Thursday, February 14th, 2008
“I told you so” in order? Roy Fielding resigns from OpenSolaris
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2008-February/004488.html
In my opinion, Roy came up short in fully describing the issue, but he did a great job focusing on the thread at hand regarding OpenSolaris and trademark. The fact is, Sun is not an open source community or development player. Sun wants all the benefits of saying it’s all about open and freedom, yet, Sun does something completely different. Nearly 3 years into OpenSolaris, the development is still behind the firewall inside Sun. Nearly 3 years into OpenSolaris, open source community developers would have to get Sun engineers to agree to accept code. Nearly 3 years into OpenSolaris, developers have to contribute copyright co-ownership to the corporation, Sun, in order to contribute to OpenSolaris. Nearly 3 years into OpenSolaris, there are still essential parts of the Solaris OS that are still not opened under a free license (they call it the OpenSolaris Binary License… aka proprietary). I could go on and on… but let me refer to Roy’s view below.
Will Ian be next to resign? I can’t believe he really believes this is the right execution of what sounded like an “open” strategy 2 years ago… I knew better, but many fell for the bedtime story that sounded sweet. Some will still argue that Sun’s great, open, etc., but they’re brainwashed; anyone who really knows what’s going on should not be fooled at this point in the game. “Open”Solaris is an OS that is created by 1 company, with no outside input or control and has a code repo on opensolaris.org… besides that, what has it done to contribute or help any community of users?
Some choice quotes:
Sun didn’t just make vague statements to me about OpenSolaris; they made promises about it being an open development project. That’s the only way they could get someone like me to provide free labor for their benefit. Given Sun’s recent track record on breaking promises, another one doesn’t surprise me at all.
…
Most of the stuff in that letter about Sun’s responsibilities in
regard to “International Trademark Law” is nothing more than
snow being tossed in the eyes of technical folks who don’t have
access to their own lawyers.
…
In fact, if it weren’t for the extremely pig-headed way in which Indiana was thrust on the community as Ian’s private domain, it could have easily been a unifying path for
all of the distros. It could have given them a gate within OpenSolaris in which to collaborate, instead of doing all of their work in separate communities outside OpenSolaris.Indiana is just another private marketing team within Sun that is making private decisions about “OpenSolaris” that aren’t even in line with the internal processes of Solaris Engineering, let alone the published governance model of the OGB.
…
Sun agreed that “OpenSolaris” would be governed by the community and yet has refused, in every step along the way, to cede any real control over the software produced or the way it is produced, and continues to make private decisions every day that are later promoted as decisions for this thing we call OpenSolaris. Rather than be honest about it and restructure the community to correspond to this MySolaris style of over-the-wall development, Sun prefers to lie to the external community members while ignoring their input.
…
This well is poisoned; the company has consumed its own future and any pretense that the projects will ever govern themselves (as opposed to being governed by whatever pointy-haired boss is hiding behind the scenes) is now a joke.
…
There’s nothing particularly wrong with that choice — it is a perfectly valid open source model for corporations that don’t need active community participation. IMO, the resulting code tends to suck a lot more than community-driven projects, but it is still open source.
In any case, I am done with it. I hereby resign my status as a Member of the OpenSolaris Community, effective immediately.
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February 14th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
stephen o'grady said:
Question: do you, or do you not, consider MySQL to be open source?
February 14th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
md said:
I do not consider MySQL to be an open source development community which to its credit, MySQL has never claimed; unlike Sun/OpenSolaris.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
stevel said:
I’m not sure why you think Ian is against this. In fact, Ian is the one who started this whole mess:
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=43227&tstart=0
February 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
md said:
Good point Stephen; However, I think Ian was acting towards the job/goal that he was hired on for - I would speculate (warning: I mean pure speculation) that Project Indiana did not start as an idea from Ian. I’ll speculate further that Project Indiana was an internal idea/strategy at Sun and Sun then went after the best person they could think of to implement it and execute the plan. And let’s face it, Sun is ultimately trying to draw users and developers from the Linux camp (or stemming their “defection” to Linux) so having Ian on board brings other benefits vs bringing in someone from the OpenSolaris community (e.g. anyone from MartUX, BelleniX, Nexenta, or SchilliX who already knew how to build an OpenSolaris distro and were already connected to the community).
February 15th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Tel said:
My understanding is that anyone can fork MySQL (under the GPL) and go wherever they like with that, but you will need a different name for the project. No one has done this yet because the “official” MySQL is pretty good at what it does.
To me, the main thing that convinved me never to even peek at OpenSolaris was the complexity of the legalities and licensing. Sun was re-issuing code under this license and that license, no one has the time or energy to keep up. From the outset, if Sun publishes under something GPL-compatible then the good code will get slurped straight into Linux and the rest will be dumped. So Sun published under something non-GPL compatible (I believe) and anyone working on Solaris ends up building a tiny island for themselves, right out of the mainstream with no way to get back other than start from scratch (and maybe not even).
The name of the project is irrelevant. CentOS and RHEL get along just fine, everyone knows the deal. If you build some experimental code and you build around CentOS while you are at the “starving artist” stage then after an IPO you can buy RHEL, port all your code across (including custom kernel modules, library hacks, whatever) and it all just works and RedHat are going to get onside for support. No bad feelings, no uncomfortable questions about legality, no BS, just get the job done.
Suppose you were building some experimental new filesystem. Would you base your work on OpenSolaris? Might as well put a noose around your own neck really. Call it Indiana, or call it George, the same problem happens. People doing groundbreaking work are going to either use Linux (if they are cool with the GPL) or use a BSD (if they don’t like GPL).
February 16th, 2008 at 2:02 am
md said:
Tel, agree, absolutely agree.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:36 am
David Comay said:
Michael, with all due respect I really believe you’re misrepresenting some things in your post.
Yes, the source code for a large part of OpenSolaris *is* still behind the Sun firewall. That’s considered a bug by everyone in the community including everyone I know at Sun. It has taken *too* long to get where we are but the fact is (whether you wish to believe me or not) is that progress has been made. It’s been slow progress and folks like “stevel” (and others both inside and outside of Sun) have been instrumental in moving things forward. But you characterize the situation that Sun *wishes* to keep the source behind its firewall which is absolutely not the case.
Next, you know as well as I do why Sun requires joint copyright assignment. It’s exactly the same reason many open source projects require the same thing. Yes, Sun is a corporation and isn’t a non-for-profit consortium and hence might be considered “suspect” by some. And perhaps it would have been nice to have had some sort of not-for-profit consortium which had the copyright of the code that was open sourced and which joint copyright could be assigned for new code. But I suspect in order to do so it would have taken even longer to get where we are today.
Which brings me to the part of the binary tarball you refer to. As with getting the source outside the firewall, people at Sun would very much like to see the bits and pieces which are not open source “emancipated”. I wish this was a higher priority of the project but the fact is that many people in the community put more value on development for *new* drivers and the like, particularly since there are redistributable binary drivers available for the older components.
Coming from the Linux world, I realize this may seem strange and again, you may not believe Sun’s intentions here but if you take a look at the massive amount of change that has gone into OpenSolaris from a code perspective the past three years, practically all of that new development has been with code that is open source.
Tel, there are a number of reasons Sun decided to not use the GPL when it open sources Solaris but creating something GPL-incompatible was not one of them. Please see Simon Phipps many postings about this.
That said, you’re probably right that if Sun had used GPL in the first place, many of the innovations in Solaris would have been slurped up into Linux. And I think the world would not have been a better place for it. The fact is that Linux for all of its positive aspects is not the end all, be all of operating systems. It doesn’t solve all the problems that users and developers have and there appear to be some fundamental differences to the way the respective communities deal with certain technical challenges. That’s not to say that OpenSolaris always has it right but neither does Linux always have the upper hand. The fact that you’ve never even peeked at OpenSolaris means that it’s likely you’re ignorant of its strengths when compared to Linux.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
md said:
I don’t see what point you’re making? “It’s too hard, slow, but we’re getting there” doesn’t seem to mean much 3 years into OpenSolaris… and it’s not really the point of my post. My point is that Sun is a corporate entity with a singular purpose and the economics of why OpenSolaris could every attract developers and communities like Linux DO NO exist. If IBM had wanted to “create a Linux”, IBM would have failed. If HP tried to “create a Linux”, HP would have failed. That’s the beauty of the Linux ecosystem - it’s not up to IBM to get all the code outside the firewall, it’s not up to HP to determine the license, it’s not up to any one particular company to decide who owns the copyright.
I’m talking about a fundamental difference and approach that will not work for OpenSolaris - I’ve said it many times before and Sun is only proving my point. If Jonathan wanted XYZ to happen, he has the control to make it happen.
And I have to disagree with you on the license actually. I don’t believe there would be any difference if Sun had used the GPL for OpenSolaris. It’s not that easy to just mix/mash the codebases.
I know plenty about OpenSolaris. There was a time when I thought Sun was really going to open up and turn around. Then I peeked enough to find out the details. I suggest everyone start taking a critical eye to the nonsense I heard coming out of Sun executives’ mouths - take them to task on it and start to really ask the right questions. I’ll bet you don’t get a good answer.
Trademarks in this example are a very simple, known entity to work with. Sun is not blazing new ground having an open source project that it owns a trademark. Just ask anyone at DLA Piper down the road, and this trademark BS would be resolved in a couple weeks. Perhaps some should question if that’s really what Sun wants (I think Roy figured it out).
February 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Amanda McPherson · Hey Jonathan: The L in LAMP is Literal said:
[...] The Linux development community keeps getting stronger while Sun’s is seeing public defections of some of its most important members due to Sun’s control. Mike Dolan does a nice analysis here. [...]
February 17th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Simon Phipps said:
Sun is not trying to “create a Linux”, Michael. The goal of OpenSolaris is to build a new and open future for Solaris, without stopping the train. All communities have setbacks as well as advances, and OpenSolaris is no different, and a complex creature with it. If Linux is your benchmark, you will be constantly critical regardless of the phase of the success sinusoid.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:19 am
md said:
Simon, are you saying Linux is not the target of what Sun intended to accomplish with OpenSolaris? If we were to open up and review Sun’s internal OpenSolaris strategic plan, would we see no references to Linux? It’s great to take the high road and try to downplay Linux as a competitive driver for Sun’s OpenSolaris push, but I didn’t create the benchmark reference point… I consistently see Sun’s message to customers pitting Solaris vs Linux and not to mention they’re now including OpenSolaris as a key part of that message. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into someone from Sun saying “Solaris is open source just like Linux”. The Sun reps in customer accounts paint a different perspective than what you’re comment implies.
February 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
David Comay said:
Michael, my point is that you’re choosing to overlook the intentions of the project and instead focusing on painting things in the worst possible way. Of course, that’s your right but it may not actually match the reality of the situation.
It seems that what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t have even attempted to open up Solaris, except perhaps to have thrown the code over the wall and let other projects pick over the remains. And if OpenSolaris was simply a nice collection of otherwise distinct technologies, I could almost see that point. However it’s not that but rather a much more cohesive thing which is why we believed at the time (and continue to believe) that it’s worth having a community around it.
Roy Fielding’s departure is unfortunate and I wish that we had his perspective as we move forward. That said, what I do know is there are a lot of passionate people about the technology, both within and outside of Sun, and the OpenSolaris community is a place for them to interact. And call me naive or hopelessly optimistic, but I do believe in the coming months that you will see the Mercurial repository outside the firewall and that more and more of the various processes that are currently awkwardly transitioning between being inside Sun and going outside will be more firmly outside.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:10 am
md said:
No, what I’m saying is that Sun is using the wrong approach given the desired outcome Sun executives speak to. All the issues I’ve raised and Roy leaving are symptoms of that disconnect. Sun can’t “have its cake and eat it too” as the phrase goes…I’ve yet to see a groundswell open source developer community around a single-vendor controlled project… yet listening to Jonathan, it’s “IBM, Dell, AMD, …” and in reality, they’re all probably trying to grab as many SPARC conversions as possible.
I think you and I are talking to completely different levels of scope in this discussion. I’m taking it far broader from a strategy POV and while you’re talking about incremental progress within the project, and while that may be ok for today…. Sun Tzu would say Sun has built a strategy that has already lost the war.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Sam Hiser said:
Mike-
You may be interested to know that the OpenSolaris Community developments you & Roy have described read like an OpenOffice.org redux. (I speak from the experience of an ex-Marketing Project Lead of OpenOffice.org)
It is therefore hilarious to me, as it should be to all, that Sun calls itself an open source company. They have not got the foggiest clue, and this is all the more evident each 8-14 month period when I load a newer version of Ubuntu on the old box.
Linux improves because of trust. Period.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
tecosystems » Linux vs OpenSolaris…Again: The Q&A said:
[...] out of the realm of the abstract and look at two in particular. From Michael Dolan, we have “‘I told you so’ in order? Roy Fielding resigns from OpenSolaris.” In that, Michael makes a couple of assertions. First, he argues that “Sun is not an [...]
February 20th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Brian Aker said:
Hi!
Just one thought about MySQL. The development model of it has evolved over the years. It began as a couple of individuals who put it together. Many early big features, like Windows or Replication, were put together or paid for by individuals in the community.
MySQL is “Organic” open source though. It has never been a closed source product. It is difficult, though not impossible, to take closed source and take it in the direction of open source. It took Mozilla a long time to become a Firefox.
I know that Monty, David, and I believe that we need to find a way to open up the development model of MySQL. We have recognized for the last few years that this is one of our weakness as a project.
Cheers,
-Brian
February 21st, 2008 at 1:08 am
md said:
Brian, I’m honored to see you found my site. It would be great to see MySQL open up the development model a bit, but I’ve actually always been impressed by the way MySQL has never really claimed to be an open development community player. MySQL was ok with it and heck, no one seemed to really complain b/c the expectation was clear. I think MySQL from the start set clear expectations and strategy (Organic open source) and that to me is a great thing to do.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Roy Fielding responds to the OpenSolaris “ripple” in his own words said:
[...] covering the news, you are obliged to also read Roy’s own explanation on his blog. I think many of my comments here are also in-line with Roy’s view. Now everyone can go comment/complain about how negative [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
OpenSolaris issues are similar to OpenOffice? said:
[...] somehow missed this comment the other day… very interesting Sam. I’ve heard the same, but your history obviously [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
A Solution for Sun’s OS Community Problems « Ian Skerrett said:
[...] member who was trying to help the OpenSolaris community get started. Stephen O’Grady and Michael Dolan have some excellent [...]
February 27th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Web 2.0 .NET vs. LAMP Part 3: Managed Code said:
[...] links: Amanda McPherson, Michael Dolan, Mary Jo Foley, Paul [...]
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Ted Ts’o Dissects “What Sun was trying to do with OpenSolaris” said:
[...] Ted put together a great set of insights into what Sun may have been up to with OpenSolaris. Ted has a great way of cutting through the marketing BS and gets right to the heart of what’s going on. Obviously I completely agree with him on a few issues. Do any of these sound familiar? I think I’ve covered some of this before here, and here, and here. [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 3:00 am
UX-admin said:
I sure hope that Ian will be the next to resign; he’s been bad, bad, bad news for OpenSolaris.
He set the OpenSolaris community asunder. He caused the OpenSolaris and Indiana fiasco.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
tecosystems » When is Open Open? And When is Open Closed? said:
[...] of the Linux model does not qualify? That was, in fact, the question I asked Michael [Dolan] in a comment. His reply was this: I do not consider MySQL to be an open source development community which to [...]