[oi-dev] oi_151a9 roadmap & planning

Wed Feb 12 10:34:35 UTC 2014

Hi Seth,

When I started OpenIndiana, I wanted to avoid the "Linux Distribution
Fragmentation" issue, so I created a community distro and tried to solicit
input from everyone and try to keep everyone happy.

I failed miserably. Nobody wants to collaborate, everyone wants to do their
own thing. Hence the huge number of distros you see before you.

Even OpenIndiana itself can't agree on things, hence /dev vs /hipster, one
spearheaded by Andrzej Szeszo, the other by Jon Tibble.

The problem with OpenSolaris was that it was a diabolical mess... a vast
array of undocumented consolidations all using disparate build systems,
cobbled together with a horrific shambles of a system called distro-import.

The OmniOS guys saw this mess and decided "fuck that" and started from
scratch. A server OS, keeping key things like the IPS package system.

Nexenta is a lost cause, their internal politics and agendas made
collaboration impossible. They are schizophrenic - they couldn't decide
between making a Debian like illumos based OS, a storage OS or a Desktop
OS, nor how to do it. Total shambles. Their attempt at collaboration on
"illumos-userland" and then subsequent reversal completely screwed OI at a
key time.

Joyent have one clear goal - Datacenter. SmartOS is great for that. They
have no interest in helping anyone else out with their distributions. They
don't want illumos to succeed as a desktop OS competitor to Linux, to the
point of being actively hostile to the entire concept. Grep the #illumos
irc log for wesolows.

TribbliX was a for fun desktop-oriented distro (correct me if I'm wrong) by
someone that hates IPS and loves SVR4 packaging. I got the impression Peter
never seemed to want to help OI out directly because of the IPS issue.

XStreamOS, DilOS, Schillix etc all have their own goals and agendas, and
again, have no interest in collaborating.

There is no community. Only self centered individuals who think their way
is best. Fragmentation was inevitable. I stated very clearly that I thought
fragmentation would kill illumos. I still feel that today - fragmentation
is killing illumos. Instead of one strong OS, we have a dozen fringe ones.

Nobody listened. Don't expect them to now.

Alasdair.

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 9:30 AM, seth Nimbosa <darth.serious at gmail.com>wrote:

> Basically, we need to take one step back so we can move forward.
>
> the OpenSolaris community as it is has always been small from the start
> after Sun was swallowed by Oracle and all official development ceased
>
> we had to start over with illumos and OpenIndiana,
> however, there has not been much collaboration outside of Nexenta and
> Joyent internal developement, and there is a general feeling of a hack and
> slash attitude within illumos and OpenIndiana circles, not very inviting to
> contributors as significant UNIX code-base inherited from Sun's Solaris
> core is shrinking while the bloat and half-baked code is growing
>
> I think people behind TribbliX, XStreamOS, DilOS, napp-it and OmniOS
> should get together with Schillix and OpenSXCE (previously MartUX) in
> re-creating the original code-base with significant code improvement
> plugged in, if any..
>
> another concern is the 3-Gigabyte download for live media!!!  i remember
> there was a time when there was a light OpenSolaris LiveCD based on build
> 134 (700++ MB), which was easy to try and actually instantly install, from
> which additional packages can be added to build the system that's right for
> you.. even with fast internet connection a 3-GB media is too hard to
> swallow and a high barrier for would-be developers and casual slackers
> trying a modern UNIX-based system
>
> I haven't kept track how build 134 metamorphosed into build 151a9 today,
> since 2011 I was busy in developing Network Technologies and integrated
> solutions through Unified Communications and virtualization working with
> Cisco.com after my failed attempt at volunteering at Sun just when Oracle
> bought it, but i think it is never too late to take one step back and pick
> the pieces of our OpenSolaris community, as the only open source UNIX
> community
>
> a large-scale community collaboration of all OpenSolaris-based
> distribution is needed, and I am willing to do my part in bringing this
> together, hopefully people from the illumos Foundation can help, but the
> community must move forward with or without their stewardship, what we need
> is a massive de-duplication of efforts in our community focused on
> code-based development not dictated by corporate pragmatic decisions alone..
>
> we can start with a BitBucket or a GitHub repository to rehabilitate the
> OpenSolaris code and compile all significant improvements and replacements
> with minimal code-slashing and considerable code-review, this can be done
> incrementally
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Seth Nimbosa, your Brother and Comrade-in-Arms
> 
> http://twitter.com/nimbosa
> FB.com/nimbosa
>
>
>
>  ---------- ** * ** ----------
>
> * Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work*
> *and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for -*
>
> *in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car,
> and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.  *
>
>   - Ellen Goodman
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
>
>
> *Joerg Schilling*
> 
> Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de <oi-dev%40openindiana.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5Boi-dev%5D%20oi_151a9%20roadmap%20%26%20planning&In-Reply-To=%3C5225a7ae.5JrfSQc1XVbnjQxv%25Joerg.Schilling%40fokus.fraunhofer.de%3E>
> *Tue Sep 3 09:11:10 UTC 2013*
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Ray Arachelian <
>
>
>
>
> 
> ray at arachelian.com <http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev>> wrote:
>
> >* > Since oi_151a9 was scheduled for release this month, some initial
> *
> Could someone explain why you udr 151a9?
>
>
> -	It is not based on onnv_151
>
> -	It is most likely not the 151th release for OI
>
> -	It is based like others on onnv_147+
>
> >* > thoughts:
> *>* >
> *>* > 1. bump illumos to b02c4a353739
> *>* > 2. bump oi-jds to ee8cf112eec2 (hg.opensolaris.cz/oi-jds <http://hg.opensolaris.cz/oi-jds>)
> *>* > 3. Nvidia 304.108 video driver
> *>* > 4. Xnv_161 integration (Alasdair ?)
> *>* >
> *>* Can we add USB 3.0 support, and SATA 6GB support? Please?
> *
> I am not sure whether you are aware about the fact that OpenSoaris has few
> contributors and that Illumos is trying to frighten developers by not being a
> sure partner you may trust.
>
> Promising to include software causes people to spend time in creating a webrev,
> but later not doing a code review causes at least this time to be wasted. This
> finally ends up in not fulfilling a commitment and is toxic for Illumos
> credibility.
>
> Adding code with known bugs to Illumos even though it did not pass a
> codereview, just because the code is from an animal that is more equal
> than others destroys credibility.
>
> Illumos also drives in a direction that is not what I understand by going the
> Solaris (UNIX) way. Code is removed just because it is not of interest for
> Nexenta or Joyent, continuing this way will at some time lower attractivity.
> Ripping off troff from man(1) because "col -x" (as a result from a buggy
> localization software in Illumos) does not pass japanese characters is a
> strange response to a problem.
>
>
>
> While points 1..4 are decisions that can be made by OI, your proposal is not
> leading to a decision that could be made by OI.
>
> You may hope that this at some time is handled by Illumos, but Illumos does not
> cover all the skills that are needed. So my question to other OI members is:
> are you 100% bound to Illumos?
>
> I am currently underway with finishing the package collection for SchilliX
> based on network loadable Svr4 packages that I made basically working in
> February 2011. Now that SchilliX collects helpers, we expect to be in a state
> to deliver a full desktop in a few weeks. After that, I will start to work
> again on the OpenSolaris code base. As mentioned, a toxic person prevents
> Illumos from being interested in collaboration, so we either end up in a
> tattered OpenSolaris landscape or we find a way to pool changesets and let
> distros decide how to compose their OpenSolaris base.
>
> Are you interested in collaboration?
> If yes, do you have an idea how this could be done?
>
> Jörg
>
> --
>  EMail:
> 
> joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de <http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev> (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
>
> 
> js at cs.tu-berlin.de <http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev>                (uni)
>        joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de <http://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/oi-dev> (work) Blog:
>
>
>
>
> 
> http://schily.blogspot.com/
>  URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> __________________________________
>
>
> Gary Driggs <gdri... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 3, 2013, at 3:08 AM, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> >
> > It seems that we need to set up some kind of register about who is working
> > on what for OpenSolaris
> >
> >
> > Something more detailed than this?
> > http://wiki.illumos.org/display/illumos/Distributions
>
>  Sure!
>
> This also does not seem to be correct, as it lists OnmiOS as an Illumos
> based
> distro, but is this was true, Omnios did just have a broken od
> implementation
> in /usr/bin instead of no od implementation.
>
> As mentioned several times before, in November 2010, Illumos decided not
> to
> collaborate with other developers and in addition ignored a rejected code
> review for a broken od implementation that in turn was added to the
> illumos
> code base despite a known list of several bugs.
>
> For this reasons, illumos failed to become the community OpenSolaris
> successor.
> There are several similar disjunct continuation projects with different
> goals.
>
> SchilliX-ON exists since Garret DAmore made obvious that he is not willing
> to
> collaborate and after he added his buggy od.c sourcecode. SchilliX-ON
> among
> others supports compressed SVr4 packages that can be directly installed
> from
> the network for Intel and Sparc since February 2011.
>
> What OpenSolaris needs is a list of development activities that would
> allow
> people to know what other people do and what probably could be taken from
> others.
>
> 
> Jörg
>
> --
>  EMail:jo... at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home)
> 
> Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
>        j... at cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)
>        joerg.schill... at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog:
> http://schily.blogspot.com/
>  URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
>
>
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