Sun employees in addition to those who are.

Tp. (Alan).

They have been working hard!

[Dante Shamest]

There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun.

Well obviously they have been working hard, since their brain cells have been overworked, causing them to produce Zen sentences like this.

Correct English

[Morosoph]

Sun Developers Refute OpenSolaris Vaporwear Claims

'Refute' here should really read 'Deny': the proof is yet to come.

Re:Correct English

[eviltypeguy]

No, part of the proof is already here in DTrace, since it is is an almost inseperable part of Solaris.

Additionally, part of the proof is already here in that over 30 some pilot teams already have OpenSolaris such as blastwave.org, and so on.

Finally, their announcement said it was to be released in Q2 of this year. Q2 isn't over yet...

Really, the trolls are getting tiring.

Re:Correct English

[Anonymous Coward]

No, part of the proof is already here in DTrace, since it is is an almost inseperable part of Solaris.

DTrace is Solaris in the same way that your pinky is you.

Additionally, part of the proof is already here in that over 30 some pilot teams already have OpenSolaris such as blastwave.org, and so on.

Wow, that puts it into another light because it tells us that the holdup is not actually technical: Sun already has a releasable Solaris source tree, they are just hanging on to it--well, why exactly? Because, perhaps, they are going to find some lame excuse at the last minute as they did with Java?

Re:Correct English

[eviltypeguy]

DTrace is Solaris in the same way that your pinky is you.

Indeed, it is part of me just as DTrace is a part of Solaris as I said...

Wow, that puts it into another light because it tells us that the holdup is not actually technical: Sun already has a releasable Solaris source tree, they are just hanging on to it--well, why exactly?

Yes, it isn't entirely technical, it's mostly legal and a few other things. It will be out by the end of Q2. Stop trolling.

If you're a regular reader of OSNews ...

[nemaispuke]

then you would know that that the guy who posted is a known troll and despite the efforts of Alan and other Sun employees who monitor OSNews this guy was still "foaming at the mouth". In fact one of the trolls posted his "parting shot" was to call Solaris users "nazis"! I think all of the posts in question have been pulled, because I could not find them.

The problem with OSNews is that it seems to attract the "bottom feeder" users who have little real experience and tend to bitch and whine like children rather than to respond with well thought out arguments and present facts. I have caught people using FUD and outright lies to support their "positions" that Linux is better than Solaris. Well see ...

Re:If you're a regular reader of OSNews ...

[absurdist]

The problem with OSNews is that it seems to attract the "bottom feeder" users who have little real experience and tend to bitch and whine like children rather than to respond with well thought out arguments and present facts.

So, I would assume then that you're including Eugenia in that estimation?

Re:If you're a regular reader of OSNews ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I would assume then that you're including Eugenia in that estimation?

I don't even read OS news on a regular basis and I can think of a few examples that fit. She dismissed an excellent video editing program from a review because "It looked weird", then layed down the conclusion that there were no good video editing programs for unix. A minor example to be sure, but it doesn't really lend tremendous respect for someones technical prowess. What really got to me though was her whinefest about the gnome developers not wanting to include some features she thought were good. Suddenly "Gnome ignores its users!". Which I found a rather odd position to take given that there's a lot of improvements to OS News that readers have been requesting for some time. She doesn't feel like going to any extra work to implement features she does not like, it's simply her perogitive. Someone else does it to her, and suddenly the folks are ignorant callus bastards.

Re:If you're a regular reader of OSNews ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eugenia, and her awesome site are the best thing on the intarweb! I just got my Gentoo machine running, and it's so much faster than Windows!!!!1 I can't even see how solaris could be this cool, I got Doom4 running on this thing in onyl 6 hours! Can Slowaris beat this! I THINK NOT!!!!!1

But seriously. Ever since Eugenia "rose to power" in the BeOS community, she's been a sore on the back of any community she latches on. Her reviews, pathetic post-control attempts, and abysmal "insider comments" have indeed sucked the site to the bottom of the internet.

Re:it's useful to know open solaris is in the work

[Zemplar]

Look at Blastwave's article http://www.blastwave.org/articles/BLS-0026/index.h tml for a good glimpse of OpenSolaris.

Quantum programmers for ...

[ccozan]

... a Quantum OS ;)

logical summary

[Anonymous Coward]

1) OpenSolaris -> exists.a(a works for Sun && not (a works for Sun))

2) exists.a(a works for Sun && not (a works for Sun))

assuming: OpenSolaris
=> Contradiction (1,2)

Thus, by their own logic, there is no Open Solaris.

Kasper

Like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you hear about DTrace

Anyway, OPENSOLARIS DOES NOT EXIST. It will be released in the future, and then and only THEN they'll be able to talk about "opensolaris". As for now, Solaris is 99.9% closed just as always. I don't really care that they've a "opensolaris preview program" with some people outside of sun looking at the code, "free" means that EVERYBODY can see, download it. As Linus said "They like to speak too much. I'm waiting for action".

and they should just shut up about redhat BTW. Redhat publishes ALL his software in a open way in ftp.redhat.com. They bought sixtina, what they did with xistina's "clustering fs"? As far as I know they released as soon as they could in the GPL and submitted it to the kernel mailing lists. The "Netscape directory" thing which was bought by redhat will be opensource too but they're "working on it" because of all the legal crap, just like solaris - just with one difference, Redhat's CEO doesn't talk like "opennetscape directory" like it already exist, which is what Swartchz does with opensolaris. It's amazing too see Swartchz talking about how "bad guy" is Redhat (surprise suprise, is redhat who is eating the traditional sun market share) because if you want to use things like Oracle they're only certified for use with redhat and not other distros. Yeah, I guess that if I write a solaris compatibility layer for solaris in linux suddenly all the certified sun apps will be supported, rigth? (In case you didn't noticed, I hate Swartchz. I love sun but I can't stand with people like that)

But it is vaporware

[DrXym]

Being that vaporware is a term for long announced but unseen software projects. I wouldn't be too put out by someone making such a statement. As soon as the thing is released, such remarks will no longer be required.

Of course the cynic in me might suggest that Sun preannounced the effort far too early, hoping it would sabotage enterprise adoption of Linux. And encourage more people to try out Solaris 10, even if Solaris 10 & Open Solaris are not the same things.

Vaporware vs vaporwear

[totallygeek]

It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release.

I guess that is why it was called "vaporwear" instead.

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course people are saying it is vaporware. It's not like Sun has actually released anything. That's because it IS VAPORWARE.

The Sun guys' point is "vaporware" doesn't mean "not yet released", it means "hyped up but never likely to be released". And they object to that: they've got a clear schedule and it says July.

Abuse of the English Language

[Bazzalisk]

To refute a claim is show it to be untrue. These guys have merely claimed that it is untrue.

Yes, but does it run Linux?

[Spy der Mann]

Hmmm must be one of those e-clothing stuff i've seen on technology news.

And it's SUN-powered! :D Where do I get one?

Now that's news

[Pedrito]

Sun announces Open Solaris

Before scheduled release, Anonymous Coward, siting no evidence, no previous examples, claims it's vaporware.

Well gosh, that's certainly news to me. I mean come on. Sun is the one with its reputation on the line. Some idiot who doesn't even identify himself, provides no evidence whatsoever that Sun is being misleading, and that's a big deal? Who cares.

Re:Now that's news

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a sign that some Sun employees are starting to loose their patience with the many childish idiots who advocate Linux (and make the rest of us look bad).

After OpenOffice and improvements to Gnome amongst other things, you'd think those fuckers would be able to shut up and let them get on with what is obviously a very complex process.

And most importantly:

[ArsenneLupin]

Will it be as difficult to install as Solaris 10? Maybe Sun should pay their shills to iron out the many wrinkles from the installation, rather than losing their time astroturfing on the blogs...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Pot, meet kettle; kettle, meet pot!

[ArsenneLupin]

Arguing on the internet is like ...

... posting to Slashdot?

Re:Pot, meet kettle; kettle, meet pot!

[JonAnderson]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irony

Waiting Patiently.

[wvitXpert]

Well, I for one am waiting patiently. BTW, what am I waiting for? What are the advantages of SUN over Linux?

Re:Waiting Patiently.

[wvitXpert]

Err... Sun Solaris I mean, of course...

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[Errtu76]

It's not like Sun has actually released anything. That's because it IS VAPORWARE.

No. That's because it's not released yet. You didn't read the article, right? Or even the postings in the blog(s)?

So according to you everything that is announced to be released, but not released quickly enough, is vaporware.

Who needs to chill out? The people of Sun defending their product, or some kid yelling at a forum for the code to be released because he/she is getting impatient.

*sigh* indeed ...

This is why open source sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is working to give something away for free and all everyone does is whine and cry that they haven't gotten it soon enough. Instead of saying "Why did Sun announce it if it wasn't ready?" why don't we say - if it's not costing you anything then why don't you just shut up and wait paitently or don't bother with it at all? (Either way the shut up part applies).

Re:This is why open source sucks

[E-Lad]

I wouldn't say "Open source sucks."

It's more of a case where the open source way of life has turned many people into self-centered brats who refuse to understand any situation outside of what they personally desire.

Re:This is why open source sucks

[inflex]

Amen!

Seriously, this is what happens when you give kids too many toys too easially, they expect more and more.

Proof OpenSolaris exists...

[Zemplar]

http://www.blastwave.org/articles/BLS-0026/index.h tml

OpenSolaris Screenshots and Details

[gc8005]

Go see Dennis Clarke's site: http://www.blastwave.com/ Dennis claims it took 2.5 hours to build OpenSolaris and has posted several screenshots.

People just can't stand Sun's endless stream of BS

[Anonymous Coward]

What are these people complaining about? I mean, it was Sun's very own Jim Grisanzio who set the tone here. For month he is attacking every critical statement about Sun's OpenSolaris release like a brain-dead pitbull with rabies (appologies to all pitbulls).

And JG is not even funny or imaginative. He is just playing the same old record: "People who complain are stupid.", "People who ask for details are brain dead and don't get it". "OpenSolaris will be released real soon now".

OpenSolaris is indeed vapourware with an GPL incompatible license. And Sun is working very hard to piss of even more programmers.

It is high time for Sun to put up or shut up. That propaganda dog-and-pony show is going on many potential developer's nerves.

now it means something different

[Anonymous Coward]

Language changes, retard. That may be what vaporware meant in the old days, but nowadays it is slightly different. These days it can be considered vaporware if the vendor announces it a long long time before it becomes available, for the same reason: to influence the marketplace. There is absolutely no doubt that Sun considers Linux its number one enemy now, so announcing a "Linux killer" open source OS was (and is) far more important than being able to actually produce one in a timely fasion. We saw the exact same behavior with Apple, who boldly proclaimed that they were adopting open source methodology, and then went on to release a closed source OS. Yes yes, I know about Darwin, but that is irrelevant, OS X is a closed source OS.

Re:now it means something different

[HiThere]

No. That was never what vaporware meant. Vaporware always meant products that were announced and not (yet?) delivered. It expresses cynicism about the nature of the (yet?) when no proof it available. It has often been a justifiable usage. There is no proof that it isn't a justifiable use *now* WRT OpenSolaris. It will almost certainly turn out that what is believed to have been promissed will differ significantly from what is delivered, so it will probably be a justifiable use.

What, the programmers working on it didn't make the promise? They never do. That's done by marketing and executives. And they use vague terms that can't be pinned down exactly as to their meaning. (Usually. Sometimes it's blatant lying, either the lie direct or overpromissing without reference to what is possible.)

blogtards

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh, maybe if they didn't spend so much time blogging it'd be released by now

I've talked to some people from Sun today ...

[Zenophran]

and they said that the reason it's taken so long was that they had to buy some IP that they'd previously licensed but couldn't release. They're in the process of finalising that now.

a short list:

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris is more secure, stable, scaleable and efficient than Linux. It is backed by a solid American corporation with professional programmers who make REAL wages for working on it. And that is just for starters.

Really once Solaris is open source, there will be no more reason for Linux to even exist.

Re:a short list:

[wvitXpert]

When I used it (Solaris 8) in college this year it seemed like the only difference was CDE (which, IMHO sucked) ans some command line utilities that just seemed like aliases to regular *nix utilities with switches. But we never got into the actual heart of the OS, so theres probably alot more to it.

Re:a short list:

[pandrijeczko]

Solaris is more secure, stable, scaleable and efficient than Linux.

...provided you are running it on Sun hardware of course.

It is backed by a solid American corporation with professional programmers who make REAL wages for working on it.

Wages != good programming

Really once Solaris is open source, there will be no more reason for Linux to even exist.

Once Solaris is open source, it will still have limited hardware support on x86 platforms compared to Linux. It won't support modern device management like Linux does in 2.6 kernels with udev - are Sun even going to Open Source the kernel?

Linux currently runs Open Source versions of just about any tool that Sun provides with Solaris.

A Sun server can be made to run just about any application you need fast and stable in an Enterprise environment. But on standard PC platforms, if you run Linux, don't bother changing to Solaris unless it's out of interest. You'll gain nothing.

Re:a short list:

[JonAnderson]

Rearrange ther following words: Line Sinker Hook And

Re:a short list:

[Nasarius]

I'm posting this from a SunRay 150 terminal...

Yes, Solaris does kinda suck for a desktop. It's more appropriate to compare it to the BSDs rather than Linux. It's primarily a secure, stable, mature server OS, and it does a fine job at that. Personally, I don't know of any reasons to use it instead of OpenBSD or FreeBSD.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[Stonent1]

I was asked to join the pilot because of my Gentoo Portage on Solaris idea a year or so back.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[turgid]

Yes, well, I know it exists because I worked for Sun until I was RIF'd in February. This place is full of anti-Sun bigotry, hatred and lies. It's kind of ironic, because despite Jonathan Schwartz's mouth, Sun is very Open Source and Free Software freindly. It's just been getting a bit pointy-haired recently.

Anyway, it's not my problem any more, thank goodness.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[inc_x]

Can you put it up for download?

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[pandrijeczko]

This place is full of anti-Sun bigotry, hatred and lies.

And who can blame us?

Scott McNealy was full of anti-Linux bigotry, hatred and lies... until he had to commit to this massive u-turn of open sourcing Solaris.

McNealy's a fool to himself - rather than embracing the open source community as an ally instead of an enemy five years ago, Solaris might well have been taken seriously as an OS on non-Sun hardware.

Let's face it, would Sun even consider making Solaris open source if Linux didn't exist?

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[turgid]

McNealy's a fool to himself - rather than embracing the open source community as an ally instead of an enemy five years ago, Solaris might well have been taken seriously as an OS on non-Sun hardware.

He never said that, well, not five years ago. It's RedHat he views as an enemy. Schwartz is the real fool. The engineers at Sun are far more clued-up and many of them are contributors to high-profile projects on a personal level, besides official projects like GNOME and OpenOffice.org.

I'm afraid the Pointy-Hairs don't see the value of community. To them it's all Wall Street, Java and "Kill RedHat." They very nearly missed Opteron.

Opteron could save Sun.

Let's face it, would Sun even consider making Solaris open source if Linux didn't exist?

I doubt it. But then the competition would only be Windows, not RedHat.

People forget that "Solaris 1.x" was BSD Unix. Sun was behind all the major innovations and standards.

Like I said, I couldn't care less any more, my only concern is for the great friends and colleagues still at Sun forced to toil under the pointy-haired regieme that still doesn't quite get it.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[coolGuyZak]

One of my good friends (still in college) is a PHB in training. (He's much more technical & intelligent than the one from Dilbert). And yet he thinks the same way as the rest of them, when it comes to OSS. Stuck in the "crufty old ways" of software development.

The problem with OSS, as he sees it, is it has yet to show that it can be consistently (and largely) profitable (stock wise). To do that, you need to show consistent gains, and have marketing plans. OSS doesn't do consistent gains and marketing plans. It's not directed enough. Also, when you create OSS, as soon as you release a new feature, all of your competition knows how you did it. That is something that really deters businesses from creating OSS.

Overall: The most successful PHBs are in it for the money. And big money doesn't exist in the OSS world. Stable money is there, if you leverage it correctly. But the PHB doesn't want stable. He wants tons. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

I have other ideas, though. I feel that there are several ways to benefit from OSS. I hope to gather a group of like-minded people, and create something truly wonderful for the OSS community. It has given me so much over the past years, and it would be wonderful to give something back.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[Stonent1]

Only Sun can do that.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[turgid]

Also, when you create OSS, as soon as you release a new feature, all of your competition knows how you did it.

This is one of the Great Misunderstandings of software and engineering in general by PHBs.

Your competition probably knows how you did it already. Most algorithms, or "ways of doing things," have been discovered and thoroughly researched in the past, sometimes as long ago as 3000 years.

By providing Open Source, you're not giving away a secret, but you are giving away an implementation.

All you're doing, if anything, is saving your potential competitor a bit of coding and debugging.

Particularly in the field of Operating Systems, kernels such as Linux and Solaris use well understood, well designed and well tested techniques and algorithms. There's no secret sauce in there that you can't find out for yourself by googling or going to the library.

The thing about Open Source is it can potentially reveal trade secrets, things like secret hardware specs. designed to keep other companies and people in the dark regarding the particular nuances of an implementation, thus putting them at a brief competitive disadvantage, at least until the newer, better, more attractive product comes along.

There are a lot of cases where GPL'd and BSD drivers can't take full advantage of the hardware due to "Intellectual Property" issues - and the issues usually relate to secret hardware specs.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[coolGuyZak]

By providing Open Source, you're not giving away a secret, but you are giving away an implementation.

All you're doing, if anything, is saving your potential competitor a bit of coding and debugging.

Not to mention the design/archetecture of the program (interface-wise). Bascially, you save them the entire cost of developing the app. Say that I create Killer App X. I implement it from the ground up. Now, my company can either keep it proprietary, or release it under an OSS license. If they keep it proprietary, then the competition needs to duplicate the whole thing. Meanwhile, if you release it under an OSS license:

• It becomes harder to sell (anyone can just copy it and license it for free).
• Any improvements you make can be immediately disributed freely, as source must be provided. (see the previous point).
• It loses direction (unless you rule over it with an iron fist, e.g. CDDL & Bretheren).
• It could fork, and "run amok" (related to, but not identical to, the previous point),

It seems to me that the PHB has a greater chance of profiting by keeping it closed.

Note: these are his arguments, as I see them. I realized that a few of the things he presented in the discussion (which occured only yesterday) are fallacious. I have discarded them, as I don't need them debunked ;) .

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[SunFan]

As an outsider, I see Sun's marketing and blogs, etc., and I'm not convinced that Schwartz is merely a pointy-hair. He's said some really good things to Wall Street customers, and it seems he is a strong advocate for the 'utility grid'. My only fear is that Sun is leading the edge of the 'utility grid' by a bit too much, because it is a cultural shift away from capital expenditure into one of pay-as-you-go get-the-tax-writeoff-now expenditure. For computer hardware that's a really big change. It's a change that could single handedly make Sun the most cost-effective supplier on the planet, but it's still got an uphill battle against established thinking.

Sun's execs also all said the right things in D.C. this week. Trusted Solaris and SunRay got huge exposure, there. I was suprised there are government suppliers whose _entire_ business model is based on Trusted Solaris. No matter what people say about "the war on terror", Sun is poised to cash in big on the sentiments in government and the huge defense expenditure, right now.

One thing Schwartz does, though, is give fuel to the Slashdot flames a bit much. I wonder if it is intentional, because his blog almost says that any publicity is good publicity. Considering that Sun isn't suing the pants off anyone or anything like that, perhaps Sun can't get genuinely bad publicity in his mind. At least Sun's discussions on Slashdot don't read as bad as Microsofts! Slashdot has been skewering Microsoft this week.

Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot.

[SunFan]

The thing about Open Source is it can potentially reveal trade secrets, things like secret hardware specs. designed to keep other companies and people in the dark regarding the particular nuances of an implementation, thus putting them at a brief competitive disadvantage, at least until the newer, better, more attractive product comes along.

Therein lies the genius behind the CDDL. People try to trivialize Sun's efforts, but it's like trivializing a work of art. The more people study it the more they see the artists insights and realize prior criticism was unfounded. When both programmers and PHBs get to understand the CDDL, they will realize it suits _both_ of them, which is a rare accomplishment. So many people have misgivings about the GPL, simply because it requires so much dilligence to stay legal. The CDDL makes staying clean so simple--it's merely a matter of keeping separate files. That's something programmers will love, as it frees them from always having to think like a lawyer. Just keep the files separate, mission complete.

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[Anonymous Coward]

>>
Who needs to chill out? The people of Sun defending their product, or some kid yelling at a forum for the code to be released because he/she is getting impatient.

What product?

IPV4 shortages

[stoborrobots]

Sig Reply
--
Shortage of IPv4 addresses? lynx -dump http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space | grep "IANA - Reserved"

Whoa - that's freaky... No wonder there's no real incentive to go to IPV6.... :-)

Although to be fair, thats only 89 class A's (or should I say, "/8"s) which means that it represents only 35% of the total address space. We don't have enough room to double - and with the exponential growth in network-capable devices, the doubling time is steadily getting shorter...

FWIW, a good read on the matter is at http://bgp.potaroo.net/ipv4/. Geoff's analysis concludes that we run out of addresses somewhere between March 2014 and February 2022.

Re:IPV4 shortages

[mikael]

Yes, but a Class A address reserves the entire range AA.0.0.0 to AA.255.255.255 for a single customer.

Unless someone can prove that they desperately need 16 million plus individual IP in the near future, they are not going to get a class A address.
Instead, the customer will be allocated a range of class B addresses, with each address giving 65536 hosts (BB.BB.0.0 to BB.BB.255.255).

Re:IPV4 shortages

[someguy456]

Yes, that was true up to a few years ago. However, recently, they've moved to variable length network identifiers using CIDR, Classless Inter-domain Routing, precisely because of the ever so close shortage of IP address. This technique and NAT are to blame for the delay in getting IPv6 out there on a mass scale.

Re:IPV4 shortages

[stoborrobots]

I think you missed my point; it's not that they are only going to assign these as /8s.... they've only RESERVED them in aggregate - when they assign them they are free to assign them right down to /32s (single addresses).

Now, IANA generally doesn't assign anything smaller than a /16, but it also generally doesn't assign to address-space users ("customers"). Instead, IANA assigns to "Regional Internet Registries" like ARIN, RIPE and APNIC. There are exceptions for those mega-organisations who do, in fact, require /8s - but most of those are historical.

The fact is that when the RIRs run out, they can turn back to IANA and request more addresses from that reserved space... so there is still plenty of time before you and I run out of addresses to use...

Perhaps you should read the explanatory page i linked to to follow what I'm talking about...

Re:IPV4 shortages

[mikael]

Thanks. I see now. As long as it's more cost-effective for ISP's to squeeze more customer space out of IPV4 using IP stacks implementing convoluted address schemes, IPV6 doesn't get anywhere.

Ubuntu

[KingBahamut]

Good enough for me. So why should I have to wait for Sun to release OpenSol?

I shouldnt really. Unless its going to be THAT much of a fabulous product. For that matter , got a copy of Java Desktop running at home, wasnt too pleased with it, so should OpenSol be any better?
Was anyone overly pleased with JDS? Most of the opinions Ive read were to the negative.

You want a copy of Solaris, go out and buy one. You want a free copy of Solaris, wait.

Re:Ubuntu

[The Man]

I shouldnt really. Unless its going to be THAT much of a fabulous product. For that matter , got a copy of Java Desktop running at home, wasnt too pleased with it, so should OpenSol be any better? Was anyone overly pleased with JDS? Most of the opinions Ive read were to the negative.

Solaris and JDS aren't the same thing. I'll be the first to admit that Sun's not always clear about the difference, but if you examine the system at a technical level you'll see that there's nothing confusing about it. JDS is a set of userland applications and libraries built with GNOME (from a non-marketing perspective, it *is* GNOME). It has at various times been implemented on top of both GNU/Linux and Solaris. It's included with Solaris 10, but of course you don't have to use it. You can use CDE, which is still included, or you can use any other window manager and widget sets that support X11, just like you could on Solaris 9 and 8 and any GNU/Linux or Unix system with an X installation. Solaris is a Unix system, optionally including an X11 environment. This platform offers administrators and users the exact same choices and flexibility that any other Unix or Unix-like system offers. Why assume Solaris is different just because the marketing folks want to push Java? If you don't like JDS, don't use it. I'm sure Ubuntu had some default when you installed it - maybe GNOME, maybe KDE, maybe twm, maybe no X at all. Did you use the defaults there? Many people don't, and there's no reason you should feel you must on Solaris.

You want a copy of Solaris, go out and buy one. You want a free copy of Solaris, wait.

I guess you mean 'You want a copy of Solaris, go get one today, free of charge. You want an open source copy of Solaris, wait for OpenSolaris.' See, Solaris 10 doesn't cost money unless you want support, which is entirely optional. See for yourself.

Re:Ubuntu

[Zemplar]

Depends on your use. Ubuntu is also my primary home OS now, but that will change to Solaris at the end of the month when some new hardware arrives (as good a time to convert as any).

If you like Ubuntu and it works for you, great, keep it. However, I choose to learn more about Solaris as it offers many things not available in Ubuntu...or most any Linux at this point. Zones, Dtrace, ZFS (soon), Janus (soon), MUCH better SMP support IMHO [will go nicely with my W2100z soon!], StarOffice (it is better than OpenOffice if only slightly), etc... and I won't be losing anything "only" available on Linux.

Re:Ubuntu

[psycho8me]

except your freedom.Most of the things you listed are not free software.

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a little mixed up on a couple of points. Java Desktop as you (probably) experienced it is really a Linux distribution (pretty vanilla SuSE, last I checked) which Sun has been targeting as a Windows-replacement for cheap desktops. The term "Java Desktop" today refers to their Gnome-based UI that runs on both Linux and Solaris. Yes, Sun needs help with how they name their stuff. They could start by not prepending "Java" onto every product, no matter how tangentially related to Java it may actually be.

Solaris is already free in that you can download and use it as you please without paying Sun a dime. What OpenSolaris will bring is the 'free as in freedom' part. That is, the source code to Solaris, and the right to modify and redistribute it.

Re:Ubuntu

[Zemplar]

Of course, it depends on your definition of 'freedom.' Still, the CDDL isn't a bad license. Do I like it as much as GPL or BSD? No. But it still isn't THAT bad. Besited I don't mind paying a reasonable price to further support development or a company of a good product.

I'm sure we'll disagree on this, but what do I know. Unlike most on this forum, I think the BSD license is more 'free' than the GPL.

Re:Ubuntu

[KingBahamut]

License War. Which is better than the other? This goes back to the Tridge concept of Free as in beer vs Free as in Freedom. Honestly, I support whatever supports the further development of decent product. Would I donate money to Ubuntu...Most certainly. Do I purchase distributions to show my support....without a doubt. Xandros makes a release, I pick up a copy. Libranet , purchased a DL last night. Novell releases NLD / Suse 9.3.

Zemp, Opinions are like assholes , everyone's got one. Some have two, or three. I know I do at least. But, what I do note is that unlike most in here, I stand up for your right to express that opinion, and 99% of the time, defend you for that right.

Of course , as I say that, surely Im going to get blasted for the comment.

Ce La Vie.

OpenSolaris will come out in stages

[bout]

Please note that OpenSolaris code will come out in stages.
For details: Click here
And here

--Eric Boutilier

I remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

When NeverWinter Nights came out, it only had a Windows version. Originally it was slated to have versions for MacOS, Linux, and Windows, at the release, in the box. I bought it anyhow, but there were some (vocal) Linux people who pre-ordered it, and were very upset.

Still, BioWare tried to make good on their promise to those people by at least eventually releasing a Linux port of the game (but not the toolset). However, this took them quite some time, and in the meantime, some people were very upset due to the lateness, the promises, the lack of the toolset, etc., etc....

However: months before they had released anything, I was already playing the game on Linux, (thanks to wine!) and a fork of wine (NWWine) was created just to run the toolset. Some people will complain about anything; others manage to get things done instead.

Now, on to Solaris. It has been available for free (as in beer) (WARNING: Scary sumo-wrestler-looking dork in pajama bottoms--I think they're trying to scare people away!) for some time now. So if you just want to run Solaris, (and why would you...) that is not a problem.

Also, Sun distributes copious amounts of freeware, and there's a free alternative (with source) to just about anything you could want on Solaris. Except the kernel, which would necessitate running another OS on the same hardware (Linux? NetBSD? Still many choices here).

So--given all this--what's the real market for OpenSolaris. Solaris kernel hackers? Gentoo Solaris? Honestly... not much. And: it isn't behind schedule, and it will be free--no one is pre-ordering it. So what's the big deal? Some people will complain about anything; others manage to get things done instead. And in the first category, I include both anonymous posters, and OpenSolaris developers. :)

Who cares?

[shaitand]

It is still going to be under that vile license of theirs. If you ask me that is worse than nothing.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

As vile as the license Mozilla and Firefox use? More vile? Less? Or, does "vile" mean "Not GPL" now?

There is no Duke Nukem Forever

[dtfinch]

It doesn't exist. If it did, it doesn't anymore. It's vaporware. Beyond some renderings done way back in 2001 (we don't know if they're real), where are the current screenshots? DNF was announced in 1997 for Christ's sake. That's 8 years of "coming soon". It's nothing more than a tactic to get gamers to revisit their website every few months. It should have been obvious from the name that it was never their plan to release Duke Nukem Waiting Forever.

Re:There is no Duke Nukem Forever

[nagora]

Burn the heretic!

Re:Astroturf

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have subscribed to be able to FP that. You have given money to slashdot to post your little troll rant. Don't you feel a bit stupid?

If they want a faster release date....

[Khyber]

... and this stuff's going to be open source anyways, why not just release more of the code than DTrace? You'll have every OSS programmer most likely drooling, and pouring in recommendations and ideas, if not coding the ideas themselves and submitting them for review.

I mean, if it truly is going to be open source, the second it's released it's gonna get hacked to bits and pieces, re-written, and soon there will be as many flavors of Solaris as there are *NIX. Why not get those guys working for you and speed up the process, and maybe, have an OSS OS that was designed by the people, for the people, and easier to use and maintain by the people, as opposed to closed source OSes like Windows, etc.

Personally, what I'd really like to see on Solaris is full architecture cross-compatibility. I wanna boot Solaris on RISC, x86, ARM, you name it. Make it universal, the odds of it becoming the standard are much, much better.

If Sun wants to show they are serious...

[jonwil]

Start small, pick a package that is smaller than the whole kernel and that is likely to be close to 100% sun code (e.g. a shell or a system utillity like ls or mv or something, or mabie the sun as or ld or cc)
and open that.
Opening these smaller-than-the-whole-box-and-dice-but-complete packages would show the community that Sun are genuinly committed to OpenSolaris.

Re:If Sun wants to show they are serious...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://opensolaris.org/download/index.html

Re:If Sun wants to show they are serious...

[jonwil]

Thats good and all but its not something that is useable directly (AFAIK) in that its only part of a larger whole (the kernel)

Beancounters and Lawyers = Delays

[infonography]

Even in Sun there are anti-open-source elements (and even Micro$oft users). Plus it took a lot of work by those lawyers in the first place to protect Sun's IP. It made sense then and it makes sense now. Look at what happened relating to SCO. A few months isn't a big deal, I would rather wait a while and get it free of entanglements. SCO happened because somebody got careless or looked careless.

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[His name cannot be s]

You didn't read the article, right? Or even the postings in the blog(s)?

Yup Read em'

[Moderator: +1,holier than thou]

So according to you everything that is announced to be released, but not released quickly enough, is vaporware.

Sure. I've seen more "announced" software fail than "unannounced". It does the public no good to proclaim you are going to release something, and then take your sissy-ass time doing it. As a matter of fact I've been burned by IBM, Microsoft, Sun, and Novell all at one time or another over this.

[Moderator: +1,Burned by the big 4]

Until they actually release the code, I'm calling vaporware. It seriously pisses me off when companies use their "good intensions" as a excuse for creating a press release. Why not simply hold off until it's ready? It would seem amazing and fresh when the thing rolls out of the door, and we would all be amazed that Sun would acutally do something. What's really going to happen? Sun (hopefully) is going to roll the damn thing out of the door, and we will find that 50% of the people will say "about fucking time" , 25% will say, "That's all you are releasing?" and the other 25% will say "Yay!".

[Moderator: +1,excessive profanity]

By holding off, and announcing the release without prior Grandstanding, The amazement would be huge, and very little bad would even possibly been said. (as is happening right now.)

Who needs to chill out? The people of Sun defending their product, or some kid yelling at a forum for the code to be released because he/she is getting impatient

Defending a product is one thing. Whining about Whining is another. Now I was Complaining about the Whining about the Bitching, and you were Pissing and Moaning about the Complaining about the Whining about the Bitching, and now you've caught me Monologing about the Pissing and Moaning about the Complaining about the Whining about the Bitching.

See how this works? Mayhap Sun should have kept their press releases to themselves until they were ready to release their source. At least that way it wouldn't appear as if they had been speaking from the depths of their asses.

[Moderator: +1,Funny]

I'm still not convinced that the license will truly be a free license anyway, in all likelyhood it will be more of a "community-fuck-fest" license like they keep using for Java. (or some lame derivative)

[Moderator: +2,one for the Java burn, one for the GPL is god inferrence]

Vaporware OpenSolaris

[Orion Blastar]

Maybe they are waiting for Longhorn to be released as part of their agreement with Microsoft? What exactly was all that about anyway besides "I'll stop my lawsuits, if you stop yours Bill."

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[Errtu76]

lol

I still don't agree with people calling something vaporware, just because they don't have the final product in their hands yet. *maybe* you're right and Sun doesn't release anything ... I stand corrected then. But everything shows that they're actively developing this and having some difficulties releasing it at the said date. Then again, i remember a game called HalfLife 2 that was supposed to be released, but then wasn't (i'm not talking about the time period when the source got stolen). Everybody on /. loves HL. Nobody called it vaporware then. Or did you?

Not a Deliberate Troll

[Morosoph]

DTrace is an important factor, but is not the whole thing.

The pilot scheme is a strongly indicative move, which makes it likely (rather than certain) that Solaris will be openned to everyone.

I'll have to say that "Q2 isn't over yet" isn't proof, but lack of disproof.

I am not claiming that OpenSolaris is a mirage; I am complaining about the sloppiness of the headline. I am a mathematician by training, and these things irk me.

First steps.

[theendlessnow]

1. Closed Safe Solaris - Basically what they have now.
2. Barely Locked Door Solaris - Solaris with a few nagging legal entanglements. What is being worked on now.
3. Unlocked Door Solaris (OpenSolaris core1-sarge-unstable .99) - The first real release of OpenSolaris. Has a lockable door just in case.
4. Open Door Solaris (OpenSolaris core2-hoary-testing 1.0) - Second attempt at opening up OpenSolaris.
5. No Door Solaris (OpenSolaris core3-hurd-released 1.1) - It's like Solaris except with a Linux kernel and all GNU tools. Remember all Solaris is is Linux.
6. Take Back Your Solaris (Solaris XP 2012 - first actual shipment 2014) - The final product of Sun's 10 year relationship with Microsoft culminating in a very inexpensive subscriber model supported distribution of the original Solaris. OpenSolaris will get picked up by Novell where it can grow and thrive.

Remember according to McNealy... Solaris == Linux. Google for the quotation.

Just goes to show....

[Anonymous Coward]

....what a load of shit the geeks on slashdot et-all spout.

but since when as lack of knowledge ever stopped anyone trying to put forward as "truth" a load of made-up hearsay.

I don't blame these guys for getting angry - if I was in their position, I'd be pretty pissed off about some of the crap that is written.

Some people just need to get out more. Find girlfriends, have some sex. drink beer. That sort of ting. And spend less time spreading their distorted view of the world around the place.

Its a Blessing, not a Curse.

[torpor]

I mean, OpenSolaris is intended to compete with Linux.

So, putting a lot of extra-legal work into the codebase prior to release, and polishing all licensing issues with dilligence, at whatever 'yapping dog heels' cost, is actually going to put OpenSolaris at a distinct advantage over Linux.

So, all you 'OSS defenders' might want to think twice about making such a fuss about this, and instead take a look at your own backyard.

Sun will trump Linux on this issue, upon its release.

What interests me is the response to the Darwin crew. If Sun put out a laptop, its all on, baby ..

taking advice from osnews forums

[Anonymous Coward]

> It looks like an anonymous post on OSNews.com claiming
> OpenSolaris is vaporware was the last straw for two frustrated
> Sun Microsystems developers.

Oh fantastic. Now maybe people will take more notice of those freaks whos' trolls make a third of the osnews posters. I read the site frequently, but those forums are the badlands.

Ps.

[Morosoph]

The article didn't mention the likes of blastwave.org, so there was no indication that the Sun Developers were actually refuting the vapourware claim, but rather only denying it.

I accept that the existance of such projects is a refutation for all intents and purposes. However, the linked article, in itself, contained insufficient information to make the case.

Re:Ps.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article didn't mention the likes of blastwave.org

Blastwave.org is "a collective effort to create a set of binary packages of free software, that can be automatically installed to a Solaris computer (sparc or x86 based) over the network." How do ports of open source software to Solaris demonstrate that an open source Solaris exists?

I accept that the existance of such projects is a refutation for all intents and purposes.

Assuming that blastwave.org developers have copies of the Solaris sources, how does the existence of a non-open source release of Solaris refute the claim that no open source release of Solaris exists?

The fact that there is no open source release of Solaris at this point seems pretty much undeniable. The problem is clearly not that the source doesn't exist, because it does, so the problem has to be a legal or business problem. And since Sun has been talking about it for more than a year, at this point, we have to doubt both their honesty and their ability to deliver: it's classic vaporware.

Re:Ps.

[eviltypeguy]

Blastwave.org is "a collective effort to create a set of binary packages of free software, that can be automatically installed to a Solaris computer (sparc or x86 based) over the network." How do ports of open source software to Solaris demonstrate that an open source Solaris exists?

It doesn't, however the main person behind blastwave.org has already posted that he has builds of OpenSolaris up and running, and they plan on having a PowerPC port of OpenSolaris.

So, no points for you Mr. Troll.

too late for my company...

[Hohlraum]

We are in the process of selling off our entire sun environment and moving to Dell servers running Debian. The machines originally ran Solaris 8 and even back when S8 was new just about every linux distro out there ran circles around it in ease of administration and installation. AFAIAC Solaris is not a viable GNU/Linux alternative. :D

stupid

[ahmetaa]

i cannot believe Cnet, or Sun is taking an anonymous moron serious.

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[His name cannot be s]

Google says:

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,870 for "half life 2" vaporware.

Someone thought that it was vaporware. :)

I'd be more forgiving to Sun, if their track record was a tad better. Or they stopped pissing me off with Java.

Frankly, Sun seems motivated by Marketing, and less by Delivery. This leads to several irritating techniques.

1. Calling Solaris 2.6 -> 6... This kindof jump makes management itchy. They don't understand it, but they do see a big number jump, and then start hitting the panic button.

2. Calling Java 1.2 -> Java 2 ... Huh? this kindof crap is simply designed to make management angry. Java 1.2? No!! We want Java 2!! That conversation was painful enough. Now they did the same thing with Java 1.5 -> Java 5! What? WTF!?!?!?!

3. Oracle has a similar stick of stupidy riding their ass. Their lousy J2EE container (OC4J) version 9.0.2.1.0 is called "9i". 9.04 is called "10g" , and so is 10.1.2. Management says, Oracle has sold us on upgrading to 10g, lets go. Uh, which 10g?

All I'm really asking for is for Sun to simply place delivery above marketing. Under promise, over deliver. Not Vice Versa.

Sun only has themselves to blame

[cahiha]

Despite having released some open source software, Sun also has renegged on promises in the past and misrepreseted proprietary software as "open source". Sun's management has also been publicly attacking open source and free software.

Of course, with that history, people aren't going to believe them until a complete Solaris source tree under a certified open source license sits on an external server somewhere and compiles into a working system.

(I still fail to see why anybody even cares about an open source version of Solaris--to me, it is a clear example of bloat and poor design--but that's a separate question.)

omg!@

[lw54]

There is no OpenSolaris.

Show us the code or quit mentioning it.

Re:Astroturf

[Anonymous Coward]

...you only have to ask any of our hired shills about it ...

Indeed, here's what wikipedia has to say about Shills in Marketing:

Shills in marketing

In marketing, shills are often employed to assume the air of satisfied customers and give testimonials as to the merits of a given product. This type of shilling is legal and almost impossible to detect. This methodoloy is very popular at Microsoft.

Sometimes, shills also assume the air of hapless overworked employees, whining in their blogs that they are working their asses of to get the long promised vaporware out of the door, and that we should please, please, please stop bugging them about it. This methodology is very popular at Sun.

That's how you can distinguish winners and whiners.

I really love it how up to date wikipedia is with current events! Britannica never could match such timely information! A better news source than Slashdot and CNN combined!

here's a hint

[cahiha]

First, dot your legal i's and cross your political t's, then make the announcement that you are going to open source the stuff.

Sun has given us this bullshit before, where they first promised something and then came up with all sorts of excuses why they couldn't deliver. At this point, it is vaporware.

Re:here's a hint

[RevRa]

Really? What did they promise and then come up with excuses on? Do you have facts to back up your statement? Or are you just parroting?

Having been an employee of Sun (I'm not anymore), I know that they are working intensely to get the code out, it's not bullshit. There have been internal training sessions on the subject, and in those sessions issues of getting it done in a certain timeframe were discussed. It's not all coming out at once, you won't be able to compile it and run it. There will be major holes due to legal constraints, but the primary parts will be opened.

I can think of numerous times when products were announced and ship dates slipped, but the products always came out eventually and far better for having been delayed. I honestly can't think of any major release announcement such as this that just disappeared. So if you can name one, please, by all means do so or STFU.

-k

Re:here's a hint

[cahiha]

Really? What did they promise and then come up with excuses on? Do you have facts to back up your statement? Or are you just parroting?

Sun committed to having Java standardized through an organization like ISO, ANSI, and/or ECMA. Then, after the industry put their support behind the language, they pulled out and gave us the JCP crap instead.

Having been an employee of Sun (I'm not anymore), I know that they are working intensely to get the code out, it's not bullshit.

I'm sure they'll release lots of source code; whether it amounts to an open source version of Solaris or comes with some hidden gotchas remains to be seen. In any case, it really doesn't matter anymore: Solaris is pretty much worthless at this point.

Re:here's a hint

[RevRa]

Hmm. But we did in fact GET Java, right? It's a real product? It's not vaporware?

Solaris worthless? You've got to be joking. Have you ever USED Solaris in an enterprise capacity? On a machine with > 8 CPU's? I'm guessing not. I like Linux as much as the next nerd, but Solaris just runs circles around it in the enterprise.

Linux does a decent job of trying to be a better Solaris but since Linux developers are trying so desperately to make it more LIKE Solaris, why not just use Solaris? I'm sure Linux could catch up someday, but it seems to me that Sun has caught on and has enough lead to remain one step ahead for some time to come.

It amazes me how much value some people put on stuff that really has no bearing whatsoever on how good an OS/application/tool is for the job at hand.

-k

Re:here's a hint

[cahiha]

Hmm. But we did in fact GET Java, right? It's a real product? It's not vaporware?

Sun misled people in order to get industry support behind Java, then kept it proprietary. This time, Sun may be misleading people about the release of Open Solaris in order to damage open source kernels.

Solaris worthless? You've got to be joking. Have you ever USED Solaris in an enterprise capacity? On a machine with > 8 CPU's?

Yes, and yes. I have lived with Sun workstations and servers since the 1980's. I used to push for the companies I was at to buy them by the boatload. We still have a few. I stopped doing that long before Sun lost my trust, simply because Sun had become technically irrelevant.

The part you have been missing is that in the last decade or so, the world has moved in a different direction. Linux runs the high-end compute clusters and servers of today just fine; Sun's approach to enterprise computing is a niche market (and one that is frankly better served by IBM anyway).

It amazes me how much value some people put on stuff that really has no bearing whatsoever on how good an OS/application/tool is for the job at hand.

Well, it's obvious that Sun just doesn't get a fundamental fact about customers and products: the quality of a piece of software is only one of many considerations. Trust is an important consideration in choosing who to do business with, and Sun has repeatedly violated my trust, both as a customer and as an open source developer. That's why I wouldn't do business with them anymore even if their products were still of interest.

evidently it's June 30

[justins]

I actually didn't know the official release date until I saw this, I guess I don't obsess about release dates as much as some:
http://www.oetrends.com/news.php?action=view_recor d&idnum=425

So, don't hold your breath but fairly soon, you will all be able to start bitching about the existence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using, rather than bitching about the nonexistence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using.

BTW....

[WindBourne]

You are on a geek site defending Sun's (and indirectly yours ) work. You may think that you do not speak for Sun, but obviously you do. In addition, it is obvious that Sun is actively targeting geeks sites with blogs, and active developers postings. I am not opposed to what Sun does, but it is better to be honest about it.

C'mon guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

...cut Sun some slack, already. OpenSolaris is real. I've seen the code. It's going to be shipping real soon and they've even been gracious enought to include copy of Duke Nukem Forever. So stop your whining!

The Solaris Open Source Sketch.

[cabazorro]

Timmy: Hi Mr. Sun Enginner, watchoding?
Eng: I'm preparing Open Solaris for release Timmy.
Timmy: Can I see it?
Eng: No, Timmy, is not ready.
Timmy: Can I take justa a peek?
Eng: No.
Timmy: WWWWWWhy?
Eng: Because this is serious stuff Timmy, we want to be open about our development process and operative system so it harness the knowledge of the World Open Source Community.
Timmy: Wow!? Can I see it now?
Eng: No! Damn it! Timmy! Is not ready. You can't see it.
Timmy: Why?
Eng: Because there's stuff here that I don't want you to see.
Timmy: Oops, my build is ready, can I go now?
Eng: Yes Timmy, please go bother someone else.

OpenSlowaris IS NOT the SOLUTION!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux IS the UNIQUE SOLUTION for our future!!!

IBM, Novell, RedHat, Suse, Mandriva, TurboLinux, VectorLinux, Brazil's government, China's government, Japan's government, Europe's government, ...

Well, until it is released...

[frkiii]

technically, IT IS VAPORWARE!

Promises, RSNs (real soon now[s]), etc. do not change that at all.

OpenSolaris Exists: Its just closed right now.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the developers OpenSolaris is just closed. It exists they use it all the time but its not released. I guess that does make it vaporware; I suggest ther rename it to ClosedSolaris until it becomes open...

legal encumbrances...gotta love it

[iminplaya]

You know, pretty soon you will need a law degree to write software. This is insane. Dealing with uncooperative hardware is bad enough. Now we have to deal with uncooperative lawyers?? Time to forget sbout the attribution and just release stuff anonymously to the public domain and let the bastards look for somebody to sue. We really need to declare war on IP law if we want to avoid the coming dark age.

Their mixed messages are what's screwing this up.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can certainly believe they are having a tough time trying to scrap through and legalize their code for it after this whole SCO crap. . Give them a break,

All the corporate fanboys keep insisting that the *BENEFIT* of proprietary software is that you know where all the pieces came from.

Now you're saying they have less of a f'ing clue regarding where their software comes from and what they can do with it than Linux! If that's what corportate OS's is like, no wonder Linux & BSD are winning.

The Worst Job in the World

[SimHacker]

Subject: The Worst Job in the World
From: Michael Tiemann <tiemann@cygnus.com>

I have a friend who has to have the worst job in the world: he is a Unix system administrator. But it's worse than that, as I will soon tell. Being a Unix system administrator is like being a tech in a biological warfare laboratory, except that none of the substances are labeled consistently, any of the compounds are just as likely to kill you by themselves as they are when mixed with one another, and it is never clear what distinction is made between a catastrophic failure in the lab and a successful test in the field.

But I don't want to tell you about biological warfare, I want to tell you about what makes my friend's job so terrible. First, some context.

The training for Unix system administration is a frightening process. When machines start dying, users start screaming, and everything grinds to a halt, the novice feels the cold fingers of terror clutching about his heart.

#!/bin/sh
# this doesn't work, but no time to fix it -- hope nothing crashes
progname=$0

But if one stays the course, one might some day achieve the dubious satisfaction of being able to mutter "at least I know why it broke!".

#!/bin/sh
# This works...I wonder if it will get me laid
progname="[jibber jabber omited due to slashdot junk filters, and rightly so]"

But there are many who must dwell in this miasma both day and night. What makes my friend's job so ugly is that he doesn't only work with just any strain of Unix -- he works with Solaris. And he doesn't just deal with just any braindead users -- his users are the executives at Sun Microsystems.

Let me tell you about Sun Microsystems. At Sun, there's a long history of executives playing pranks on one another. For April Fools, these rowdies would play tricks like putting a golf course (complete with putting green) in Scott McNealy's office, or floating Bill Joy's Ferrari in one of the landscaped ponds. Things have come a long way since then. Now every day is April Fools, and my friend doesn't like it one bit.

VP: "Admin!! What the fuck is this thing running on my machine?"

Admin: "It's Solaris, sir."

VP: "Get it off of my machine at once!"

Admin: "But sir, Ed Zander told me that you should be running Solaris now."

VP: "Zander, huh? I'll fix him. Is he running Solaris?"

Admin: "No sir."

VP: "Why not?"

Admin: "If he ran Solaris, he wouldn't be able to get any work done."

VP: "Very well, restore my machine to SunOS, and put this Solaris crap on Zander's machine."

Admin: "But sir..."

VP: "That's an order! And tell him Scott gave you the directive himself!"

Admin: "Yes, sir."

[later...]

Zander: "Admin!! What the fuck is this thing running on my machine?"

Admin: "It's Solaris, sir."

Zander: "Get it off of my machine at once!"

Admin: "But sir, Scott McNealy told me that you should be running Solaris now."

Zander: "McNealy, huh? I'll fix him. Is he running Solaris?"

heh, opensolaris is not the only vaporware

[iggymanz]

half the features Sun is crowing about don't even exist in Solaris 10 yet...I proclaim Solaris 10 as 40% vaporware!!

Sun Laptop? Sparcbook.

[infonography]

and it's oh so spendy. Sadly (and this is coming from a Solaris Admin) Sun' earlier Ultrasparc cpu is not well suited to laptops. Hence Solaris x86. Linux has nothing to do with the manufacture, so they just adapt to what ever is on the market this week, but Solaris x86 has a very short HAL, That's been a Linux strength all along.

Alan Hargreaves is not a SUN kernel developer

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for SUN in their Sydney, Australia Support center from mid 2000 to the end of 2003. When I was hired, Alan Hargreaves who had already worked for SUN for a number of years was in teir 3 technical support and I was in a more senior teir 4 position (CPRE).

When I left I was still more Senior to Alan and i can assure that his main role in SUN was support, not kernel developemnt. Any kernel development Alan does is in his own time or time that he should have spend working to fix customer problems.

Re:Alan Hargreaves is not a SUN kernel developer

[Tpenta]

I won't name the person who sent this, although I'm pretty sure I know who it was. You left Sun some time ago.

I Am actually involved with the open solaris development now. If you're going to start making accusations based on old knowledge, you should at least be game enough to identify yourself.

You will also note that at no point did I call myself a devbeloper, although I am doing some of that work.

Alan.

Re:Alan Hargreaves is not a SUN kernel developer

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, I don't have a slashdot login and I couldn't be bothered creating one because I rarely post comments. Secondly, a slashdot login (like Tpenta for instance) is a rather poor proof of identity. Even if I did post my real name how would I prove that it was actually me. For that matter how can you prove that you are actually Alan Hargreaves?

However, anybody reading this might reasonably believe that you are indeed Alan Hargreaves and that I was an employee of SUN. It is therefore no longer necessary for me to post my name. We both know who I am and nobody else cares.

So, you say I Am actually involved with the open solaris development now. Well then, why is it that when you email me, your email address still says Product Technical Support? Do you do Solaris kernel development as part of your regular duties? If so, how many hours per week? Has your manager officially sanctioned this work? Does the offical Solaris kernel developement team in the US support your involvement?

I ask these questions because whan I was at SUN management in PTS wanted us to work on support issues; they were not interested in us working on things like kernel development or maintenance. In addition, the offical developers did little to help or encourage our participation probably because at a time of retrenchments, they were concerned about keeping their jobs rather than giving them away to others.

Knowing Sun...

[Kierkan]

We've found unbelievable bugs in Solaris, and we are not heavy users.

From the top of my head: we have some scripts that combine diff/patch/ed to reduce the amount of data transfered between an e10k and an IBM mainframe. I don't remember the exact number, I think it was a 30 megabytes file that could not be patched correctly, ed failed without notice. This was a Solaris 9 installation. The solution? We overwrote ed with gnu's implementation.

The other one I remember was a show-stopper for us. We upgraded an e10k, the power up became a nightmare. After 10 or 15 minutes into the startup, it rebooted automatically, and again, and again... nobody knew what was going on. The only thing that was different was that it had more processors. The problem, what ever it was, happened before any diagnostics messages showed up in the ssp console. Sun's technicians were horrified.
Making a long story short, Sun had found that some tape drives connected to a specific port, or the corresponding device driver, were causing problems, so when one of this tape drives was detected in that port during startup, the system was automatically rebooted. Unplugging the damn drive let the system boot without problem.

We know they don't go for a "it barely works"

Re:Boo Fucking Hoo.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Until they actually release the code, I'm calling vaporware. It seriously pisses me off when companies use their "good intensions" as a excuse for creating a press release. Why not simply hold off until it's ready? It would seem amazing and fresh when the thing rolls out of the door, and we would all be amazed that Sun would acutally do something. What's really going to happen? Sun (hopefully) is going to roll the damn thing out of the door, and we will find that 50% of the people will say "about fucking time" , 25% will say, "That's all you are releasing?" and the other 25% will say "Yay!"."

I agree, but the Sun's executives need to show wall street that they have some direction. Being dropped from the exchange wouldn't be a good thing for them.