Mike Meyer writes:
> it. What I found was flat out scary. To wit, from the project overview
> page:
> 
>       "... the OpenSolaris project does not provide an end-user
>       product or complete distribution."

That doesn't mean that _nobody_ does this; it only means it's not a
goal of that one project.

(I'm actually not sure what of the myriad of pages you were quoting
there, and I see no such text on the Indiana page, so if you could
include a URL when quoting things, that'd probably help.)

> This seems like the OpenSolaris project is *planning* to become the
> same kind of train wreck that GNU/Linux already is. I see signs of

I disagree.  First of all, the Indiana project (which is producing
that "OpenSolaris distribution) has not integrated with the rest of
OpenSolaris yet.  They're currently just a project.  They're off doing
their own thing, running an interesting experiment.

The jury is most definitely out on which parts of the experiment
succeed, which fail, and thus what happens when it finally integrates.

Nobody is forcing anyone to use those bits.  It's just another
unintegrated project, like Crossbow or my own RBridges project yet.
Until it integrates, nothing's really carved in stone.  (Even then,
"carved in stone" is a tough thing to say for something as malleable
as software.)

> that already. There appear to be a multitude of distributions with
> questionable interoperability, each having their own preferred
> packaging system.

Indeed; that part is true, and fairly obviously _intentionally_ so.

> Is this really the case? Or did I miss a document somewhere that
> explains how the various distributions interrelate in such a way that
> if someone says they're running "OpenSolaris XX", I'll know what's
> installed beyond just the kernel?

I think that if the direction of Indiana concerns you, you should send
that feedback to that project team (the address is
[EMAIL PROTECTED]) -- not to the general OpenSolaris
community.

I believe that all projects should be free to do what they want.  No
matter how outrageous it might seem to others, or how unlikely it may
be to be usable, every project ought to have free reign to do what it
sees fit.

Where the rubber meets the road is in two places: first, there's the
"endorser" relationship with a community.  Every project needs at
least one to survive on opensolaris.org, and communities can
reasonably withdraw endorsement if a given project is not going where
the community wants to go, or isn't solving the problems the community
wants to have solved.  Second, it's in integration.  Most projects
need to find a way into a distribution -- either by integration with
an established consolidation that delivers to distributions, or by
appealing to the distributors themselves.  That's a second point at
which we can take a step back and say, "gee, is this something we
really want?"

But until we get to that point, I think it makes sense to say that
going to the Indiana project with concerns about that team's direction
is the best advice.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive        71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677
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