Mike Meyer writes: > On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:40:16 -0400 > James Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mike Meyer writes: > > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 14:39:13 -0400 James Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Ah, ok. But the problem is that the "project as a whole" is a giant > > > > pile o' source. It's not any particular distribution. > > > > > > Any software project is a giant (or maybe not so giant) pile of > > > bits. It's the community that surrounds them that provide their > > > character. The GNU/Linux project has no single control, and we've > > > talked about the results. The FreeBSD community has a single control, > > > so that even though there are multiple distributions, there's a base > > > that's shared between them all, and you can expect non-base components > > > that are shared to be built the same way on them all - including the > > > package system. > > We've so far demonstrated that we don't have such a central control, > > though some seem to want it. The communities control their respective > > technical areas, but there's no Central Committee that creates our > > 5-year plans. ;-} > > Don't really need a 5-year plan. Just need a definition of what it > means to be an "OpenSolaris distribution" sufficiently tight that you > can write software for "OpenSolaris", instead of "Nevada" or "Indiana" > or "Debian OpenSolaris" or ...
I don't have one for you. As "OpenSolaris" is a trademark owned by Sun, I would expect that the trademark group is the one that's most interested in that question, and the last I checked ... they were using Indiana as a reference. All roads lead there. > > The closest we have is the OGB, but it concerns itself mostly with > > governance issues, and not technical matters. > > Deciding whether there should be a definition of what it means to be > an OpenSolaris distribution doesn't seem like technical issue to me. Nor is it really a governance matter. However, deciding whether an "OpenSolaris distribution" is one that complies with some set of testable standards or, in contrast, whether it is one that is simply identical to (or a superset of) some set of reference bits *is* a technical decision. In other words, it's not necessarily the case that any sort of distribution-as-reference is needed. It's possible that such a scheme might not even be the best overall answer. (Though, in truth, it looks like this is where we're going. And, thus, ...) > > I think it's actually a much, much smaller issue than you seem to be > > making it out to be, as the distributions are generally able to use > > each other's packaging, and the controls we have on compatibility are > > far tighter than you'll find in some other communities, so build > > variances matter much less, but I do find it a bit hard to start a > > discussion about something that we don't have with the people who > > aren't doing it. :-/ > > Well, I disagree about the how large an issue it is, based on watching > the mail lists and my own recent experiences. And the usual solution > to a user asking for something a project doesn't have is to either > agree that it would be nice to have, and then ask if they're willing to > volunteer to work on it; or decide that it would be a bad thing to > have, and tell them why. Having a discussion about whether or not it's > a bad thing isn't even unusual. Of course, I was just trying to found > out whether or not it existed, or how the headaches I see in systems > that don't have it are avoided. I still don't quite see why this discussion is being had here rather than with the Indiana team. That's the only group I know of that's charged by the folks who own the trademark to do something useful with it. Shouldn't you be talking with them? -- 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 _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
