Michael Dolan Dot Com

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

El Reg: “OpenSolaris still has some Linux copying to do”

I had to laugh when I saw the headline, but it appears OpenSolaris’ attempt to copy Linux has a few shortcomings. It’s certainly better than Solaris 10, but in my experience, the drivers were an issue as was the lack of packages in the database. Another issue I was fed up with was the lack of gnu tools as the default but perhaps that’s unreasonable to assume the guys at Sun would change. Finally, just because OpenSolaris had similar software (e.g. Gnome) don’t expect it to be as well integrated and polished - try customizing or changing the default settings and you’ll see what I mean.

On the other hand, OpenSolaris will be helpful for Solaris developers who are tired of the server OS for development. If you’re already using Linux, why go back in time…

BTW, has anyone heard the phrase, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? Now it’s time to imitate a community development process… and then these other issues should iron out over time ;-)