Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> Why do you think this is so? Isn't it possible that some Sun Labs
> project to port Solaris to an interesting piece of embedded MIPS
> hardware could take place? Isn't Sun just another community member here?
This is definitely possible, but the intent of the "Community-Supported
Platforms" (Porting) Community is to provide support for Community created and
supported ports of OpenSolaris.
Sun Labs may well provide a port or ports (like the PPC port), but Sun's
Solaris
developers will not necessarily be providing or supporting them directly.
> Again, why are you making a distinction here? Who *cares* who maintains
> the port? If Sun blesses the port by issuing "official support" for it
> (e.g. making a regular Sun Solaris release for it), that should not be
> any different than say, Nexenta doing the same.
I'm trying to make the distinction simply because if Sun supports those ports
they will be doing so as a Community member, not as an ongoing business
decision
the way Sun officially supports Solaris releases on supported SPARC and x86/x64
platforms.
It's just a clarification of verbiage, and if I'm doing nothing but confusing
the matter, please let me know.
> No, it doesn't belong there. Once a port has reached a level of
> stability and is integrated, it probably can either fork off a new
> project or community of its own. Any port with an active user base and
> vibrant community (one out of incubation), deserves to have a first
> class community. I don't think either the PPC or S/390 ports are at
> that stage yet, but the x86/amd64 and sparc ports definitely are.
Correct, and the PPC, S/390, ARM, etc. ports are what this Community is
intended
to encapsulate and provide a "one stop" information portal for rather than see
new ARM, S/390, etc. Communities pop up alongside the PowerPC Community,
especially as much of the information common to all of these ports needs to be
shared.
> When did you start making those decisions -- do you have a crystal
> ball? I can easily see Sun releasing PowerPC or (more likely) ARM or
> MIPS code getting into Sun released products (perhaps not as banded
> Solaris product, but maybe... more likely as a part of some closed
> product, such as a network appliance of some sort.) One can imagine
> Sun wooing some of the larger vendors (Cisco? Bay Networks?) to
> consider Solaris for some future network infrastructure project, which
> might well use an unconventional architecture... in which case an
> official "Solaris" port might make more sense.
I'm NOT in the position to make any decisions about anything Sun does or
doesn't
do, nor am I trying to make future predictions here, or in any way speak for
Sun
as a company; I'm merely trying to clarify my original Community proposal.
The clarification I'm trying (and apparently failing) to bring is that it is my
intention that "Community-Supported Platforms" would be supported by the
Community as a whole and not directly by Sun engineering.
> I see no reason why PPC, ARM, or MIPS couldn't get integrated into the
> ON consolidation, provided it is able to meet the criteria required for
> it. (Quality controls, process followed, and enabling future levels of
> test coverage/quality control -- this might have to happen elsewhere.)
>
> Some of the details about "control" of ON are still unresolved, to be
> sure, and the current level of Sun control over ON will probably need to
> be relaxed somewhat in the future, but at the same time, I expect that
> this will have to be met with an increased level of care and process on
> the community side, to ensure that the overall quality does not degrade.
Both of these points are correct. I apologize for any confusion my original
comments may have caused on this issue.
> Again, you're making assumptions which may or may not hold true.
Yes, but also trying to make the point of that's how I intend the Community to
work today.
> I actually abhor the way Linux does this. Its not a good model for
> robust engineering IMO. I far, far prefer the NetBSD approach to
> portability and architecture support. (And yes, I've real experience
> with both approaches.) Anyone who's worked with NetBSD will probably
> tell you that their portability and cross-platform support is probably
> the one feature that beats all the other FOSS projects, hands down. I'd
> far rather aim in that direction, than in the fragmented approach that
> Linux has used over the years. But that's just *my* opinion.
That may indeed be the way things fall out in the future, but as of right now
code drops from Sun made to ON are tested on supported SPARC and x86 platforms
only, and nothing about the proposed Community will change that.
Or, to the best of my knowledge Sun will not as a company be testing each new
ON
release on ODW workstations, PowerPC Macs, Z series mainframes, whichever ARM
platforms may be eventually supported, etc. to insure that the latest code drop
from Solaris has not inadvertently broken something; it is intended that that
be
the responsibility of the Community developers for each project (whether those
Community developers are actually employed by Sun or not.)
> Maybe that's the model *you* intend, but I'm not convinced everyone
> shares your opinion here. Hmm... were you the original proposer for
> the community? If so I guess you have more say in it... but I'd ask
> you politely to consider that other models may be superior, or may be
> desired by the community. A community straw-poll might be worthwhile here.
Yes, I was the person who originally proposed the Community and as such, these
are what my intentions were and are regarding support.
You and others are certainly free to propose other models, but I feel it's
important to get the Community off the ground at this point if for no other
reason than to serve as a centralized information clearing house for
information
common to all ongoing OpenSolaris ports.
William Kucharski
