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OpenSolaris Governing Board Closing Shop?
echolinux writes "Frustrated by Oracle's refusal to interact with the OpenSolaris community or speak with the OpenSolaris Governing Board, the OGB has issued an ultimatum to Oracle: designate a liaison to the OGB by August 16th or the board will 'take action at the August 23 meeting to trigger the clause in the OGB charter that will return control of the community to Oracle.'"
Oracle seems determined to destroy everything they acquired from Sun. We had 2 OpenSolaris machines since Zones and ZFS are just hot shit and several SunFire servers. We're moving the OpenSolaris installs to FreeBSD and are probably going to be looking at HP or IBM machines in the future.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
on the internet, i felt my coffee mug rumble and the tubes begin to quake...i felt a fork looming in the distance.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So they're trying to force Oracle to give them a liaison by threatening to cut their own throats? Great move I'm sure Oracle will get exactly what they want.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Is he involved in the negotiations?
Look it is obvious, Oracle is putting a nail in anything having to do with Solaris. Get over it, move on and start migrating.
Got Code?
Uhhh.. that will show them?
"If you don't give in to our demands...we'll give up & stop existing?"
There is a war going on for your mind.
I'm very sad to witness this mess, but I suppose it's just best to accept the fact that Solaris ceased to exist the day Oracle bought Sun. Solaris is and never will be the Solaris we old hackers got to know and love. Maybe it's better to accept it and move on. Still - very sad thing.
This makes a good deal of sense. Basically, the OGB doesn't have any power. They are stuck trying to make progress and maintain a platform without any support or guidance from Oracle. Since they don't have any ability to work anymore, they are basically saying, "If you don't give us some power, we might as well quit." This will make their lives easier. It will also mean the blame and responsibility for OpenSolaris' future will lie squarely with Oracle. They won't be able to blame the board, they will have to deal directly with the OpenSolaris community and/or kill the platform.
Really, if Oracle isn't willing to play, there isn't any reason for the OGB to exist anyway.
The thing I don't get is Oracle's utter silence on the issue If they're discontinuing Opensolaris (even though they've claimed they aren't twice now), why not just come out and say it? They stopped releasing builds, they aren't interacting with the governing board... you'd think SOMEONE there would realize that saying nothing is WORSE than just pulling the plug. If they are indeed pulling the plug, and came right out and said it from the start, I'm sure they'd find plenty of customer still willing to use Solaris proper. At this point though, going by the mailing lists and customers of mine who run solaris and Opensolaris, they've simply turned many paying and non-paying (but mindshare) customers into bitter people. The type of people who go out of their way as admins to make sure that a company's wares don't exist in the shop in any form if they can be replaced. The stuff they've been doing is the type that causes irreparable damage to their image. At some point they're going to have to figure out that people can very easily move away from an OS... it's not like their database customers that are generally stuck with them because it's so much work to move to something else.
An Aggie* comes home to find his wife in bed with another man. He pulls out a pistol and points it at his own head. His wife screams "No, don't do it!" The Aggie replies "Just wait; you're next."
* - Footnote for people not from Texas - Students at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) University are called Aggies and are the subject of endless jokes insulting their intelligence.
Uhhh.. that will show them?
"If you don't give in to our demands...we'll give up & stop existing?"
It's not like they can really threaten Oracle into submission. Sometimes, you just have to roll over and ask, "Honey, are you really in this for the long run, or are you just screwing me?" If you don't like the answer, you just pack up and leave. No need to go all psycho.
What were we talking about again? Oh yeah. If the organization disbands, Solaris loses some of its credibility as an open platform with a healthy, involved community. Not a death blow, but better than prolonging a charade.
I don't really care about OpenSolaris, but I have been a happy user of VirtualBox since before it was acquired by Sun. Sun developed some nice, but proprietary, tweaks to VirtualBox in areas like graphics drivers. I do see development continuing as I get prompted to upgrade fairly regularly, but I've been nervous that VirtualBox will also eventually be treated as roadkill by Oracle. Obviously there will always be a free implementation since the "open-source edition" is GPL-licensed.
I can understand Oracle's lack of interest in OpenSolaris since they've supported Linux for a long time now. (Hell, they even compete directly against RedHat with their Oracle Enterprise Linux distribution.) I do wonder, though, whether they'll stay committed to VirtualBox down the road.
Most proprietary IT companies have started to - if not openly embrace - at least accept and try to work with F/OSS (both in communities and with sponsored products).
Some have been quicker than others; some have taken it more seriously than others. Some have quite obviously put up with F/OSS under protest rather than actively encouraging it.
Oracle, I would say, at least before they acquired Sun, has definitely been in the "not taking entirely seriously" camp. A traditional proprietary vendor, who consider anything free (either speech or beer) to be a toy, something the kiddies can play with and then when they grow up they can start using the Super Enterprise Product. So not only is this not a surprise, I'd say it's almost expected. Frankly, there are projects which I'm far more concerned about - MySQL and OpenOffice immediately spring to mind.
You have already showed what kind of a BOFH you can be. I was attempting this week to find drivers for some of our Ultra 20s, I can't even download drivers without a stinkin Maint Agreement. This is why I went with MySQL years ago, and not Oracle, hmmm time to change to PostGRES and dump all the Sun equipment.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
I didn't realize RMS posted on Slashdot.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Especially now that we have a need for Sun's Solaris, they close up shop and sell to Oracle. Sun was far ahead of their game implementing virtualization and extreme storage limits in a time when there was no need for it. Now the industry is finally ready to get started using these technologies and they decide to sell it. Sun's systems were finally starting to get used, systems like the Thumper have been in great demand. Too bad they wasted money on overpriced 1U servers ($10k for an Opteron system?) and projects that were very good but never went anywhere (trying to build on Java's success). Instead of selling the company, they should've cut off 80% of it (including their idiot C-level executives) and concentrated on selling ZFS, Xen and Zones
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The future of MySQL is iffy, too. All Oracle has to do is put the second team on maintaining it, and it will die. A database program has to be very reliable to be usable at all.
We've already seen this with "MySQL Workbench". Since Oracle took over, all the MySQL GUI tools were wrapped into a central "MySQL Workbench" program. Which crashes frequently. (If you can install it at all.) If Oracle can bring MySQL down to the level of MySQL Workbench, nobody will be able to use it.
MySQL needs to be fully archived, including the revision history, outside of Oracle, just in case.
why do they buy sun and let everything rot? was sun such a threat to oracle? or is oracle just retarded?
When you have enough money, you rule. That's it.
Want to kill an open ource project? Buy the "supporting" company (if any, like MySQL AB) or buy^H^H^Hhire the top 5 or 10 developers.
Is the control of the project already in your hands? Simply forget about it.
Then sue all forks.
It's (sadly) normal.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Personally, I prefer GNU/Solaris. /usr/sfw/bin is what makes it a usable OS.
I was a Sun employee, I'm now an Oracle employee. I've posted in the past about internal, but non-secret Sun stuff using my registered nickname because I didn't think it mattered all that much. These days, however, the corporate secrecy is verging on paranoia, and so I don't dare use my regular nickname.
Anyhow, I'll keep this short. First of all, Oracle does not say anything to anyone outside of Oracle about future plans. Period. It's repeated over and over in the brainwashing (er, onboarding) presentations. The rationale for this is that if customers think they know what new products are in the pipeline and when they'll come out, they'll plan their purchases accordingly. There's also the potential loss of competitive advantage.
Second, Oracle doesn't give a rat's ass about building communities and generating interest with Open Source. They'll re-brand Red Hat because they know people want Linux servers, but they don't care about trying to make Open Solaris a gateway to "real" Solaris. They'll make Solaris the premier platform for high-end Oracle DBs, and they'll use it for storage solutions which take on NetApp. Beyond that, they don't care about whether or not Solaris "wins" against Linux. They don't need it to. The goal is to leverage Solaris (on Sparc for Oracle DB, x86 for storage) into closed solutions which have huge profit margins. If it's not going to create large margins, it won't live long at Oracle.
Profit is king here. Anything else is overhead, and overhead eats into Larry's yacht fund.
Yes, I'm looking elsewhere. The best and brightest have been leaving in droves. I am neither, but I'm still pretty good; just somewhat less mobile. Working on that.
I remember the first time that Sun opened SunOS. I supported it. But, when they closed it, it became obvious to me that it is trivial for commercial companies to pull this kind of BS. SO, a number of years pass and suddenly SUn re-opens Solaris. As I pointed out, that if and when Sun (or any owner) want to kill it again, then it would happen. How many of the sun marketers stormed in here declaring that it absolutely could never happen again. Had the Sun fan bois screaming that I was just FUDING. And yet, here we are AGAIN.
WHile I will likely do Solaris contracts, I will never again push their junk. It will only be a matter of time before they pull a MS/Sun style hit.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Where are my GNAA homies?"
RTFA, they are evidently running Oracle.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Oracle hits OpenSolaris's body extremely hard and shatters it.
Your blood freezes as you hear OpenSolaris's death cry.
OpenSolaris is dead! R.I.P.
Oracle gets some coins from the corpse of OpenSolaris.
Wait, your Username is "Oracle"? Speaking as someone with a significantly lower UID than you; Go to hell.
Go to hell, and die.
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
This is just sick. Oracle buying sun imo was the darkest day in recent IT history. I seriously hope oracle suffers some major financial losses because of the animosity there tactics with our beloved sun have created.
but how can this really be a surprise ? this was bound to happen since Sun got sold, damn you oracle!!!!
The way I interpret things, OGB are trying to force Oracle to do 'anything'.
"Oracle, if you want the benefit of human involvement during this uncertain time, make a move.
If you appreciate the benefit of good sportsmanship and even keels during these maneuvers, let's go - with the quickness, SVP."
Time, interest, energy, and good will are being consumed - from both sides, and that's probably how it should be.
You might like Ben Rockwood's take: http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=1134
Linux+MySQL with ... or many other database machine options to fill the web-services needs.
$$$ does not win, unless there is something to offer, Oracle like MS-Gates offer locked-innovation products and make OSS products they control pseudo-hook-shareware/freeware.
A new $$$ hook&lock business model to compete with the OSS services model will continue down the same suicidal path.
If you can't $$$ compete without hook&lock products, then eventually your customer-base migrates to better "Open" products with a far better business lifecycle innovation and support service model.
GM...IBM...
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
More Devs for Linux, especially for Ubuntu. :P
do i need to repeat it more ? fork ....
Read radical news here
Sun didn't turn from a bright shiny wonderful company to a sacrificial lamb at the helm of an evil empire in a single day with a single set of signatures on a sales contract. Not all of "Sun's" problems stemmed from Larry, or the sale.
Let's not forget a few years ago, when mentioning Sun on /. would get you spit on. Let's not forget that Jonathan Schwartz spent his entire tenure at the helm cutting, cutting, and cutting again, to make Sun an unstable empty shell of its former self - but very appealing as a buyout target.
Oracle wants to make money. If they're not going to be helping with OpenSolaris, then it'll go off on its own way. This might be the best thing for it. In the meantime, think about who else could have bought Sun and done differently (better) with it. All contenders - IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp, Dell, would have either fumbled as badly, or shuttered it more aggressively. And thanks to Schwartz's manipulations, they couldn't have survived this long without being bought.
Don't get me wrong--I don't like Oracle, I REALLY don't like what support from them is like (on our $~0.6bn worth of Sun gear), but it bugs me to see the former Sun executive--ESPECIALLY Schwartz--avoid their share of the blame.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Btrfs already does multiple devices (and has done so for more than a year).
Right now it does RAID0, RAID1 and RAID10, but there's no reason to think it couldn't be extended pretty easily to allow for something even more flexible than RAIDZ where you could specify redundancy on a per-directory or per-file basis. It's just that they have other priorities right now.
I know forking isn't a preferred method. However, if the mainline forks, isn't it just 'declaring independence' so to speak?
Imagine if a single company somehow magically controlled the current Linux mainline and the name "Linux". If Linus said "OK everyone, we're branching and MY version will be on linuxfuckingrocks.org" then everyone would follow him.
Wait, your Username is "Oracle"? Speaking as someone with a significantly lower UID than you; Go to hell.
Go to hell, and die.
Wait, if I say the same, should you drop dead then; I've got one digit less in my UID...