[OpenIndiana-discuss] [illumos-Discuss] branding for illumos/openindiana

[Richard L. Hamilton]

On Jun 22, 2011, at 3:28 AM, Gregory Youngblood wrote:

>> Do you want to tell me that last year, during which I have done everything to promote OpenIndiana in my local Open and Free software community, is going to be wasted? No one and I really mean no one will ever take a second look again if I have to go yet another round of "So, this *was* OpenSolaris and it *was* OpenIndiana, now it is SomeOtherShit."
>> 
>> On the other hand, is branding/naming/whatever more important than features, fixes and enhancements?
> 
> Even though I threw some names out there, I think the only a new name makes any sense is if we determine to make an even more pronounced break from Solaris since Oracle closed down OpenSolaris. And even then, only if we had something major and compelling to differentiate even the system further (new GUI, much better drives, or who knows what) from where OI is at now. A name change at this point would be an operating system equivalent to a Groupon special  - we might see an influx of people trying the system, but odds are they wouldn't stick with it, possibly even reporting negative comments about their experience and further increasing the difficulty in attracting new users.
> 
> The biggest problem I have had with people trying OpenIndiana (and yes, Solaris too) has been hardware compatibility. One colleague summarized it this way: OpenIndiana, where Linux was in 95. He's referring specifically to drivers for various things, especially controllers. He went through 3 or 4 cheap controllers between NewEgg and Fry's Electronics, even buying one from NewEgg specifically since it was supposed to be compatible with OpenIndiana, and none of them worked. He never got a finished installation to play with. [The problem was the vendor revved the board, slight change in chipset, but didn't change the SKU so NewEgg never noticed the change. It only affected OI, the board continued to work just fine in Linux.] 
> 
> To those that have history with Linux and no history with Solaris OI feels like an old Linux distro, and more work than its worth. That's been a big hurdle to over come. That an the GUI feels sluggish, never mind that I could have my box loaded down doing all kinds of processing without major impact to the GUI and their Linux UIs would freeze or get jerky, Solaris (and OS/OI) "felt" slow.
> 
> I recognize that OI is never going to have driver parity with Linux, not unless we suddenly see a huge influx of developers helping with drivers, and even then it's a pipe dream. I also recognize that OI (and Solaris) is now relegated to being a niche player in the grand scheme of things. I hope that changes as OI evolves, but let's be frank, it's not likely any time soon, if ever. We have some serious hurdles to overcome, not only technical but perception. A name change _may_ be helpful overcoming perception, but it will be a flash in the pan if it's not accompanied by major technical improvements too. 

Funny, I've bought a SAS controller (LSI) and a Gbit Ethernet board
(Intel) that both worked just fine on _SPARC_ even, and the Ethernet
even worked on Solaris 9 (although I did have to scrounge for an
open source driver there, since the e1000g driver wasn't in Solaris 9).
(I don't know if I could boot over the net on the GbE since the
card has no fCode, but I don't really care, since if I needed to
that badly, the old interfaces are still in place.)

Point being that if one is careful enough about compatibility (to
include sticking with brands that don't randomly juggle chipsets on
otherwise unchanged motherboard part numbers), and checks the HCL too,
one can do ok.  Just not on whatever random hardware one happens to
have.

Solaris (and offspring, by and large) are first and foremost
_server_ OSs, where hardware choice is purposely restricted by
considerations of reliability ahead of cost.  On suitable hardware,
it's quite usable as a desktop OS (if not necessarily the friendliest
choice in that role), but it's not likely to be any time soon that
you can just throw it on whatever and have it run.

I must be an elitist pig or something, but I don't see that as a
problem.  What good do sheer numbers of users do if most of them
are too clueless to figure out hardware compatibility?  Scarcely one
in 10,000 of that sort would be able to write a line of code anyway.
If you've got to play this grow or perish game, then play it with
people who bring some _clue_ to the table.  Until you've got critical
mass of them, the rest are just bandwidth thieves anyway.  Probably
oxygen thieves too, but that's just my social Darwinism mood speaking.
(Oops, was that my "outer voice"? :-)
-- 
The waitress asked, "Do you want lemon or no lemon with that iced tea?"
Naturally, I said "yes", and then burst out laughing, because there simply
wasn't any other answer in Boolean logic.  She didn't get it, but I got
the lemon, which I wanted anyway.  Later, I realized a quantum computer
could have offered another answer: Schroedinger's Lemon!