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.'"
"Vaporwear"? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:2)
IPV4 shortages (Score:3, Informative)
--
Shortage of IPv4 addresses? lynx -dump http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-spac e [iana.org] | grep "IANA - Reserved"
Whoa - that's freaky... No wonder there's no real incentive to go to IPV6....
Although to be fair, thats only 89 class A's (or should I say, "/8"s) which means that it represents only 35% of the total address space. We don't have enough room to double - and with the exponential growth in network-capable devices, the doubling time is steadily getting shorter...
FWIW, a good re
Re:IPV4 shortages (Score:2)
Unless someone can prove that they desperately need 16 million plus individual IP in the near future, they are not going to get a class A address.
Instead, the customer will be allocated a range of class B addresses, with each address giving 65536 hosts (BB.BB.0.0 to BB.BB.255.255).
Re:IPV4 shortages (Score:2)
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:2)
Now there's a business model.
Yes, but does it run Linux? (Score:2)
And it's SUN-powered!
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:2)
Re:"Vaporwear"? (Score:2)
>shudder
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?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2, Flamebait)
If I was them, I'd *first* do all the legal stuff, then decide what to release, *then* announce and release it at the same time. Sun, instead, has opted to announce, and then announce again, and keep that up for a year or so, then announce again, then release some code that isn't really Open Solaris, and then get some devs to "respond furiously" about being b
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:Stuff that matters (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, but Q2 of which year? My bet is on 2014.
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
They're creating a buzz to keep customers on Solaris. Perhaps they shouldn't be surprised when people--often their competitors--create a counter-buzz to remind people that there are open source operating systems out there and that this one isn't out there and may never be out there. (And we've seen enough promised and expected programs disappear before release or slip release dates that we shouldn't flat out
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
then in december it became June.
June is still possible, though My bet was for August 2005.
Lucas promised episode III after I and II,
Sun has been promising Open Solaris for the year, but they have also prmised it in the past, and then withdrew those sentiments.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:5, Informative)
UFS is a Non-journaled fileysytem?? Ever hear of mounting UFS with "-o logging"? It's only been around since, oh I don't know..SOLARIS 7, which was released in 1998.
Sun and Oracle are close too, is there a lot of Oracle code in Solaris?
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
Source: The Jargon File [catb.org]
vaporware:
Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place).
OpenSolaris IS vaporware at this point, and nothing is going to change that accept a
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
"There is no OpenSolaris," read an anonymous post on operating systems news Web site OSNews.com. "Show us the code or quit mentioning it."
To refute this they have gone ahead and released a few lines of code....
#include <stdio.h>Thats as far as they can go right now until the legal issues are cleared up though.
Re:Stuff that matters (Score:2)
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 co
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
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.
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.
Re:Advice to developers (Score:2)
I suspect that the wrong people are being fingered here. I only have rumors to go on but I would suspect a large part of the delay is due to the PHBs. They have to develop complicated spreadsheets, write tons of emails, give approvals to other people's approvals, take twenty seven 8 x 10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of e
osnews... (Score:2, Interesting)
For Now, It's Still Vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)
Beancounters and Lawyers = Delays (Score:2)
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: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:For Now, It's Still Vaporware (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right: a perfect first release isn't the way most Libre projects proceed. They put together something that shows how good it could be, if only it were complete, and worked, then release it as version 0.0.1, and get some help.
Sun seems to be trying to release a completed masterpiece. No help wante
In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In other news.. (Score:2)
Sun has got a good track record so far.
What about a sample? (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine this: I'm running commercial Solaris. I have some app provided by the system, that does the work in a realy kludgy way, with some of my custom wrapper scripts to let it work at all. I know I can fix it and make it work as it should with a few simple changes to the source of the app. I don't need whole OS. I need sources of this one single component. And they lay there on the harddrives of SUN employees, ready to release, waiting till some completely different parts are finished, and in the meantime I lose $1000 a day because the kludge doesn't do its job well enough. So why won't they release it?
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:What about a sample? (Score:2)
Re:What about a sample? (Score:2)
Re:What about a sample? (Score:5, Informative)
It will get released when everything is ready.
I don't work for Sun but I have been in the OpenSolaris [opensolaris.org] pilot from Day One and I can tell you that I have been working like mad with it as have others. Myself [blastwave.org] and James Dickens [blogspot.com] worked night and day over the past weekend to build the OS on an E4000 as well as a LX50 machine for both enterprise class implementations and server room work. You can see the results of the workstation build at Blastwave.org [blastwave.org] and you need to watch James Dickens [blogspot.com] blog as well as mine [blastwave.org] to see progress that happens OUTSIDE of Sun. Not to mention the PowerPC port project at BlastWare [blastware.org] which will also make progress when some other bits are in place. There are partnerships in place to work on the PowerPC port and GENESI [pegasosppc.com] is behind this as well as others.
Power is a big deal folks. Think of OpenSolaris on your IBM big iron also.
So go make a coffee and relax. Its coming real soon now.
Dennis Clarke
Director Blastwave.org
http://www.blastwave.org/ [blastwave.org]
Re:What about a sample? (Score:2)
Imagine this: I'm running commercial Solaris. I have some app provided by the system, that does the work in a realy kludgy way, with some of my custom wrapper scripts to let it work at all. I know I can fix it and make it work as it should with a few simple changes to the source of the app. I don't need whole OS. I need sources of this one single component. And they lay there on the harddrives of SUN employees, ready to release, waiting till some completely different parts are finished, and in the meantime
Re:What about a sample? (Score:2)
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:what month is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what month is it? (Score:2)
It's tiring to hear all the noise about how great it's going to be, especially since we've seen many things be promised and never delivered. Perhaps we're a little cynical, but it's deserved in a lot of cases.
One of the favorite stunts a company has to attack its competitors is to announce that it will have what its competitors have now r
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
Re:what month is it? (Score:2)
Until it's released it's vaporware. Vaporware is something announced, with no real stuff available. Open source Solaris fits this description nicely right now.
If it takes until July to get ready, what was the point announcing it so early ?
Markus
Vaporware vs vaporwear (Score:2)
I guess that is why it was called "vaporwear" instead.
Re:what month is it? (Score:2)
It's a bit unfair to start calling something vaporware two months before the scheduled release. "
Why is it being called OpenSolaris? We know Solaris exists. Is it being called OpenSolaris because it is to be open source Solaris?
If so, the Solaris part may exist now, but the open part doesn't. I noticed something about legal encumberances to releasing now... All closed promoters please note the problems you get into u
Re:what month is it? (Score:2)
True. But, given that we're currently seven months past the originally-scheduled November 2004 release, and five months past the then-scheduled January 2005, such unfairness is fortunately not occuring.
Not that I don't have sympathy for the developers, but the wait has been more than twice as long as the time originally promised.
Re:what month is it? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it? (Score:2)
They did. Sure didn't seem to help.
Re:Why doesn't Sun just post some chunks of it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not "Official Sun Blogs" (Score:3)
Sounds about as official as a Slashdot post to me.
We all benefit when companies allow and encouragew their employees to blog. Calling blog posts "official" may sex up a
Anonymous comments (Score:4, Funny)
Who gets infuriated by anonymous comments with no substance at all?
You shouldn't spend too much brain power responding. The proper response is to respond anonymously with some stock comebacks:
"Says you!"
"Your mom!"
That'll learn'em.
both do and do not work for Sun (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! Quantum programmers!
Re:both do and do not work for Sun (Score:3, Funny)
Re:both do and do not work for Sun (Score:2, Funny)
Not any more, jerk. You changed their employment status by observing it!
Re:both do and do not work for Sun (Score:3, Funny)
Kinda like around here
vaporware actually means something (Score:5, Informative)
Slipping on your release date would make just about every software product "vaporware", you retards.
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
They have been working hard! (Score:2, Funny)
Well obviously they have been working hard, since their brain cells have been overworked, causing them to produce Zen sentences like this.
Correct English (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Ps. (Score:2)
I accept that the existance of such projects is a refutation for all intents and purposes. However, the linked article, in itself, contained insufficient information to make the case.
If you're a regular reader of OSNews ... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with OSNews is that it seems to attract the "bottom feeder" users who have little real experience and tend to bitch and whine like children rather than to respond with well thought out arguments and present facts. I have caught people using FUD and outright lies to support their "positions" that Linux is better than Solaris. Well see ...
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.
Now that's news (Score:2)
Before scheduled release, Anonymous Coward, siting no evidence, no previous examples, claims it's vaporware.
Well gosh, that's certainly news to me. I mean come on. Sun is the one with its reputation on the line. Some idiot who doesn't even identify himself, provides no evidence whatsoever that Sun is being misleading, and that's a big deal? Who cares.
I've talked to some people from Sun today ... (Score:2, Informative)
I know it exists. I'm in the pilot. (Score:2)
Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot. (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, it's not my problem any more, thank goodness.
Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot. (Score:4, Informative)
He never said that, well, not five years ago. It's RedHat he views as an enemy. Schwartz is the real fool. The engineers at Sun are far more clued-up and many of them are contributors to high-profile projects on a personal level, besides official projects like GNOME and OpenOffice.org.
I'm afraid the Pointy-Hairs don't see the value of community. To them it's all Wall Street, Java and "Kill RedHat." They very nearly missed Opteron.
Opteron could save Sun.
Let's face it, would Sun even consider making Solaris open source if Linux didn't exist?
I doubt it. But then the competition would only be Windows, not RedHat.
People forget that "Solaris 1.x" was BSD Unix. Sun was behind all the major innovations and standards.
Like I said, I couldn't care less any more, my only concern is for the great friends and colleagues still at Sun forced to toil under the pointy-haired regieme that still doesn't quite get it.
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 p
Re:I know it exists. I'm in the pilot. (Score:2)
OpenSolaris will come out in stages (Score:4, Informative)
For details: Click here [tinyurl.com]
And here [tinyurl.com]
--Eric Boutilier [sun.com]
I remember... (Score:2, Informative)
Still, BioWare tried to make good on their promise to those people by at least eventually releasing a Linux port of the game (but not the toolset). However, this took them quite some time, and in the meantime, some people were very upset due to
Who cares? (Score:2)
If Sun wants to show they are serious... (Score:2)
and open that.
Opening these smaller-than-the-whole-box-and-dice-but-complete packages would show the community that Sun are genuinly committed to OpenSolaris.
Vaporware OpenSolaris (Score:2)
Sun only has themselves to blame (Score:2)
Of course, with that history, people aren't going to believe them until a complete Solaris source tree under a certified open source license sits on an external server somewhere and compiles into a working system.
(I still fail to see why anybody even cares about an open sour
omg!@ (Score:2)
Show us the code or quit mentioning it.
evidently it's June 30 (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.oetrends.com/news.php?action=view_reco
So, don't hold your breath but fairly soon, you will all be able to start bitching about the existence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using, rather than bitching about the nonexistence of an abhorrent competitor to Linux which you will never even consider using.
Re:it's useful to know open solaris is in the work (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re:Boo Fucking Hoo. (Score:2)
Yup Read em'
[Moderator: +1,holier than thou]
So according to you everything that is announced to be released, but not released quickly enough, is vaporware.
Sure. I've seen more "announced" software fail than "unannounced". It does the public no good to proclaim you are going to release something, and then take your sissy-ass time doing it. As a matter of fact I've been burned by IBM, Microsoft, Sun, and Novell all at one time
Re:Boo Fucking Hoo. (Score:2)
I still don't agree with people calling something vaporware, just because they don't have the final product in their hands yet. *maybe* you're right and Sun doesn't release anything
Re:Boo Fucking Hoo. (Score:2)
Results 1 - 10 of about 3,870 for "half life 2" vaporware.
Someone thought that it was vaporware.
I'd be more forgiving to Sun, if their track record was a tad better. Or they stopped pissing me off with Java.
Frankly, Sun seems motivated by Marketing, and less by Delivery. This leads to several irritating techniques.
1. Calling Solaris 2.6 -> 6... This kindof jump makes management itchy. They don't understand it, but they do see a big number jump, and then start hitting the panic bu
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:This is why open source sucks (Score:2)
Seriously, this is what happens when you give kids too many toys too easially, they expect more and more.
Re:Both do and do not work for Sun? (Score:2)
Re:Both do and do not work for Sun? (Score:2)
Come on man, this is a science geeks website. You should have known better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:There is no Duke Nukem Forever (Score:2)
Re:Ubuntu (Score:2)
Solaris and JDS aren't the same thing. I'll be the first to admit that Sun's not always clear about the difference, but if you examine the system at a technical level you'll see that there's nothing confusing about it. JDS i