On 12/11/2007, Stephen Lau <stevel at opensolaris.org> wrote: > Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote: > >> Removal of those closed source bits (or replacement with open source) > >> will cripple the distribution on certain types of hardware, in some > >> cases unacceptably so. (I'm talking about hardware such as LSI > >> SCSAI/SAS/SATA controllers, Nvidia graphics chips, etc.) > >> > > > > > >> Don't take this as a belief on my part that this requirement is not > >> appropriate, nor as a belief that there is not substantial value in what > >> Indiana offers. I just don't think *what* Indiana offers is precisely > >> what we want from an OpenSolaris reference. (And, to be quite honest, > >> because of the above limitations, I think a reference distribution is > >> likely to be of somewhat limited interest by end-users.) > >> > > > > Perhaps a step down from the "full open source" distribution would be > > "free to redistribute" and perhaps the latter is arguably the minimum > > requirement as it allows anyone to build on such a distribution and > > modify it for your own use. > > > Right, it's a philosophical requirement vs. a technical requirement. > > I prefer 100% open source myself, and I'm hardly a learned philosopher. > Then again, putting the stricter philosophical requirement means we > start "judging" derivative distributions, and walking the long road that > Debian has forged. > > And thar be dragons.
..and that perhaps is the reason I fear having a distribution be controlled by anything other than a community group. The advocacy and desktop communities already make decisions that have ripple effects for our entire community; we already trust them to make many such decisions. Since the OGB is responsible for delegating things "such as product development and marketing" tasks; I think that if the OGB chose to delegate that to a particular community group; that we should respect our constitution and allow that properly-scoped community group to make the decisions necessary. I can just about guarantee that we will have very limited progress if we try to setup a distribution community where every individual in the OpenSolaris community gets to vote on little things such as wallpaper, default shell, etc. Those items are best decided by a core group of individuals that are directly involved in the work with the feedback of the community as a *possible* *guide*. I think certain GNU/Linux distributions have shown the deadlock that can happen when there are too many people making the decisions. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor..." --Larry Wall
