Simon Phipps of Sun has responded to the recent criticism of Sun's openness, pointing out that even releasing information that they may already have costs a lot of money. "Jonathan asked me to look into this, to ensure we're pursuing an open path across all of Sun, not simply the software group. We take all input seriously, and we can't solve all problems for all parties, but we're committed to doing our best to faithfully engage with all the communities we serve, in the same spirit as the existing Open Source Ombudsman Scheme. With the support of my team and others in the community I'll try to build a new scheme that is fair and transparent."
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Member since:2006-11-19
"Seems like a fair answer to me."
Pretty much.
There is nothing they can do if no documentation exists, or they're legally disallowed to distribute it.
But nowadays open source projects are better sources for hardware documentation, anyways. I remember programming an ethernet driver once, and I had to replicate all the functionality of the Linux code even if they did not make much sense (apparently there are many undocumented bugs, which they've already fixed).
Member since:2005-12-15
Member since:2005-07-12
"Seems like a fair answer to me.
Now, move on."
I agree 1000%.
Recent criticisms from Theo and Linus of Sun were completely ridiculous. But, both of those individuals are well known to be extremely arrogant, with their heads so far up their rear-ends they need plexi-glass belly buttons to see where they're going.
Really, Sun has become one of the most open source friendly of all major corporations, and has made huge contributions and donations to the open source community.
And it's Sun's right, as well as any company's right, to release what they want to open source, or to publish or not publish documentation. And they have legal obligations with their business partners.
So if Theo wants to have his temper tantrum about getting all docs on all Sun chips, well, too bad. Sun will release what they can, within legal and cost limits.
And Linus can have his tizzy-fit over the fact Sun wants Linux drivers for OpenSolaris (who wouldn't), and he wants ZFS fully open sourced. But, again, Sun will release ZFS for open source when it makes sense for them.
Member since:2005-07-06
But it would make no difference; the whole driver would need to be virtually re-written again from scratch due to incompatibilities. I mean, if anything, the best source for drivers is *BSD - and that is where they've been getting them from. Case in point, the 3945 wpi driver for solaris is based on OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD code.
What OpenSolaris needs is more mindshare, not more 'code' from other operating systems. The issues that related to this dilemma have nothing to do with licences but the relationship that Sun employee's have with the opensource community. Remember folks, there are around 32 thousand Sun employees - the head may say one thing but it would be naive to assume every one of the 32 thousand are lock step with 'the leader'.
Member since:2007-06-19
ZFS was released open source into the OpenSolaris community before it was in Sun's Solaris. http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/
What Linus said was that it isn't available in a way in which it could be ported to Linux.
Member since:2005-08-18
"And it's Sun's right, as well as any company's right, to release what they want to open source, or to publish or not publish documentation"
It's also Theo's (and Linus etc) right as a customer of said company to ask them for documentation of the hardware they have so that they can make use of it.
"So if Theo wants to have his temper tantrum"
Having an opinion and calmly expressing it does not equal throwing a temper tantrum. Seriously, if you thought this was Theo having a tantrum you clearly haven't been around long.
I think it's interesting how some people just can't admit it when Theo's right , no matter what, and instead opt to root for the big companies who really don't give a fsck about OSS.
You think this is all about Theo and his ego but it's really about the usability of hardware for the users.
Open documentation results in better hardware support which in turn makes happier users. In the long run this is better for all OSS operating systems.
Member since:
2006-11-30
Seems like a fair answer to me.
Now, move on.