On Jan 28, 2008 1:48 PM, John Plocher <John.Plocher at sun.com> wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: > > So, Belenix, SchilliX, and Nexenta are anti-social? > > > Not at all - each of these are simply consuming the ON > component as found on OS.o - they have not (yet) forked > off their own.
I suppose that depends on your definition of a fork. Each one of them distributed "components" (or changes to existing ones) that either were, or continue to not be part of ON, though they would be normally. Belenix adamittedly has integrated back most of its changes as far as I'm aware of. > The failure mode I see is Ben's "I want to hack up my own version > of ZFS, independent from the ZFS community, and distribute it > as an alternative to that done by the ZFS community". That again depends on definitions. I would argue that by choosing the CDDL, forks (depending on how you define them) were inherently seen as valuable, otherwise such a license wouldn't have been chosen. The problem with going against such a project, such as an alternate version of ZFS, is that you stifle innovation. Human beings are not perfect, and may not always agree on the best solution to a problem. As a result, projects need the freedom to distribute "alternate versions of ZFS." I think our only job, as a community, is to ensure that they do so in a way that is not harmful. For example, we could have a requirement that a project wanting to distribute an alternate version of zfs explicitly state that it is such, or require that they name it differently, etc. > The danger isn't the "I want to hack", but the "I want to do > it without being part of the community". If you are not going > to be part of the community, why should the community cater > to you? Again, we come to definitions. What you see as "being part of the community" and what I see as being part of the community are two different things. To me, as long as a project isn't doing something that is perceived or judged "harmful" and that project is happening "on opensolaris.org"; they are part of the commuinty. What it comes down to for me, is this: Would you rather see projects like Nexenta happen on OpenSolaris.org where they might be controversial, but are interacting directly with other community members, or would you rather they happen somewhere else where our community won't directly benefit? Open source projects are done with an "itch to scratch" (as is often said) sometimes that itch isn't one for you, but is for another person. Developers need the freedom to "scratch their itches." (You may now punish me for using such horrible euphemisms, analogies, etc. :) ) > (I'm in an all day meeting and won't be able to respond > much more today... Sorry) No worries. Thanks Mr. Plocher, -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
