Presenting Illumos at SVOSUG

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.

More new stuff...

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.

Guess I'm gonna have to get the kid a boat soon. He wants to try kayak surfing with me, and he really wants to learn to roll. Too bad there are no vendors that offer whitewater boats small enough for kids in southern California. We probably won't make it to Kernville again until next season. :-(

Milestone Commit for Illumos

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!

The Hand May Be Forced

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 from the fertile ashes of the dead springs forth new life bringing hope and light in the form of Illumos.

Illumos has garnered the support of some of the top minds in the industry; already the list of names of Solaris contributors and potential contributors that have already publicly committed to supporting this project is extensive. Many of the names are famous, people like Bryan Cantrill. Oracle's actions and inaction have actually made this possible.

I can also say, the list goes even further -- considerably so. I have had private conversations with quite a few other people who have quietly committed to involvement. Some of the names are very surprising, and I hope that they will soon be in a position to announce their involvement for themselves. These are people that are big name contributors; folks who have made very large numbers of code commits to Solaris -- some of the deepest and most "challenging" parts of Solaris, too.

The upshot of this is that the future for Illumos is surprisingly bright. Rather than a dependency on the good will of one corporate sponsor with dubious intentions, the project will have the diverse backing of some of the most well-known innovators (and their employers) from the OpenSolaris -- nay, Open Source -- community.

So, by their actions here, Oracle may be forcing Illumos to "fork", which was always a prospect, even if not one I cherished. But with the backing of the innovators I know who are with us, I think we have a chance to actually be the premiere foundation for SunOS derived technology. Oracle may be investing more into Solaris, but if the best and brightest have left for greener pastures and are contributing to Illumos, then I think we'll have the "best" investments in the base. Following Oracle's lead when the brightest minds have already left looks less and less desirable by the moment. (And to be fair, there are still many bright folks within the Solaris organization at Oracle. But the balance is changing, and changing in favor of Illumos and the open development community.)

Oracle Solaris will not be the only source for this technology, and now it appears it may not even be the best source for this technology.

I once said I never intended for Illumos to compete with Solaris. That was true, but if Oracle forces the issue, then even despite their vast economic resources, I say, "Bring it!"

Illumos Announcement

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!

Illumos

A number of the community leaders from the OpenSolaris community have been working quietly together on a new effort called Illumos, and we're just about ready to fully disclose our work to, and invite the general participation of, the general public.

We believe that everyone who is interested in OpenSolaris should be interested in what we have to say, and so we invite the entire OpenSolaris community to join us for a presentation on at 1PM EDT on August 3, 2010.

You can find out the full details of how to listen in to our conference, or attend in person (we will be announcing from New York City) by visiting http://www.illumos.org/announce (The final details shall be posted there not later than 1PM EDT Aug 1, 2010.)

We look forward to seeing you there!

- Garrett D'Amore & the rest of the Illumos Cast

Please Be Patient

With all the ruckus surrounding Oracle's apparent abandonment of the community, and OGB's stated intention to suicide, the community uproar has been crazy.

Without giving any details, let me say that a few of us are quietly but diligently working on solutions to the critical problems, and I expect we'll be able to talk much more freely about the solutions we will be offering in early August, which is coming up very soon now.

So, I'm going to humbly ask folks to be patient -- hold your comments, complaints, and flames about Oracle and OpenSolaris and OGB in check please. If you can wait just a little bit longer, then I believe we'll be able to offer a more constructive outlet for your frustration and energies.

Thanks.