>>>>> "fm" == Fredrich Maney <fredrichma...@gmail.com> writes:
fm> put the GNU utilities in default system wide path before the
fm> native Sun utilities in order to make it easier to attract
fm> Linux users
It's a quick thing to make it feel like you're ``doing something about
the problem'' but the idea of different users having different PATHs
feels awkward to a Linux user, too. If you must have multiple
versions, not defaulting to the most obsolete version then forcing
users to carefully request the newest standards-compliant one if they
really really ``need'' it, is a step in the right direction. So is
including source for the default, maintained version of the tool
instead of adding fancy ACL stuff to the old closed-source tool.
I'm not sure the modern, open tool necessarily has to be a GNU tool to
make this Linux user happy. Just needs to be other than some ancient
piece-of-junk no-source tool that you keep around with the mealy
powerless excuse ``we don't want to break some obtuse shell script
installer of abandoned expensive proprietary software.''
What makes me really uncomfortable as a Linux user, is the mess of
silly assertions, simon-sez flags, and tool proliferation around
writing disk labels. It seems impossible to build a normal iSCSI
target out of Solaris because there's no way to write to an unlabeled
disk. It goes nuts if the initiator writes a new label onto the
target? Also all the binary config files containing secret
information that can't be completely inspected, and can be transformed
only by some assertion-riddled tool, not arbitrarily. The lack of a
one-stop spot to pull state information out of the kernel without
blocking or panicing like you get with Linux's /proc. finally, the
unfree toolchain.
Except for the last, these things have all bitten ZFS users in
particular. Linux users properly recognize these points as good
architectural decisions about which their camp has driven a stake into
the ground, and they're unlikely to relay their tent because you call
them partisan or NIH or closed-minded. The wise Linux user isn't
looking for pandering immitation. He's looking for evidence that good
lessons from what Linux has done right are making their way into
Solaris, just as they've made their way into BSD and even Windows.
I grant that it's a bit prejudiced of the Linux camp to view every
platform other than their own as ``stagnant until proven otherwise,''
but you have to admit there's SOME truth, even in that.
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