(Resending, in case folks didn't get it! If you've already read it, then
please delete and accept my apologies for wasting both your time and your
bandwidth.)
So everyone is *clear*…
illumian is meant to share the userland with OI -- the identical bits in fact.
The *only* difference (apart from name) is that instead of being managed via
IPS -- which for various reasons is toxic to some people -- including me -- it
will be managed via Debian "apt-get" and "dpkg". The *content* is to match
that of OpenIndiana, not Debian. (There will probably also be some differences
in the installer, since I think the OI installers are necessarily a bit too
tied to IPS itself. We are looking at several options here, including the
Ubuntu installer and our own in-house installation tools. Community
participation is welcome here.)
It is my hope that illumian would be a friendly collaboration between some of
our engineers at Nexenta, and the OI team, and that this effort would
strengthen the overall OI effort while meeting the needs of those of us for
whom IPS is simply a non-starter.
In the future, it might even be able to build an OI style distro using RPM or
SVR4, based on the work we are doing to allow different binary packages to be
generated from the upstream OI manifests.
illumian is *not* meant to be Nexenta-owned or driven. I made this statement
about illumos, and I make it now about illumian as well. Hopefully I have
achieved some level of credibility here as a result of the way illumos has been
run -- I could assert a lot more power and control than I have, but that's not
the way the project should be, and I'm in the process of formalizing this so
that in the future I *won't* be able to take a dictatorship. The illumos
community is a meritocracy, and I want the same for illumian. I believe the OI
developers feel the same way about OI.
One of the things that I've failed at here is to articulate the vision
properly, and to enable earlier community involvement in illumian. For that I
apologize. We will be taking action to make this more obviously an open effort
for the community,
I did try to explain all this to the OI devs some time ago, including Alasdair.
I'm deeply disappointed that I think he has since taken some offense to this
effort -- I think part of the problem is that other parties have
miscommunicated some things resulting in confusion on his part, and I will work
hard to fix that.
I will take it upon myself to specifically meet with Alasdair and the other OI
team members to make sure that this discord is addressed head on. I want to
see collaboration and teamwork here, and am really trying not to have
non-constructive competitive efforts. In fact, this is one of the fundamental
reasons that we started illumian rather than continuing the work on NCP… NCP
was a competitive effort to OI with a lot of redundant work, where I hope
illumian will represent far more of a team collaboration.
- Garrett
PS. As far as names go -- I hate naming in general -- but I told the OI guys
back when they first started the project that OpenIndiana is a horrid name.
It's only meaningful with a detailed history lesson that will be lost on anyone
who wasn't a participant in the OpenSolaris debacle. I hope to appeal to a
much larger audience than just the disaffected OpenSolaris community, and I
think the name(s) that our end-users see the most frequently should reflect
that. So yes, a change in the OpenIndiana is warranted, IMO. illumos might
not be much better, but at least the explanation is fairly simple -- "illum +
os" == "illuminate + operating system". (For the record, we started with a
much worse name -- "FreeON", which would have had some of the same problems
that OpenIndiana has… thankfully we had a naming conflict with another FOSS
project and spent a day online on IRC working out what I think is a much better
name, even if still not "perfect".)
On Nov 28, 2011, at 8:42 AM, Kent Watsen wrote:
> On 11/27/11 8:39 PM, Alasdair Lumsden wrote:
>> OI ... remains in most peoples eyes as the only viable Illumos derived
>> distribution.
>
> I agree with this and it is the primary reason why I chose to install OI.
>
> FWIW, I think Alasdair was wise to have OI mimic Oracle Solaris in the
> beginning - IPS and all - for the leverage it could bring. Now that Illumos
> is independent of ON, that reason no longer stands. That said, IPS works for
> me and I'm extremely comfortable with the OI userland (I have no interest in
> a Debian userland right now). I want the OI project to continue on as is
> (sans the name)
>
> Thanks,
> Kent
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
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