Sun Developers Refute OpenSolaris Vaporware Claims 282
daria42 writes "It looks like an anonymous post on OSNews.com claiming OpenSolaris is vaporware was the last straw for two frustrated Sun Microsystems developers. They have responded furiously on their official Sun blogs, saying that they are currently working 'feverishly' on the project, and that it was taking so long because of the need to get rid of legal encumbrances to releasing the code. 'OpenSolaris certainly exists,' Sun kernel developer Alan Hargreaves says on his Sun blog. 'You only have to speak to anyone involved in getting it out there. There are a lot of us out there who both do and do not work for Sun.'"
Stuff that matters (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me which one would you believe more - Microsoft claiming that they're working on patches to fix some exploits "as we speak", or they're asking users to download the patches now?
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Advice to developers (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd be better of ignoring the cynics, the nay-sayers, and the anonymous blowhards, and continuing doing something productive.
Arguing on the internet is like
For Now, It's Still Vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)
what month is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release.
(I don't work on Solaris/OpenSolaris, so I have no special knowledge about the project, except that I know people are working are working on it.)
Re:Advice to developers (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not like they are in a big flame war, they are just stating what the status is currently.
Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not take some substantial CHUNK of partly-finished code, some chunk for which the licensing issues HAVE been resolved, slap on a disclaimer about it being pre-alpha, buggy, etc, and post it somewhere?
If it's open source, there shouldn't be Apple-Steve-Jobs-like issues about maintaining secrecy until the actual moment of release.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Advice to developers (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many examples wherein an oft repeated untruth is more widely accepted than the reality. What is so bad about people putting their comments into their blogs? Oh, I get it.. if they were real open sores developers then they would only have time for the project. The rest of life would be as nothing to the all encompassing goal of making it work.
Correct English (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the cynic in me might suggest that Sun preannounced the effort far too early, hoping it would sabotage enterprise adoption of Linux. And encourage more people to try out Solaris 10, even if Solaris 10 & Open Solaris are not the same things.
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:5, Insightful)
You are obviously not familiar with corporate marketing. Or, for that matter, with marketing in general. Do you get mad at George Lucas because he promised Episode III almost five years ago (when he started Episode I)? Do you get mad because they started marketing it a year ago? Do you get mad because they started to release teaser trailers a couple of months ago? Do you get mad because they started running real trailers a few weeks ago? Shouldn't they just keep quiet about the whole thing and just release the trailers when the movie is done and out?
Of course not, they have to create buzz to let people know what is coming and to build an audience.
Sun didn't promise to release the code a year ago, they announced they would be releasing it. They've been pretty consistent in saying that it would be end of Q2. There's not been any reason to doubt that it will happen when they say.
Re:Boo Fucking Hoo. (Score:1, Insightful)
The Sun guys' point is "vaporware" doesn't mean "not yet released", it means "hyped up but never likely to be released". And they object to that: they've got a clear schedule and it says July.
Re:What about a sample? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then you pay for a support contract - you'll save your money in no time.
They don't *owe* you OpenSolaris. Let them do it in their own time.
Re:Boo Fucking Hoo. (Score:3, Insightful)
No. That's because it's not released yet. You didn't read the article, right? Or even the postings in the blog(s)?
So according to you everything that is announced to be released, but not released quickly enough, is vaporware.
Who needs to chill out? The people of Sun defending their product, or some kid yelling at a forum for the code to be released because he/she is getting impatient.
*sigh* indeed
This is why open source sucks (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In other news.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is why open source sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more of a case where the open source way of life has turned many people into self-centered brats who refuse to understand any situation outside of what they personally desire.
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:1, Insightful)
Sun is probably going to try to shoehorn the Linux JFS/Ext3 filesystem into the kernel. I guess they could just release it with UFS only, but who'd want to run a server on a non-journaled filesystem?
Re:Correct English (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, part of the proof is already here in that over 30 some pilot teams already have OpenSolaris such as blastwave.org, and so on.
Finally, their announcement said it was to be released in Q2 of this year. Q2 isn't over yet...
Really, the trolls are getting tiring.
Re:vaporware actually means something (Score:2, Insightful)
As many others have said, Duke Nukem Forever was actually meant to be produced. They really tried (and supposedly still are) but it is a perennial favorite in Wired's vaporware awards. Why? Because it's vaporware...even though it was originally intended to be released.
Now, as for calling people retards: you should know better. To call you a retard would be an insult to those in the world who actually are mentally retarded, regardless of your IQ.
Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot. (Score:2, Insightful)
One of my good friends (still in college) is a PHB in training. (He's much more technical & intelligent than the one from Dilbert). And yet he thinks the same way as the rest of them, when it comes to OSS. Stuck in the "crufty old ways" of software development.
The problem with OSS, as he sees it, is it has yet to show that it can be consistently (and largely) profitable (stock wise). To do that, you need to show consistent gains, and have marketing plans. OSS doesn't do consistent gains and marketing plans. It's not directed enough. Also, when you create OSS, as soon as you release a new feature, all of your competition knows how you did it. That is something that really deters businesses from creating OSS.
Overall: The most successful PHBs are in it for the money. And big money doesn't exist in the OSS world. Stable money is there, if you leverage it correctly. But the PHB doesn't want stable. He wants tons. At least, that's the way it seems to me.
I have other ideas, though. I feel that there are several ways to benefit from OSS. I hope to gather a group of like-minded people, and create something truly wonderful for the OSS community. It has given me so much over the past years, and it would be wonderful to give something back.
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:3, Insightful)
"Is it possible to take CDDL code and place it in a GPL'd project? I know GPL > CDDL 'no workie'."
No. You don't have rights to release CDDL code under the GPL, so you can't release code from each together, because to release code together with GPL code, you need to be able to release it all as GPL.
"they said in the article that a proprietary vendor could take their code... why would an open one not be able to?"
Because the open developer would need to redistribute the code under the GPL, which they don't have rights to do. The proprietary vendor can just not redistribute the code at all. Don't blame the CDDL, both developers can do all the same things with the CDDL code; but the open developer can't do as many things with the GPL'd code as the proprietary vendor can do with code he owns.
The GPL places restrictions on what you can do with the code. That's absolutely fine if those restrictions are what the author wants, but they are definitely restrictions.
Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what month is it? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's completely fair to start calling it vaporware two months before the deadline due to the fact that they're something like 0 for 3 with their deadlines so far.
Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware (Score:5, Insightful)
People are always screaming at Sun to open source things (e.g. Java) but I wonder if the software quality would remain at the same high level as it is now. The good thing of Open Solaris is that drivers will be hacked, and Sun could take advantage of that. Let's hope it won't screw up their version management.
From what I've seen, solaris is a very high quality, stable operating system. The only crash I ever saw from Solaris machines at the university was related to the floppy drive cable, which messed up communications inside the sparcstation.
Re:Who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:For Now, It's Still Vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm noy claiming that Java doesn't have it's advantages. It has a several year head start, so if it didn't have ANY advantages, that would speak quite poorly of it. But haveing used all three my preferences are Ruby, Python, Java in that order.
OTOH, Ruby needs to work on diagnostic error messages, and needs more work on it's libraries, so for some projects I'd prefer Python (or Python + Pyrex). I've never done anything for which I would find Java a better choice, though I'm sure such projects exist. (And I'm also sure that some would place Perl up in this selection, but I've never used it, and so can't speak to its virtues and vices.)
There are people who scream for Sun to "Open Source" Java, but having seen the licenses that they chose, I'm just as happy for them to leave it closed, so that others can develope various different Java compilers. (And that also says how anxious I am for OpenSolaris. Yes, I consider it vaproware, but this doesn't bother me at all. It fits the definition of vaporware. Sometime, after its release, then it won't fit that definition any more, but for now it does.)
Re:what month is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't let it hurt your feelings, just focus on getting the code out and the rumors will go away.
Right now OpenSolaris is almost as stable and secure and revolutionary as Longhorn.
You don't hear us touting the awesome new features that will be available in Linux 3.0 kernel or KDE 5.0 or X.org 6.9, do you? They will be out in a year or two. But the community doesn't leverage that vaporware for political gain. That's the reason you're taking heat.