On Wed, 1 Aug 2007, James Carlson wrote:
> Brian Gupta writes:
>> When I talk to Sun and say I want to run OpenSolaris I am handed a nice copy
>> of either SXDE and/or SXCE. I am sure this is almost a universal truth.
>
> Possibly. If you ask for just "an operating system," you'll get
> Solaris, so is Solaris just "an operating system?"
>
> One of the problems here is in striking a balance between educating
> users ("sorry, there's no such thing as 'running' OpenSolaris, but you
> can install an OpenSolaris-based distribution, and I happen to have
> one of those; would you like a copy?") and just being pedantic.
>
> I don't think that the events that occur when you ask for something
> that doesn't technically exist are necessarily defining terms.
>
>> Currently it is the closest thing to a referential OpenSolaris distro. (At
>> the New York UG meetings, I have made a point to also represent the other
>> distros. I will bring a stack of xyz opensolaris distro and give asmall
>> preso on it... So far I have covered Belenix and Nexenta.
>
> I've always been a bit uncomfortable with Express (under its various
> confusing names) being the reference distribution. The problem is
> that it necessarily makes the other distributions "less equal." If
> we're going to have a sound community, I don't think we should have
> any of the animals on the farm being more equal than the others.
Agreed.
[drifting somewhat off-topic]
A reasonable name, whereby only Sun is allowed to use the TMed name
OpenSolaris _could_ be something like:
OpenSolaris Express
OpenSolaris DevEd (Developers Edition)
OpenSolaris Indiana
OpenSolaris Nevada
and a non-Sun distribution could use (something like):
Belenix (an OpenSolaris based distribution)
Nexenta (an OpenSolaris based distribution)
and Suns commercial products would continue undisturbed:
Solaris 10
Solaris 11
Obviously it would be a mistake to rename Indiana to simply
OpenSolaris. Why? Because that would preclude additional future Sun
sponsored/supported OS distributions like (off-the-top-of-my-head):
OpenSolaris FutureTech
OpenSolaris Embedded
OpenSolaris Power
Regards,
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. al at logical-approach.com
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/
