[OpenIndiana-discuss] "OpenIndiana lead Alasdair Lumsden resigns"

[Michael Stapleton]

I have been developing a virtualization product that runs on OI, It's
written in Java but uses ZFS and Comstar so the server side has to be
Iluminos/Solaris11 based.
For me, development and testing has been much more efficient by running
OI on my workstations and laptops.
When I'm traveling, I can still build and test because my laptop is
running OI. I could use VMs for testing, but rather not if I don't have
to.
The fact that OI is usable as a workstation has been great and I would
not be happy to see it go away. If it does, I will likely have to switch
to Solaris 11 to "Build and test" my software.

Microsoft owns the desktop market because it owns the desktop market.
Uses run Windows because the programs they need run on Windows.
Developers develop for windows because the Users are running Windows.
Hardware vendors write drivers for Windows because the computers are
running Windows.
It does not matter how great of a desktop OI is, it will never break the
Windows cycle.

The real threat to Windows is cloud services. The Microsoft "Lock in"
might be broken when the applications Users use no longer depend on the
desktop OS, But when that happens it also will mean that the great
services OI provides will be irrelevant on a desktop.

If there is one niche market I can see for OI as a desktop, it is in
Trusted Extensions.

The future of OI is on the server, and it should have a usable GUI
interface. 
But in my opinion, trying to support every Desktop application is a bit
futile.



Mike

On Sun, 2012-09-02 at 10:52 -0400, Gary Gendel wrote:

> On 9/2/12 7:23 AM, Dave Koelmeyer wrote:
> > On 2/09/12 02:48 AM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> >> On Sat, 1 Sep 2012, Robin Axelsson wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I'm fully aware of the power of the command line and it is the 
> >>> command line that really makes me like Unix based OSes (including 
> >>> Linux). But making OI look well-polished with a fancy and easy to 
> >>> administer web-admin GUI that would encourage the average-Joe to use 
> >>> it as a home-NAS / virtual server is not a bad thing. That way OI 
> >>> would reach a higher penetration with a larger user-base and most 
> >>> importantly; it will get _free advertising_. To some extent the old 
> >>> adage "A good product markets itself" has some truth in it. But it 
> >>> must not only be good, it has to /look/ good so that even a less 
> >>> versed person will understand how good it is.
> >>
> >> Focusing on issues like this would be putting the cart before the 
> >> horse.  It is more important to be able to easily build everything 
> >> and incorporate updates than to have a fancy configuration GUI. OI 
> >> popularity should come second to correct functionality and having an 
> >> organization (of volunteers and corporate entities) to sustain it. If 
> >> OI is worthy, popularity will follow, even if only from people who 
> >> already preferred Solaris.
> >
> > +1. Precisely.
> >
> I totally agree.  However, I selfishly want an X-windows server and 
> window manager on my server.  I personally would prefer a simple window 
> manager over a the heavyweight Gnome/KDE camps but there are reasons to 
> go with these.
> 
> I develop GUI based applications and have just about one of every 
> Linux/Unix/Mac/Windows OS and version running to do build and test 
> sitting in the home office on the opposite coast.  Our clients still 
> have a large investment with Solaris 9/10 so it is important that this 
> builds and runs on a Solaris variant.  Some of the apps can launch 
> external programs, so it determines whether it should use gnome-open, 
> etc. to choose the appropriate application.
> 
> I telecommute, so when I make code changes I like to first build and 
> test it on a cross section of platforms locally so I don't ship it out 
> to the build farm broken and make everyone unhappy.
> 
> I run router/firewall/file-share/backup/web/imap,web,smtp mail services 
> on an old V20z.  I have over 10 TB of mirrored zfs storage on which 
> stores mail for each user  With all of this, I seldomly tax it's 
> resources.  I do, however use this to build and test to make sure that 
> it properly compiles and runs my applications.  This has saved me 
> countless of re-spins do to compiler or library issues. Without 
> X-windows and some WM, I would no longer be able to use this machine 
> that way and would have to take the hit for breaking Solaris builds.
> 
> I recently picked up an Enterprise 450 when I heard of the OI Sparc 
> efforts.  However, it came with the internal NIC and the DVD drive 
> broken.  It also has that funky PXE graphics card.  I got around the NIC 
> by putting a fiberchannel card in and a SX to TX converter, and picked 
> up a replacement DVD drive.  I was hoping to not only use it for 
> testing, but to use it to help the SPARC OI efforts but it still 
> requires X-windows and WM to be useful for me.
> 
> I can't believe that I'm the only one that uses OI to do GUI product 
> development.
> 
> Gary
> 
> 
> 
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