Well, in the UK, this particular person is generally regarded by the untrained public to be somewhat of an authority, and he, and the organisations he represents, are seen to be the "spokespeople of open source" (again, by the untrained public). His name is Eddy Bleasdale. Mr. Bleasdale has done -- without any bad intent, I'm sure -- untold harm on the cause of Linux and Open source in the UK, and in my opinion he should be banned from ever talking with customers, or speaking in public. The man should be considered harmful. Wherever he goes, people migrate to Microsoft - lock, stock and barrel.
So you cannot really blame the customer for taking that attitude. Between Mr. Bleasdales advice and generous lashings of fearmongering from Gartner -- who warn PHB's everywhere about the fact that the FLOSS world is full of people like Bleasdale -- I can't fault him for running for cover.
The only really interesting with Kerberos that we deploy with some success (and specifically use Kerberos for) is OpenAFS. for the rest, we don't bother, unless there is a path of very little resistance. Unfortunately, most of the time it is a case of too much effort for too little payback.
MS not only made it easy for appdev's to use Kerberos (I am personally not really bothered about appdev comfort, caring more for end-user experience), they made it transparent to the end-user i.e. the user will *never* have to deal with tickets, tokens, and any other form of virtual identity currency. Shift to *nix, and you all of the sudden have to be a rocket scientist just to get at your files. It is a real pity, and we can collectively learn something from how MS have cracked the Kerberos thing. Us, we find ways to route around the problem, and don't use Kerberos....
That's why he is the doctor, and I'm the IT guy;-) -- and FYI, I learned my stuff by actually putting in the time at home, away from my family, in the lab, at work and with the customer *building solutions* and trying out stuff. What I didn't know, I googled. What I couldn't google, I bought books about. When I still didn't know, I decided it was too hard for me to do, and passed the work to someone else.
I don't mind teaching people, and parting with my hard earned knowledge. All my senior staff are required to mentor junior staff. We have an open and free knowledge base, and all our products are open source. However, people who do not do even the basest of reasearch before asking someone else how to do it, are found alternative employment, and are gently let go from the organisation. TANSTAAFL.
Yeah, well, the NTFS to Samba thing was the final straw, athough I hear the AD to OpenLDAP thing all the time, and it pisses me right off. I do Enterprise Open Source Deployments for a living - primarily desktop and infrastructure (directory, groupware and file and print, heyhey, exactly his list!) and nothing is uglyer to an AD administrator then the mess that is the Kerberos/OpenLDAP/Samba mudheap that sort-of delivers something sort of similar, but really doesn't. Even the IDEALX stuff linked to elsewhere doesn't really make the grade. For all its warts, AD is actually pretty admin friendly, and what is more, many organisations have spent lots of money to get to AD in the first place. That is why my company specialises in integrating Linux infrastructures with existing AD and/or Novell eDirectory. (integrating linxu with AD actually works pretty well...)
As for "chilling a little", I met a customer last week, who simply did not want to talk open source, because some clueless critter of an "IR Consultant" came in some time ago shouting something similar. "Get rid of all your Microsoft products! They are EVIL!" now, this customer is a relaxed dude, so went like "okay, but I replace it with what?" and something similar to the above list came up. For most people that list is simply unacceptable -- they don't *care* what they run, as long as it works. So someone coming around that can't even tell the difference between Exchange and Sendmail, and states "rip out all your groupware, calendaring, forums, imap, mail, pop, webmail, and some CRM functionality, and instead I give you Sendmail....it's FREE!" does not really impress.
Customer now thinks Open Source people are clueless freaks, and any mention of this stuff is taboo. I see this *all the time* and it really gets me upset.
Getting the revolution because you downloaded OpenOffice.org and found Slashdot is one thing, making the whole community look bad is another....
Sorry, but Samba does not deliver functional partiy (i.e. sam functionality) to Active Directory. It may be somewhat similar, and it may be better in some ways, but it is not a good replacement. Neither are Exim, Postfix, Sendmail or QMail - all SMTP deamons. they don't even offer your basic IMAP/POP/ Calendaring, etc functionality. And I did actually mention NTFS to Reiser, but think AFS is more what the poster had in mind.
"Active Directory to Open LDAP, Exchange Server to Sendmail and NTFS to Samba"
I understand the gist of your question, although I don't think you understand it yourself. None of your examples actually discuss the one thing the enterprise is interested in: "Functional Parity"
AD to OpenLDAP doesn't go, because OpenLDAP is just a directory protocol -- I wish people would start to understand that. There is no directly usable management interface, no business logic, no nothing. It is just a protocol....
Comparing Exchange Server and Sendmail earns you a good thwapping over the head in my team -- maybe Exchange Server vs. Open-Exchange, but again you are comparing the wrong things. Finally, go stand in the corner for comparing NTFS with Samba.
I usually don't complain about Ask Slashdot type stuff, but this takes the cake. Go learn something about IT before you ask stupid questions.
Has anybody with sufficient knowledge actually looked at the patents in question
Nope, since nobody knows which ones they are, since Sun isn't telling. They claim it concerns "more then 1600 patents", but information about exactly how many is pretty thin on the ground, let alone a detailed listing of which patents are covered. This is just your typical Sun smoke and mirrors....
They have made this a CDDL-only thing. Well, at least, according to the press release they have - this article may shed some more light on the whole issue. In short, Sun are being their usualy weasly selves again.
Dude, nobody is accusing IBM from being a cuddly bear. Few people doubt that IBM is in the business of making money - any which way they can. I have frequent discussions with IBM about getting some of their desktop software to run on linux, and the answer is *always*: "show us we can make money doing so". IBM is not a charity, and nobody sane expects them to be. However, they understand that Linux is a "sales-enabler" for the hardware, software and services business, and as such it behooves them to be recognised as a Linux leader. This includes donating source, patents, efforts, time and money to the "open source community" as such. These are all strong indicators of strategic, offensive (is in, going on the offense) thinking. The kind of action of a comapny that has seen the future, and knows which way the bread is buttered.
Now, picture this - IBM donates 400 patents, and are widely lauded for their gift. Sun "donates" 1600 patents, and "open source" Slowlaris, and are getting a sound kicking. Now ask yourself why IBM gets more kudos for less effort.
Well, Mr. McNeally, I didn't think you would guess it either, so here is the answer: IBM's donation has no strings attached. The patents can be used freely within the specified context - i.e. Open Source, - and can even be used within this context to compete with AIX, for example. Your "donation" on the other hand, only benefits Sun. Nobody else. This is a strong indication of non-strategic -i.e. tactical- thinking, an example of "castle building" or defensive thought.
All Sun sees is a perceived threat to their business, and cannot think of a way to benefit from the situation, so they grow hard, and dig in. This is a seriously flawed way of conducting business, and shows what a weak strategist Scott McNeally really is - as the Tao Te Ching states: "On the importance of yielding. It is said that a reed that is not rigid and bends will not break and in so doing will endure."
Equal distribution of money has long been shown to not work. I keep my life debt free, therefore I am not burdened with interest payments. I run my own company, therefore my wage is not "ever decreasing" it is linked to my efforts (and it has been increasing for some time now, thank you very much) and the wage increases of my employees are linked to GDP growth plus a percentage based on performance.
And if you want to nitpick - the national bank can't MAKE money either... You still have not explained to me about the "enslaving" bit though.....
Hey cool - this is the kind of dialogue I was hoping for!
As for the configuration issues - that is a bit deeper, as it is a combination of things. X11 integration was not good, limiting OpenOffice usage, and the J/ OpenOffice stuff (name slipped my mind) was crashing all the time, so I could not use it for my day to day work - I used this machine as a day-today office machine, you know, office apps, mail browser, etc. - so none of the core apps required for my work worked nicely - browser crashing, other browser not integrated, no good office app, fink was hard to deal with and set up.
So my alternatives were to either pony up a lot of money for Microsoft Office for OSX - something I did not want to do (but a collegue of mine did, only to find it crashing all the time when opening word documents) and spending a lot of time getting comfortable with fink.
All in all, the time, effort and money involved did not lead me to a significant better user experience. In fact, from my perspective, I spent a lot of money on OSX, was having to spend more money on office, had loads of issues, and found my productivity dropped. I reckoned to be fully conversant and productive, I would have to spend a lot of time, effort and money, just to get to a level of productivity where I already was before I started with the whole OSX experience. For no appreciable, calcuble or noticable gain. (I have tons of eyecandy already). On the other hand, I am now the proud owner of a G4 and a qube, and they are by far the best pieces of kit I own. They both run Gentoo (the only Gentoo machines I have - Debian is pedantic, YDL is out of date (you see, I can kick linux distros as well)) and are top machines.
something does not fit your worldview, so it must be a Troll or flamebait? Great thinking there, Einstein! It is my own experience with OSX, got no axe to grind or anything. I really wanted to give OSX a try - just as the article poster, and found it did not work for me. Please see my other post elucidating a bit on the issues I encountered. If you are happy with OSX and can live with it, good for you. I on the other hand, speaking from personal experience, think it sucks.
My favorite one is where I installed lots of fonts (about a thousand or so) and that kept Safari from staring - it crashed *all* the time and by extension loads of other apps and bits of the GUI would not work. Now, at the time, nobody, not even Apple Support, realised it was a fonts issue. So I tried to use a different browser and installed Mozilla. However, you can't set mozilla to be the default browser, since you need to change the setting for the default browser of the OS in.... Safari. Which didn't work, so you can't change the setting. Now, apart from the fact that that is a really stupid place to keep that setting, and that it was *moved* there from a useful place, it is counterintuitive. After much research by myself - Apple tech support was worse then useless, a crying shame given the amount of money I payed for this marvel of modern technology - I realised it was a fonts issue - i.e. Safari, and indeed - OSX - doesn't like lots of fonts.
Advice from Apple: Install a fonts manager. My question to Apple was:" but does OSX not come with its own fonts manager?" response: "yeah, but it is not very good, you are better off getting a different one". This also means your fonts cannot be available at all times - I had to switch them on and off as and when needed. In a clunky app....
Oh, and how about a... taskbar! I don't know how people can work without a clearly understandable, clickable list of running windows. Expose you say? sorry, but that is just a flashy hack to cover up the fact that eyecandy is more important then usability and effectiveness.
I am sorry to step on all you OSX lovin' toes, but unless you take off the pink glasses, and stop kicking everybody that does not immediately *love* anything Apple, you can never have a constructive dialogue.
I switched a year ago. 3 months later, switched back to Linux. the overall impression I came away with is that Apple tries to make up for their gross deficiencies of the OS with stacks of eyecandy. Crashing apps galore, locked up machines, stupid configuration issues, and a crippled GUI. Installed gentoo on all my PowerPC boxes and am a happy boy now....
sorry, but you misunderstand my question. I am asking where the clear, legally binding statement is that defines which patents I can use under what conditions. IBM released this document when they Open Sourced their patents to the extent they did. That is a legally binding contract. Sun just issues a press release that gives me nothing, when push comes to shove. Show me the clear, legally binding agreement, and I'll be first in line to cheer Sun for their bold move. But until I see anything other then Scott's usual grandstanding, I'll withold judgement.
RTFPost. The article does not say anything about the patents being licensed under the CDDL. It mumbles vaguely about OpenSolaris, CDDL, and patents. And as such, it is a press release, carrying zero weight in court. All I'm saying is that this is Sun, so it would behoove everybody to read the small print before jumping to conclusions.
At least IBM has always been clear about specifically what patents are being licensed, and under what circumstances these patents are licensed. Suns statement is just mumbo-jumbo. For example the headline: "More then 1600 Patents". So? How many patents do you now have the right to use? 1601? 1645? 1699? And which patents are they?
So far, all I have seen is PR smoke-and-mirrors. Something Sun is known to do really well. All I am saying is let's see the real deal, then we rejoice, yes?
Where is the license? All I see is a press release with vague language and much arm-waving. As I read the press release, the patents are only available for work in OpenSolaris (which as of now does not exist yet - only DTrace). Or work under the CDDL. Or both. Nowhere do I see a statement that says "use these patents with any OSI-approved licensed project, or indeed any clear statement as to right of use.
This only guarantees DNS HA, since it will not test for apache being alive, or any other service being alive. More of a round robin type of setup, with automatic drop of dead addresses. Although it is a nice DNS experiment, I would never use this for HA, as there are better, and - critically - more reliable ways of doing HA, and some of those are pretty affordable.
Face it, you do HA if your business depends on it, and would you really want to rely on a DNS hack in that case?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, in the UK, this particular person is generally regarded by the untrained public to be somewhat of an authority, and he, and the organisations he represents, are seen to be the "spokespeople of open source" (again, by the untrained public). His name is Eddy Bleasdale. Mr. Bleasdale has done -- without any bad intent, I'm sure -- untold harm on the cause of Linux and Open source in the UK, and in my opinion he should be banned from ever talking with customers, or speaking in public. The man should be considered harmful. Wherever he goes, people migrate to Microsoft - lock, stock and barrel.
So you cannot really blame the customer for taking that attitude. Between Mr. Bleasdales advice and generous lashings of fearmongering from Gartner -- who warn PHB's everywhere about the fact that the FLOSS world is full of people like Bleasdale -- I can't fault him for running for cover.
The only really interesting with Kerberos that we deploy with some success (and specifically use Kerberos for) is OpenAFS. for the rest, we don't bother, unless there is a path of very little resistance. Unfortunately, most of the time it is a case of too much effort for too little payback.
MS not only made it easy for appdev's to use Kerberos (I am personally not really bothered about appdev comfort, caring more for end-user experience), they made it transparent to the end-user i.e. the user will *never* have to deal with tickets, tokens, and any other form of virtual identity currency. Shift to *nix, and you all of the sudden have to be a rocket scientist just to get at your files. It is a real pity, and we can collectively learn something from how MS have cracked the Kerberos thing. Us, we find ways to route around the problem, and don't use Kerberos....
Man, I'm glad my doctor doesn't think like you
;-) -- and FYI, I learned my stuff by actually putting in the time at home, away from my family, in the lab, at work and with the customer *building solutions* and trying out stuff. What I didn't know, I googled. What I couldn't google, I bought books about. When I still didn't know, I decided it was too hard for me to do, and passed the work to someone else.
That's why he is the doctor, and I'm the IT guy
I don't mind teaching people, and parting with my hard earned knowledge. All my senior staff are required to mentor junior staff. We have an open and free knowledge base, and all our products are open source. However, people who do not do even the basest of reasearch before asking someone else how to do it, are found alternative employment, and are gently let go from the organisation. TANSTAAFL.
Yeah, well, the NTFS to Samba thing was the final straw, athough I hear the AD to OpenLDAP thing all the time, and it pisses me right off. I do Enterprise Open Source Deployments for a living - primarily desktop and infrastructure (directory, groupware and file and print, heyhey, exactly his list!) and nothing is uglyer to an AD administrator then the mess that is the Kerberos/OpenLDAP/Samba mudheap that sort-of delivers something sort of similar, but really doesn't. Even the IDEALX stuff linked to elsewhere doesn't really make the grade. For all its warts, AD is actually pretty admin friendly, and what is more, many organisations have spent lots of money to get to AD in the first place. That is why my company specialises in integrating Linux infrastructures with existing AD and/or Novell eDirectory. (integrating linxu with AD actually works pretty well...)
I did actually provide examples.
As for "chilling a little", I met a customer last week, who simply did not want to talk open source, because some clueless critter of an "IR Consultant" came in some time ago shouting something similar. "Get rid of all your Microsoft products! They are EVIL!" now, this customer is a relaxed dude, so went like "okay, but I replace it with what?" and something similar to the above list came up. For most people that list is simply unacceptable -- they don't *care* what they run, as long as it works. So someone coming around that can't even tell the difference between Exchange and Sendmail, and states "rip out all your groupware, calendaring, forums, imap, mail, pop, webmail, and some CRM functionality, and instead I give you Sendmail....it's FREE!" does not really impress.
Customer now thinks Open Source people are clueless freaks, and any mention of this stuff is taboo. I see this *all the time* and it really gets me upset.
Getting the revolution because you downloaded OpenOffice.org and found Slashdot is one thing, making the whole community look bad is another....
Sorry, but Samba does not deliver functional partiy (i.e. sam functionality) to Active Directory. It may be somewhat similar, and it may be better in some ways, but it is not a good replacement. Neither are Exim, Postfix, Sendmail or QMail - all SMTP deamons. they don't even offer your basic IMAP/POP/ Calendaring, etc functionality. And I did actually mention NTFS to Reiser, but think AFS is more what the poster had in mind.
- Active Directory to Novell eDirectory, although that doesn't really give you much. No real Open Source functional alternative.
- Exchange server to Open-Xchange
- NTFS to perhaps XFS or Reiser, orOpenAFS, although OpenAFS is really lots better, and has tons more functionality
Have a lot of Fun!"Active Directory to Open LDAP, Exchange Server to Sendmail and NTFS to Samba"
I understand the gist of your question, although I don't think you understand it yourself. None of your examples actually discuss the one thing the enterprise is interested in: "Functional Parity"
AD to OpenLDAP doesn't go, because OpenLDAP is just a directory protocol -- I wish people would start to understand that. There is no directly usable management interface, no business logic, no nothing. It is just a protocol....
Comparing Exchange Server and Sendmail earns you a good thwapping over the head in my team -- maybe Exchange Server vs. Open-Exchange, but again you are comparing the wrong things. Finally, go stand in the corner for comparing NTFS with Samba.
I usually don't complain about Ask Slashdot type stuff, but this takes the cake. Go learn something about IT before you ask stupid questions.
Has anybody with sufficient knowledge actually looked at the patents in question
Nope, since nobody knows which ones they are, since Sun isn't telling. They claim it concerns "more then 1600 patents", but information about exactly how many is pretty thin on the ground, let alone a detailed listing of which patents are covered. This is just your typical Sun smoke and mirrors....
They have made this a CDDL-only thing. Well, at least, according to the press release they have - this article may shed some more light on the whole issue. In short, Sun are being their usualy weasly selves again.
Anyway, let's see:
- hear about lame joke
- post endlessly on
/. - ???
- PROFIT!!!
I'll go back to my corner now....Dude, nobody is accusing IBM from being a cuddly bear. Few people doubt that IBM is in the business of making money - any which way they can. I have frequent discussions with IBM about getting some of their desktop software to run on linux, and the answer is *always*: "show us we can make money doing so". IBM is not a charity, and nobody sane expects them to be. However, they understand that Linux is a "sales-enabler" for the hardware, software and services business, and as such it behooves them to be recognised as a Linux leader. This includes donating source, patents, efforts, time and money to the "open source community" as such. These are all strong indicators of strategic, offensive (is in, going on the offense) thinking. The kind of action of a comapny that has seen the future, and knows which way the bread is buttered.
Now, picture this - IBM donates 400 patents, and are widely lauded for their gift. Sun "donates" 1600 patents, and "open source" Slowlaris, and are getting a sound kicking. Now ask yourself why IBM gets more kudos for less effort.
Well, Mr. McNeally, I didn't think you would guess it either, so here is the answer: IBM's donation has no strings attached. The patents can be used freely within the specified context - i.e. Open Source, - and can even be used within this context to compete with AIX, for example. Your "donation" on the other hand, only benefits Sun. Nobody else. This is a strong indication of non-strategic -i.e. tactical- thinking, an example of "castle building" or defensive thought.
All Sun sees is a perceived threat to their business, and cannot think of a way to benefit from the situation, so they grow hard, and dig in. This is a seriously flawed way of conducting business, and shows what a weak strategist Scott McNeally really is - as the Tao Te Ching states: "On the importance of yielding. It is said that a reed that is not rigid and bends will not break and in so doing will endure."
Equal distribution of money has long been shown to not work. I keep my life debt free, therefore I am not burdened with interest payments. I run my own company, therefore my wage is not "ever decreasing" it is linked to my efforts (and it has been increasing for some time now, thank you very much) and the wage increases of my employees are linked to GDP growth plus a percentage based on performance.
And if you want to nitpick - the national bank can't MAKE money either... You still have not explained to me about the "enslaving" bit though.....
Get a grip. Companies don't want to "enslave the people". That's bad for business. They want to make money.
Lay off on the coffee...
Hey cool - this is the kind of dialogue I was hoping for!
As for the configuration issues - that is a bit deeper, as it is a combination of things. X11 integration was not good, limiting OpenOffice usage, and the J/ OpenOffice stuff (name slipped my mind) was crashing all the time, so I could not use it for my day to day work - I used this machine as a day-today office machine, you know, office apps, mail browser, etc. - so none of the core apps required for my work worked nicely - browser crashing, other browser not integrated, no good office app, fink was hard to deal with and set up.
So my alternatives were to either pony up a lot of money for Microsoft Office for OSX - something I did not want to do (but a collegue of mine did, only to find it crashing all the time when opening word documents) and spending a lot of time getting comfortable with fink.
All in all, the time, effort and money involved did not lead me to a significant better user experience. In fact, from my perspective, I spent a lot of money on OSX, was having to spend more money on office, had loads of issues, and found my productivity dropped. I reckoned to be fully conversant and productive, I would have to spend a lot of time, effort and money, just to get to a level of productivity where I already was before I started with the whole OSX experience. For no appreciable, calcuble or noticable gain. (I have tons of eyecandy already). On the other hand, I am now the proud owner of a G4 and a qube, and they are by far the best pieces of kit I own. They both run Gentoo (the only Gentoo machines I have - Debian is pedantic, YDL is out of date (you see, I can kick linux distros as well)) and are top machines.
something does not fit your worldview, so it must be a Troll or flamebait? Great thinking there, Einstein! It is my own experience with OSX, got no axe to grind or anything. I really wanted to give OSX a try - just as the article poster, and found it did not work for me. Please see my other post elucidating a bit on the issues I encountered. If you are happy with OSX and can live with it, good for you. I on the other hand, speaking from personal experience, think it sucks.
My favorite one is where I installed lots of fonts (about a thousand or so) and that kept Safari from staring - it crashed *all* the time and by extension loads of other apps and bits of the GUI would not work.
... taskbar! I don't know how people can work without a clearly understandable, clickable list of running windows. Expose you say? sorry, but that is just a flashy hack to cover up the fact that eyecandy is more important then usability and effectiveness.
Now, at the time, nobody, not even Apple Support, realised it was a fonts issue. So I tried to use a different browser and installed Mozilla. However, you can't set mozilla to be the default browser, since you need to change the setting for the default browser of the OS in.... Safari. Which didn't work, so you can't change the setting. Now, apart from the fact that that is a really stupid place to keep that setting, and that it was *moved* there from a useful place, it is counterintuitive. After much research by myself - Apple tech support was worse then useless, a crying shame given the amount of money I payed for this marvel of modern technology - I realised it was a fonts issue - i.e. Safari, and indeed - OSX - doesn't like lots of fonts.
Advice from Apple: Install a fonts manager. My question to Apple was:" but does OSX not come with its own fonts manager?" response: "yeah, but it is not very good, you are better off getting a different one". This also means your fonts cannot be available at all times - I had to switch them on and off as and when needed. In a clunky app....
Oh, and how about a
I am sorry to step on all you OSX lovin' toes, but unless you take off the pink glasses, and stop kicking everybody that does not immediately *love* anything Apple, you can never have a constructive dialogue.
I switched a year ago. 3 months later, switched back to Linux. the overall impression I came away with is that Apple tries to make up for their gross deficiencies of the OS with stacks of eyecandy. Crashing apps galore, locked up machines, stupid configuration issues, and a crippled GUI. Installed gentoo on all my PowerPC boxes and am a happy boy now....
event: Google hired a dark fibre negotiator
press conclusion: "They must be doing VOIP!"
event: google hires clever browser developer
Press conclusion: "They must be doing their own browser!"
event:Google hired a plan 9 developers
press conclusion: "They must be doing their own OS!!"
What's next - google hires a plumber - the end of IT as we know it?
sorry, but you misunderstand my question. I am asking where the clear, legally binding statement is that defines which patents I can use under what conditions. IBM released this document when they Open Sourced their patents to the extent they did. That is a legally binding contract. Sun just issues a press release that gives me nothing, when push comes to shove. Show me the clear, legally binding agreement, and I'll be first in line to cheer Sun for their bold move. But until I see anything other then Scott's usual grandstanding, I'll withold judgement.
RTFPost. The article does not say anything about the patents being licensed under the CDDL. It mumbles vaguely about OpenSolaris, CDDL, and patents. And as such, it is a press release, carrying zero weight in court. All I'm saying is that this is Sun, so it would behoove everybody to read the small print before jumping to conclusions.
At least IBM has always been clear about specifically what patents are being licensed, and under what circumstances these patents are licensed. Suns statement is just mumbo-jumbo. For example the headline: "More then 1600 Patents". So? How many patents do you now have the right to use? 1601? 1645? 1699? And which patents are they?
So far, all I have seen is PR smoke-and-mirrors. Something Sun is known to do really well. All I am saying is let's see the real deal, then we rejoice, yes?
Where is the license? All I see is a press release with vague language and much arm-waving. As I read the press release, the patents are only available for work in OpenSolaris (which as of now does not exist yet - only DTrace). Or work under the CDDL. Or both. Nowhere do I see a statement that says "use these patents with any OSI-approved licensed project, or indeed any clear statement as to right of use.
Looks like there are some strings attached.
This only guarantees DNS HA, since it will not test for apache being alive, or any other service being alive. More of a round robin type of setup, with automatic drop of dead addresses. Although it is a nice DNS experiment, I would never use this for HA, as there are better, and - critically - more reliable ways of doing HA, and some of those are pretty affordable.
Face it, you do HA if your business depends on it, and would you really want to rely on a DNS hack in that case?
Having said that - Cool Hack Dude!
He did not say he did not want it, he said there is lots of info about it on the net....
Try this Grows everywhere, under almost every condition, everybody will love you, you will be very popular. Good for your health as well.