On Wednesday February 8th, the OpenSolaris Community Advisory Board voted to approve The OpenSolaris Charter. Sun Microsystems also approved the Charter, and the document was signed by Glenn Weinberg, vice president of Sun's Operating Platforms Group.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Well, you should. There have been extensive debates over the issue since they started building their OS without clarifying all licence issues, and when people complained - just read the numerous mailing lists - they repeatedly dismissed the issues, sometimes even stating that it is Debian who should change and adapt to them since they are so gracious to have chosen Debian to take software from. I like Debian, I like OpenSolaris, these guys have not shown anything that I'd like.
Member since:2006-01-31
Nexenta uses Debian ontop of OpenSolaris, but they did this without permission. The Debian community threw a fit, but the commotion seems to have died down without any legal action against Nexenta. I have read reviews of the Nexenta livecd, and they all have been very good. However, Nexenta is a company, and I don't think they will have longterm viability. I see them to be like CentOS; that is, they don't contribute much, but they repackage a quality product for others to use free of charge. Given the community nature of Debian, they will be around for a long time, and have a large number of volunteers. While no expert, I think that the Debian tools give the great popularity to Debian and Debian based distros. Because of this, official Debian support will go a long way with OpenSolaris.
I think the only way that Sun would consider the GPLv3 is if the Linux kernel stays with v2. OpenSolaris has a big advantage when it comes to server performance, and Sun would like to protect this advantage from Linux, their biggest rival. If the Linux kernel stays v2, they could not adopt D-Trace and Zones from OpenSolaris (there are other advantages from OpenSolaris as well). However, I think Sun will wait for Linus and the rest of te kernel team to formally make their decision before deciding the fate of OpenSolaris.
The person who said that Sun really needs to get this OS out to universities, students, etc. is absolutely correct. The problem is that, outside of Nexenta, I can't think of anybody else who has a cd that you can run of OpenSolaris. I see the OpenSolaris project akin to the Fedora Core project. The more people who use it, the more refined the commercial product becomes. The Fedora project benefits the users who want to run a free, quality OS, and financially benefits a corporation who sells enterprise class servers and desktops. For Sun to reap the same benefits, they need a loyal community of OpenSolaris users, hence the need for promotion.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-07-24
> Nexenta uses Debian ontop of OpenSolaris, but they did this without permission. The Debian community threw a fit, but the commotion seems to have died down without any legal action against Nexenta.
I don't understand the problem. Do the Debian guys think that third parties need their permission to put another kernel on top of Debian?
I should think that the OpenSolaris kernel would be covered by the GPL's "system software" clause.
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Member since:
2005-06-29
Yeah I believe Nexenta is Debian ontop of OpenSolaris "GNU/Debian OpenSolaris" I may be wrong mind havent looked into that project much.