Does Jim Zemlin harm the Linux Foundation?

Jim Zemlin recently in an InfoWorld article claimed Is Sun Solaris on its deathbed?

In this article, Zemlin only gives Linux and Microsoft a chance for the
future. He then continues with the well known stereotypes we already
read many times before from people who believe the best way to support
Linux is to belittle other OpenSource projects.

If DTrace was a minor feature as Zemlin claims, would FreeBSD, Apple
and IBM adopt it? If ZFS was a minor feature, would FreeBSD and Apple
adopt it? DTrace and ZFS have been adopted by others because the people
behind FreeBSD Apple and IBM believe that they are important
innovations and because the license is free enough to allow them
to use DTrace and ZFS with their OS.

At the same time, some people from the Linux camp still try to hide
their missing will to integrate behind a so-called "license
incompatibility". A license like the CDDL that allows to combine code
under CDDL with code under any other license is supposedly incompatible
with Linux? Do some people from the Linux camp really believe that the
GPL is a non-free license? Well, the GPL is a free license and thus
cannot require other projects to change their license if they are just
delivered together with GPL code.

There is no license incompatibility but a VFS incompatibility between
ZFS and the Linux kernel. A code incompatibility can be resolved if there
is a will.

Some non-open-minded people cannot make a free license like the GPL
non-free. POSIX compliant operating systems (like Solaris) and system
that are similar to POSIX (like Linux) should not be enemies. People
who develop OpenSource software should cooperate against non POSIX
systems like Microsofts OS. People like Zemlin who like to drive a
spearhead between different OpenSource projects have no place in
our world. They should resign to allow other open-minded people to
take their place.

Our OpenSource world does not need Zemlin but visionary people who
sopport OpenSource.

SchilliX is real now

SchilliX is an OpenSolaris-based live CD and distribution that
is intended to help people discover OpenSolaris. When installed
on a hard drive, it also allows developers to develop and compile
code in a pure OpenSolaris environment.

After 4 months of hard work, the first OpenSolaris based
UNIX distribution is ready for download at schillix.berlios.de.

Well, I should mention that the project started in December 2003
with the first discussions with Sun about a Solaris Live CD.
Then in September 2004, there was a OpenSolaris summit in
Santa Clara and the OpenSolaris Piolot started with a growing
number of people (at last ~150) talking about the background.
We needed to find a License and Sun did make a great job
with cheking more than 9 million lines of code for encumberences.

Let me describe what OpenSolaris is and what the differences
to Schillix are. OpenSoplaris is currently the Sun O/N Source
tree for Solaris. This source tree is much more than a kernel
but a few things are missing in order to allow a boot to the
multi user mode. The following pieces of code are missing:

Libm
The source is part of the Sun Compiler suite but Sun
did OpenSource a 1993 version for BSD-4.4Lite.
The effort to port a recent FreeBSD version was 5 days.

bzip2/gzip
These programs are free software and needed for Solaris, so
they need to be added

The Netscape LDAP libs
They are needed for PAM and must be compiled from sources...

LibXml2
This lib is a major prerequisite for SMF and needs to be
compiled from sources.

Some of the SMF tools
are part of the Suninstall sources and needed to be replaced.

Some small programs
needed to be devloped to make a CD boot with few RAM possible.

libz
is of couse also needed

The NIC drivers from Masayuki Murayama
are nice to have and have been added

Unzip
is nice to have and has been added

Wget
is nice to have and has been added

/opt/schily/bin/*
is nice to have and even needed for some of the
Sun Replacements. As /usr/ccs/bin/make is part
of the Sun Compiler Sources, it had to be replaced
by my 'smake' that is _the_ OpenSource "make"
implementation that is closest to Sun Make.

The main goal was to implement as much source/binary
compatibility to Sun Solaris as possible. Something
that was not simple, giving the fact of the missing
libm.

Load SchilliX from Berlios and enjoy
SchilliX. If you like it and if you like to help
bus as a volunteer, please send me a mail...

OpenSolaris is out, SchlliX will be out soon

SchilliX now boots from a split CD (root is mounted
from a ramdisk and /usr from CD). The boot from CD
takes one minute and needs 256 MB of RAM.

The first SchilliX distribution will be published in
a few days.

SchilliX single user nearly complete

Since yesterday, smf/greenline is up and running and we are
close before getting to a real single user mode. Only one
single service description is still inconsistent and needs
to be fixed.

The network is up and running but still needs manual configuration. Once the issue with ifconfig -a plumb has been
fixed, we will be able to autostart with dhcp from any
supported nic card.

As OpenSolaris goes public next month, I am sure we will be
able to publish the SchilliX version in July.

First pure OpenSolaris based boot CD

Today, I managed to get a first shell prompt from a pure
OpenSolaris (x86) based boot CD.

Solaris x86 now boots using grub and a multiboot compliant
kernel loader. Previous Solaris x86 versions did boot using
a closed source 16 bit boot loader that roughly implemented
a OpenFirmware interface to the kernel. For every boot device,
there was a need to write and maintain a 16 bit driver.

The boot CD I did build has been completely set up from
scratch only using the compilation results. If you like
to help us working on SchilliX - the first OpenSolaris
based UNIX distribution, check schillix.berlios.de
and write me a mail.

Value, Marketing and Freedom

The Free Software Foundation speaks about Free Software but the GPL gives less freedom to authors and users of the code than e.g. the BSD license does. Why is the GPL more successful in the eyes of many people than the BSD license?

One important reason of course is marketing. There is better marketing for the GPL as a result of the success of Linux.

The other reason is the value of the software from the FSF in the 1980s. The GCC is of great value to people and the fact that it is of great value caused people to accept the license even though it does not give as much freedom as the BSDL gives.

This acceptance has not been present from the beginning. In the beginning, the whole GCC has been published under the GPL and thus could not be used to compile software that itself has not been published under the GPL. For this reason, there has been an excited discussion about the usability of GCC.

Later, the LGPL has been created and parts of the GCC (libgcc) has been put under LGPL.

As we see, people are willing to accept a reduced freedom if the value of the software gives a compensation.

Now, what happened to GPLd software in the past few years? The Free Software Foundation heavily reduced the effort in extending Free Software and instead started a campaign to _talk_ about Free Software instead. Other software meanwhile did improve or become Open Source.

It seems that these ideas help to understand why Linux people did start a campaign against Open Solaris and the CDDL....

The BSD operating systems (although they give more freedom than Linux) don't look like a real threat for Linux as there is not enough marketing for BSD based operating systems.

OpenSolaris however _is_ a real threat for Linux. OpenSolaris gives more freedom than Linux, it gives new impressing features and there is marketing.

It seems that the reason for the FUD against OpenSolaris published by Linux people is caused by the fact that product of value and freedom found in Linux is smaller than the product of value and freedom available with OpenSolaris.

A proof that OpenSolaris is on the right way?
In the long term, real freedom always wins....

Work on SchilliX, the fiest OpenSolaris based UNIX is underway

Now that a pure self compiled OpenSolaris boots, we started working on completing our OpenSolaris based UNIX. The first version will be text only but isn't the rule for Open Source projects to publish often and to start early? Isn't there even a text based Linux (grml)?

When I started this project, I was in fear that I would not get enough help. Now (since a month), I have an employed student on expense of Fokus Fraunhofer and a few people who are helping as volunteers. It seems that it is not too late for a real Open Source UNIX...

Pure OpenSolaris boots on x86

Today, I have been able to boot from a disk that was empty before I did install a self compiled OpenSolaris on it.

So we now reached a certain limit that makes it possible to start with creating a OpenSolaris based x86 distribution at BerliOS.