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The old OpenSolaris Governing Board has dissolved unanimously today. The OpenSolaris governance is now in default, and returns to Oracle's hands. For folks upset by this, let me remind them of Illumos . Its a sad note for OpenSolaris, but I think the reborn Illumos community will be better than the OpenSolaris community ever could be. I do want to thank the (former) OGB members for their efforts, even if they did prove to be in vain.

So, we've had some "issue" reports relating to the mpt driver. In almost all cases, the results are related to situations where people are using SATA drives, and hooking them into SAS configurations. Although the technology is supposed to work, and sometimes it works well, its a bad idea. Let me elaborate: SAS drives are generally subjected to more rigorous quality controls. This is the main reason why they cost more. (That and the market will pay more.) SAS to SATA conversion technologies involve a significant level of protocol conversion. While the electricals may be the same, the protocols are quite different. Such conversion technology is generally done in hardware, where only the hardware manufacturer has a chance of debugging problems when they occur. Some of these hardware implementations remove debugging information that would be present in the SATA packet, and just supply "generic" undebuggable data in the SCSI (SAS) error return. The conversion t...

Look, I really, really wanted to avoid entering the packaging debate. I mean, its an emotional decision, right? Well, its supposed to be. Except that I've spent nearly an entire day trying to figure out how to onu the latest illumos gate (which includes Rich Lowe's b147 merged in). I have gate changes that I desperately need to test in the context of a full install. (Well, I could say "screw it", and just test the bits in place -- which I've already done, but that's hardly a complete test.) I can't test them. Because I can't figure out how to use the packaging system to install them. And neither can our resident IPS expert, Rich Lowe. This is no longer an emotional decision for me. Yeah, there are a lot of "emotional" things not to like about IPS. (It forces a dependency upon Python; its still immature; it seems to fail if you are disconnected from the network; it doesn't seem possible to build and install "just" a sin...

A little birdie told me that the last update to Oracles hg repository for ON was this one: changeset: 13149:b23a4dab3d50 tag: tip user: Sukumar Swaminathan date: Wed Aug 18 15:52:48 2010 -0600 description: 6973228 Cannot download firmware 2.103.x.x on Emulex FCoE HBAs 6960289 fiber side of emulex cna does not connect to the storage 6950462 Emulex HBA permanently DESTROYED, if the firmware upgrade is interrupted 6964513 COMSTAR - Emulex LP9002 fail to return a SCSI Inquiry correctly to a VMware 4 Initiator From here on out, Illumos and Oracle Solaris diverge. The funny thing is, based on the calls I've had today, I could hardly be more optimistic about the future of illumos and the code base that was formerly called Solaris. Even more talent is getting behind this effort every day. I'm very very excited... frankly Oracle shutting down the tap just really opened up the opportunity for us to really start innovating, in ways...

Illumos milestones reached today. a) I pushed a working tr, and was able to build illumos on a system running illumos. This is the first time this has been possible. b) Richlowe pushed a merge to build 147. There are probably consequences for developers (more updates required for bits that are not part of ON) -- stay tuned for updates about that. All in all, things are moving quickly.

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be giving a brief talk at this month's SVOSUG meeting, Thursday Aug 26, at 6:45 pm in Mountain View. It will cover Illumos , and I will be joined by a colleague who will talk a bit more about Nexenta as well. If you're in the Bay Area at that time, it would be great to have a chance to meet. I expect there will be some (probably significant) consumption of alcoholic beverages after the meeting, at an as yet undetermined location.

I've been pretty busy with Illumos lately, but last week I took a few days off for family time. One of the things I did was take my son (9 years old) out to the Kern River to try some whitewater kayaking. This was his first time on moving water, and it amazed me how quickly he picked up basic concepts. He was doing ferries, peel outs, and eddy turns like a champ after about 20-30 minutes. Amazing. He didn't even swim his first day -- he elected to stay in his boat (actually trying to do a roll) until I could give him an Eskimo rescue. (His only swim that day was when he got flipped by one of the holes in Riverside Park.) He did get a good swim on the second day, when we were working on ferries though the much faster swift water running at the bottom of Ewings rapid. His first ferry was quite high into the rapid itself, and clean, but the second time he went for a swim. Came up happy and smiling, ready to try again if we had had the time. I wish I had some pictures. Gue...

Richard Lowe has just made a milestone change to the Illumos repository. Its a milestone for two reasons: a) It is the first commit from another developer other than me. (Other developers have code in progress, but not yet ready to commit, but soon!) This also makes it truly a community project, since Rich has no affiliation with me other than as a participant in the Illumos project. b) It eliminates the dependency on the Oracle "extra" repository, which required folks to get a certificate to access non-redistributable code in order to build illumos. Thank you very much Rich. I'm looking forward to more integrations from developers soon!

Well, as you may have read , Oracle has decided that at some point very soon, we're going to lose normal regular access to the source code for OS/Net. (I.e. the Solaris kernel and supporting programs.) While I would have vastly preferred for Illumos to have a cooperative and collaborative relationship with Oracle , it appears that Oracle doesn't value this. In fact, the exact words were from the management at Oracle were as follows: Solaris is not something we outsource to others, it is not the assembly of someone else’s technology, and it is not a sustaining-only product. While I understand the need to own the technology, there are few things that could be stated that show a stronger NIH attitude than this. Its unlikely that there will ever be a way for Oracle and the greater community to have a collaborative relationship. This is a dark day for OpenSolaris -- its effectively dead now. (Its parent, Solaris, lives on however.) How unfortunate. For Oracle that is. Because...

Today we announced the Illumos Project. I think the call I gave on it had a lot more information than I want to write here, and there are now quite a number of blog postings from other more recognizable names than my own. I'm thrilled by the excitement here!