[OpenIndiana-discuss] Proposal: OpenIndiana Stable Branch

[Ken Gunderson]

On Fri, 2011-01-14 at 20:36 +0000, Alasdair Lumsden wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I believe now would be a really good time for us to create our first stable branch of OpenIndiana, given the timing of some developments within the project.

Was a consensus ever reached on this?  

Opinions are easier to come by than developer time and talent so I kept
mine to myself, waiting to see what shook out in the wash.  Since it
appears that nothing actually did, I'll offer the following.

I see advantages to both waiting on IllumOS integration and getting
something out now. It has been stated that "it could be many months
until we have an Illumos dev build suitable for respinning as a stable
branch".  Could it also be significantly less time?  If we're really
talking "many" months here (and I assume that means more than 6, else
terms like a "couple" or "few" would have been more appropriate), then
I'd vote for a minimally supported release sooner rather than later. If,
otoh, integration would be more on the order of 2-3 months, then I'd
postpone and concentrate all available resources on making that a
reality.

As for the MTA discussion, Postfix is pretty much a drop in replacement
for Sendmail, and my vote would be to replace Sendmail entirely.  Of
course Exim and others should be available (at some point in time) via
the package system and it's not my intent to debate relative merits of
various MTA offerings.  Replacing Sendmail with Postfix is more of a
pragmatic call - doing so is very low hanging fruit and nobody I know
has rolled out a new Sendmail set up in many, many years now, and
supporting an essentially fringe MTA as part of the core would be one
less thing to worry about.

Despite all it's goodness, one, if not the, primary detractor to Open
Solaris's uptake was a paucity of 3rd party packages. Postponing until
IllumOS integraton would allow more time for the repository to be
updated and fleshed out, thereby creating a better initial impression of
"fresh and up to date" Open Solaris based system. If the minimal
supported server now path is chosen, then I think there really needs to
be some POP3/IMAP package on the list, because it's not all just about
web servers.  Cyrus or Dovecot would be good choices.

Regarding timing from a marketing perspective, FreeBSD is on the cusp of
8.2 release and Debian is close to 6.0 going stable.  I'm not sure if
it's relevant, but I think we can expect various publications to be
doing reviews.  Having OI included in the discussion could be a
blessing, or a curse.

My $0.02, for whatever it may be worth.  Thanks for your indulgence.

-- 
Ken Gunderson <kgunders at teamcool.net>