I think that there needs to be a way to _talk_ about distros consistently; a distro compatibility taxonomy, if you will. All kinds of packaging schemes, subsetting, toolbase (GNU vs traditional Solaris, for example), minimization, tuning, etc are _possible_, but how much benefit is there from having grossly incompatible distros targetted at similar platforms and purposes?
There's a good side to diversity (not the least of which is the ability to test alternative approaches on a large scale), and also a bad side (learning curve, compatibility, maintenance, ...). A consistent language for these matters ought to be the basis for avoiding those divergences that serve nobody, while encouraging those that have a demonstrable benefit. For example: how can one define the different phrases regarding branding that might be permitted in a widely acceptable manner unless one can first come up with a widely agreed-upon language in which those definitions can be expressed? (i.e. how can one work towards reaching a point where most of us would be happy with the process leading to being allowed to call something an OpenSolaris distro vs a distro based on OpenSolaris technology, etc) As a hypothetical consumer of a distro, I'd want an environment that would be conducive to the development of one highly suitable for my needs. Nevertheless, I'd probably also want to be able to leverage as much skill, application portability, and binary compatibility as possible from there to any future platform/distro/experience. Linux has the "pro" side of diversity, because Linux proper is just the kernel (and realistically the libs that call directly into the kernel). But because their distros have nothing else holding them together, unnecessary differences proliferate. It's all about balance: neither tyranny nor anarchy; diversity for practical purposes, but not as an ideal unto itself. IMO we can strike a more pragmatic balance since we have almost an entire OS, desktop and server environment, and even a number of applications as the code base that we start from. -- This message was posted from opensolaris.org
