When you find a bug and have a fix, do you get to just check it in to the project yourself? Of course not. You have to send the patch in for review. Projects' source trees would become insane if any random person could check code in.
Similarly, for now, as people work on fixes, we're (yes I work for Sun) buddying them up with a sponsor who takes care of stuff like paperwork, and process that have to be completed before a fix can be integrated into the code tree.
Part of the sponsor process is also due to the fact that the source tree lives within Sun (at least for write-only access). We're still building up the infrastructure to do external hosting; it's not trivial to move a huge (30,000+ files) with a long history in an archaic SCM that nobody else uses from inside of Sun's firewall to outside. A lot of our existing build tools assume things like always being able to access the repository via NFS. There's still work to be done, I won't argue that - but I don't believe that it prohibits the project from being considered "open".
Ultimately, yes - anyone who works for a company wants the company to make money. Whether it's Sun, Google, Microsoft, or the Roman Catholic Church.
You can't honestly work for a company and not want to increase sales.
It's how you go about increasing those sales that matter though. You can do it the right way: by increasing adoption with a competitive product.
But that wasn't what you said. You said there is a faction within Sun who opened solaris as a way to win lucrative support contracts and sell hardware. through many indirect ways... yes, you could argue that... since OpenSolaris adoption naturally might lead to commercial Solaris adoption, which would in turn lead to support contracts. But you paint it as though Sun open-sourced with the primary objective to be to win lucrative support contracts.
Honestly, the companies and people who buy those lucrative support contracts probably don't care that Solaris is open source (unless they're a gov't agency w/ an open source mandate). They would have bought the support contract anyway. OpenSolaris's prime objective is to increase adoption, and we're not targeting the Bank of Americas, Googles, and GE's of the world with OpenSolaris. We're targeting developers and students which Linux took away (as you pointed out, correctly).
I'm sorry, I don't often reply on Slashdot, but I have to reply this because it's so pointedly wrong.
Sun didn't open source solaris to win support contracts and sell hardware. They open sourced it to generate a community around it and to increase developer and academic interest. The engineers working on Solaris have been wanting to open source Solaris for ages to try and increase adoption.
I'm on the OpenSolaris engineering team, so I'm pretty certain I know what's going on around me here.
in a nutshell, a spin-lock will cause the thread waiting for the lock to spin and keep checking to see if the lock becomes available.
whereas, the adaptive lock will spin if the holder of the lock is running on another CPU; otherwise they block for a short time instead of spinning, thus yielding the CPU it's running on so some other thread can utilise the CPU time instead. the idea being that if the holder is running somewhere else, then it should be finishing up soon - so we can spin on it since it should be done soon. but if it's not, then we'll block since we can't do anything until it becomes active and gives up the lock anyway.
Except that Claire Giordano, and Andy Tucker are both in Engineering. Andy Tucker, is in fact, a Distinguished Engineer, and is one of the most respected names in the Solaris kernel world, and quite a brilliant engineer.
Claire is a SW engineering manager. I don't know her background (i.e.: whether she came from an engineering background), but most engineering managers at Sun do come from a technical background.
So it was engineers who designed this license, not our marketing people. Whilst legal undoubtedly had its say, the overarching design was engineering-driven.
(and yes, I work at Sun...on Solaris too)
> Anyone else looking to venture down this road, you should be warned that Solaris is really no fun to try to use as a desktop. Out of the box, Gnome is at version 2.2 or something, and has many many bugs (like Nautilus crashes when you try to drag desktop icons for example).
Solaris 10, both SPARC & x86 versions ship with JDS (Java Desktop System) which is GNOME 2.6 based. You may have tried the Solaris Express releases prior to build 69 which had the older GNOME 2.2 bits, as well as the numerous Nautilus bugs. Try a later build, or wait for the final release and please try it again...you'll find it's much better. - from someone who is running the latest build 71 with a nice looking and fully functional GNOME/Nautilus desktop as his every day desktop. (btw, the CSW distribution (http://www.blastwave.org) is a *great* place for binary packages that work with S10)
> Anyone else looking to venture down this road, you should be warned that Solaris is really no fun to try to use as a desktop. Out of the box, Gnome is at version 2.2 or something, and has many many bugs (like Nautilus crashes when you try to drag desktop icons for example).
Solaris 10, both SPARC & x86 versions ship with JDS (Java Desktop System) which is GNOME 2.6 based. You may have tried the Solaris Express releases prior to build 69 which had the older GNOME 2.2 bits, as well as the numerous Nautilus bugs. Try a later build, or wait for the final release and please try it again...you'll find it's much better.
- from someone who is running the latest build 71 with a nice looking and fully functional GNOME/Nautilus desktop as his every day desktop.
(btw, the CSW distribution (http://www.blastwave.org) is a *great* place for binary packages that work with S10)
Disclaimer: I work for Sun in the Solaris group... blah blah, I'm biased, brainwashed, etc. etc.
1) How will the smartcards be distributed? Will I pick one up when I walk in or will there be a standard "guest" type card in the machine?
This is an interesting problem... I see several possibilities:
a) Library card == smartcard. This solves the distribution problem nicely, but possibly raises the cost of manufacturing the library card. i.e.: not everybody who needs a library card will need a smartcard.
b) Fixed pool of smartcards... maybe if you have x SunRays, you could have x or 1.3x smartcards. At the librarian-desk, have users sign in and leave their keys/driver's license as a deposit to get a smartcard. This solves a couple of nice problems: no more lining up for a computer. If you want a computer, go sign in and put your name down on a central wait list to get a smartcard (assuming you use x smartcards). If you use 1.3x (or some multiplier), then it's nice because not all of those users have to necessarily be using a SunRay. i.e.: I envision a situation where most users will be going between the shelves, and a SunRay with a high amount of mobility. Having more than x smartcards will allow the SunRays to be more fully utilised.
2) In any high-traffic, public use area, hardware will take a beating. It would be my guess that the smartcards will be the first things hit. Any ideas on the expected life span of the cards and what the replacement costs will be over the next year, three years and five years?
Wish I had a more precise answer for you there, but consider this: every employee at Sun has a JavaBadge/smartcard. I use mine everyday, day in, day out. I can't find specific numbers of the lifespan of the cards, but I imagine if they were good enough for Sun to issue to all of its employees, they would be good enough for library use. That's an interesting question though, and one I'd like to find the answer for.:)
The companion CD (which you get with Solaris 10, or you can download as a real easy 1-file ISO image) contains all the packages for the GNU build environment. It's really easy to install, and is definitely worth it.
I believe the reason we don't put it on the installation CD is probably due to licensing issues or something. I dunno, I'm a coder, not a legal guy - but really, try out the companion CD, it's got some good stuff.:)
Oh my god, I don't know what you're smoking - but can I have some?
First off, minor nitpick. v8 is not 2.8, it's 5.8. and v9 is not 2.9, it's 5.9. Anyway, that's pointless.
Solaris 10 is DEFINITELY not using a "mish-mash" of Linux kernel, BSD, and Solaris. Think about the GPL for a second, and realise why what you said is completely absurd. We have kept the same kernel, and have added so much more to it in terms of the new features - but like every other Solaris release, they are based off the pre-existing kernel.
I don't know who's been telling you they are a VP, or a "high up at Sun", but I would check their credentials.
-steve (who works in the Solaris Kernel test team, and gets to play with the Solaris kernel every day)
Slashdot Mirror
When you find a bug and have a fix, do you get to just check it in to the project yourself? Of course not. You have to send the patch in for review. Projects' source trees would become insane if any random person could check code in. Similarly, for now, as people work on fixes, we're (yes I work for Sun) buddying them up with a sponsor who takes care of stuff like paperwork, and process that have to be completed before a fix can be integrated into the code tree. Part of the sponsor process is also due to the fact that the source tree lives within Sun (at least for write-only access). We're still building up the infrastructure to do external hosting; it's not trivial to move a huge (30,000+ files) with a long history in an archaic SCM that nobody else uses from inside of Sun's firewall to outside. A lot of our existing build tools assume things like always being able to access the repository via NFS. There's still work to be done, I won't argue that - but I don't believe that it prohibits the project from being considered "open".
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/tools/scm/
bottom left hand side are links to the evaluations
You can't honestly work for a company and not want to increase sales.
It's how you go about increasing those sales that matter though. You can do it the right way: by increasing adoption with a competitive product.
But that wasn't what you said. You said there is a faction within Sun who opened solaris as a way to win lucrative support contracts and sell hardware. through many indirect ways... yes, you could argue that... since OpenSolaris adoption naturally might lead to commercial Solaris adoption, which would in turn lead to support contracts. But you paint it as though Sun open-sourced with the primary objective to be to win lucrative support contracts.
Honestly, the companies and people who buy those lucrative support contracts probably don't care that Solaris is open source (unless they're a gov't agency w/ an open source mandate). They would have bought the support contract anyway. OpenSolaris's prime objective is to increase adoption, and we're not targeting the Bank of Americas, Googles, and GE's of the world with OpenSolaris. We're targeting developers and students which Linux took away (as you pointed out, correctly).
I'm sorry, I don't often reply on Slashdot, but I have to reply this because it's so pointedly wrong. Sun didn't open source solaris to win support contracts and sell hardware. They open sourced it to generate a community around it and to increase developer and academic interest. The engineers working on Solaris have been wanting to open source Solaris for ages to try and increase adoption. I'm on the OpenSolaris engineering team, so I'm pretty certain I know what's going on around me here.
in a nutshell, a spin-lock will cause the thread waiting for the lock to spin and keep checking to see if the lock becomes available. whereas, the adaptive lock will spin if the holder of the lock is running on another CPU; otherwise they block for a short time instead of spinning, thus yielding the CPU it's running on so some other thread can utilise the CPU time instead. the idea being that if the holder is running somewhere else, then it should be finishing up soon - so we can spin on it since it should be done soon. but if it's not, then we'll block since we can't do anything until it becomes active and gives up the lock anyway.
Except that Claire Giordano, and Andy Tucker are both in Engineering. Andy Tucker, is in fact, a Distinguished Engineer, and is one of the most respected names in the Solaris kernel world, and quite a brilliant engineer. Claire is a SW engineering manager. I don't know her background (i.e.: whether she came from an engineering background), but most engineering managers at Sun do come from a technical background. So it was engineers who designed this license, not our marketing people. Whilst legal undoubtedly had its say, the overarching design was engineering-driven. (and yes, I work at Sun...on Solaris too)
> Anyone else looking to venture down this road, you should be warned that Solaris is really no fun to try to use as a desktop. Out of the box, Gnome is at version 2.2 or something, and has many many bugs (like Nautilus crashes when you try to drag desktop icons for example).
Solaris 10, both SPARC & x86 versions ship with JDS (Java Desktop System) which is GNOME 2.6 based. You may have tried the Solaris Express releases prior to build 69 which had the older GNOME 2.2 bits, as well as the numerous Nautilus bugs. Try a later build, or wait for the final release and please try it again...you'll find it's much better. - from someone who is running the latest build 71 with a nice looking and fully functional GNOME/Nautilus desktop as his every day desktop. (btw, the CSW distribution (http://www.blastwave.org) is a *great* place for binary packages that work with S10)
> Anyone else looking to venture down this road, you should be warned that Solaris is really no fun to try to use as a desktop. Out of the box, Gnome is at version 2.2 or something, and has many many bugs (like Nautilus crashes when you try to drag desktop icons for example). Solaris 10, both SPARC & x86 versions ship with JDS (Java Desktop System) which is GNOME 2.6 based. You may have tried the Solaris Express releases prior to build 69 which had the older GNOME 2.2 bits, as well as the numerous Nautilus bugs. Try a later build, or wait for the final release and please try it again...you'll find it's much better. - from someone who is running the latest build 71 with a nice looking and fully functional GNOME/Nautilus desktop as his every day desktop. (btw, the CSW distribution (http://www.blastwave.org) is a *great* place for binary packages that work with S10)
1) How will the smartcards be distributed? Will I pick one up when I walk in or will there be a standard "guest" type card in the machine?
This is an interesting problem... I see several possibilities:
a) Library card == smartcard. This solves the distribution problem nicely, but possibly raises the cost of manufacturing the library card. i.e.: not everybody who needs a library card will need a smartcard.
b) Fixed pool of smartcards... maybe if you have x SunRays, you could have x or 1.3x smartcards. At the librarian-desk, have users sign in and leave their keys/driver's license as a deposit to get a smartcard. This solves a couple of nice problems: no more lining up for a computer. If you want a computer, go sign in and put your name down on a central wait list to get a smartcard (assuming you use x smartcards). If you use 1.3x (or some multiplier), then it's nice because not all of those users have to necessarily be using a SunRay. i.e.: I envision a situation where most users will be going between the shelves, and a SunRay with a high amount of mobility. Having more than x smartcards will allow the SunRays to be more fully utilised.
2) In any high-traffic, public use area, hardware will take a beating. It would be my guess that the smartcards will be the first things hit. Any ideas on the expected life span of the cards and what the replacement costs will be over the next year, three years and five years?
Wish I had a more precise answer for you there, but consider this: every employee at Sun has a JavaBadge/smartcard. I use mine everyday, day in, day out. I can't find specific numbers of the lifespan of the cards, but I imagine if they were good enough for Sun to issue to all of its employees, they would be good enough for library use. That's an interesting question though, and one I'd like to find the answer for. :)
The companion CD (which you get with Solaris 10, or you can download as a real easy 1-file ISO image) contains all the packages for the GNU build environment. It's really easy to install, and is definitely worth it.
:)
I believe the reason we don't put it on the installation CD is probably due to licensing issues or something. I dunno, I'm a coder, not a legal guy - but really, try out the companion CD, it's got some good stuff.
Oh my god, I don't know what you're smoking - but can I have some? First off, minor nitpick. v8 is not 2.8, it's 5.8. and v9 is not 2.9, it's 5.9. Anyway, that's pointless. Solaris 10 is DEFINITELY not using a "mish-mash" of Linux kernel, BSD, and Solaris. Think about the GPL for a second, and realise why what you said is completely absurd. We have kept the same kernel, and have added so much more to it in terms of the new features - but like every other Solaris release, they are based off the pre-existing kernel. I don't know who's been telling you they are a VP, or a "high up at Sun", but I would check their credentials. -steve (who works in the Solaris Kernel test team, and gets to play with the Solaris kernel every day)