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Why OpenSolaris Failed To Build a Community
xtaski writes "Ted Ts'o, one of the earliest Linux developers, points out some serious flaws in OpenSolaris. There is a severe lack of developers, for one. Apparently, after 3 years, the OpenSolaris 'developer community' is still struggling to get the proper tools for developers to develop! Ted also points out some other flaws which make it clear just how disconnected the executives at Sun are from what's really going on in their 'open source communities.' He notes, 'It was never ... Sun's intention to try to promote a kernel engineering community, or at least, it was certainly not a high priority for them to do so.'"
The answer is: "They acted like a bunch of dicks."
OSS is a labor of love. You've got to want to work on the project, and you've got to be able to work on the project.
If you put a big chunk of your time into something and get rudely dismissed, then its hardly likely that you'll continue to contribute.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
You have to have a good product before you can have a community. Linux built its early community based on tinkerers and hackers who found it easy to play with. Early Linux distributions, you may recall, were all inclined to integrate well with DOS. Some of them could even be installed _in_ DOS. You could install Slackware and be up and running with an editor and compiler in half an hour. OpenSolaris doesn't follow this example. Using it is a tremendous pain in the ass. Its installer runs for 2-4 hours on the midrange PCs I've tried to install it upon. Once it's "installed" you still have to grope around trying to find familiar tools, which are maybe under UCB or perhaps under GNU subdirectories. It's hard to download software from the 'net and ./configure it. Hardware support is very thin.
To get a hacker community, you have to offer fun. OpenSolaris is simply not fun. It reminds me of work.
Yes, because Linux was such an instant success! Wait...no, it wasn't. Everyone forgets that any community, either real or virtual, takes time to build. I believe that counting OpenSolaris as a failed community is premature, at the least.
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
Actually, no.
The lesson here is: If you're going to try to court people active in OSS development, then you're going to have to be nice to them, and you're going to have to let them take some ownership.
IBM is being smart; they're reaping rewards far in excess of their investment. Effectively they've outsourced their development, and while the terms of the "outsourcing" say that they have to share everything that comes out of the project, they're still in a position to steer, and support the product.
I'm not sure how you equate that with "control"; sounds just like more FUD to me.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
OpenSolaris was an attempt by Sun to throw some sand in the gears of Linux, not to build an open source project. They are doing the same thing with OpenJava.
I mean, who is going to contribute to such a project if (1) Sun engineers keep calling the shots, and (2) anything you contribute needs to be given to Sun so that they can sell it to paying customers?
If Sun were serious about making Solaris and Java open source projects, they'd release them under a single, open source license only. That would probably have to be BSD.
And why not? Solaris was BSD licensed to begin with; it was Sun that made it proprietary.
Downloading is a royal PITA. The registration is usually a deal-breaker. Almost nothing I've ever run across that's worth anything requires registration for download. However, as a (former) long-time Solaris / SunOS user and major FOSS user, I felt compelled several times to try to circumvent that. But then there's no real way do a network install and othewise week download choice.
That gripe aside, the article is a bit premature. Though time is running out and it could become true if Sun decides to keep downloads off of anonymous FTP, AFS and Bittorrent.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I guess I disagree. I'm on several of the opensolaris mailing lists, and they're ALWAYS busy. And not just with people from Sun, people from all walks of life. To claim that opensolaris has failed is preposterous to me. I guess I don't quite understand what this mans idea of *success* is, but apparently having users and contributers from both sun and the public abroad isn't *success*.
Is his complaint that the majority of code comes directly from Sun? If so... let me just say *DUH*. If you have thousands of PAID programmers writing code, nobody is going to waste their free time re-writing from scratch. On the flip side, there's TONS of public side-projects, I can think of several around zfs like the automatic snapshots. Or maybe that little side project called nexenta.
I think I understand what his issue is... he doesn't even know what the opensolaris community is. By his definition, one distribution of linux is a measure if its success or failure. Last I checked, when we talk about linux, we're encompassing ubuntu, redhat, suse, slackware, etc, etc, etc... Guess what, the same holds true for Opensolaris.
So... basically, it sounds like a linux zealot casting a stone because he's most likely upset that Sun wont' release solaris under the GPL so that linux devs can start ripping code.
This is news?
> So where does OpenSolaris fit in? It seems to be an OS lacking a niche.
The niche for OpenSolaris is the 64way mission-critical server. Unfortunately, even ultimate kernel hacking enthusiasts rarely have one of those at home.