Oracle Still To Make OpenSolaris Changes

[LinuxID10T]

I dont understand what you mean? Could you clarify?

OpenSolaris builds are released every two weeks. Every 6 months, the current OpenSolaris build is tested and then released as "2008.11" or "2009.06" or "2010.03", etc. Maybe you didnt knew that?

And I doubt someone knowledgable would say that OpenSolaris development stagnates. The development is extremely rapid: Crossbow, ZFS deduplication, Comstar, etc

It is not a six month release cycle, it is an eight month one, and is a month over at that. The problem with the eight month release cycle is that major packages, such as Firefox, are one or two releases behind. Stagnation. It also lands at a different time of year each release. Distributions that are released with shorter release cycles get more attention. Plus, I am talking about actual releases not dev builds.

[kebabbert]

It is not a six month release cycle, it is an eight month one, and is a month over at that. The problem with the eight month release cycle is that major packages, such as Firefox, are one or two releases behind. Stagnation. It also lands at a different time of year each release. Distributions that are released with shorter release cycles get more attention. Plus, I am talking about actual releases not dev builds.

Well, officially, the target is 6 month release cycle. Sun did slip on it once, but that was because Soalris 10 was also released, so Sun prioritized S10, which is understandable.

Anyway, I dont see the point of making fuss if the release cycle slips once or twice. I know there are lots of people saying that OpenSolaris adds more cool features faster, than other OSes. I doubt they think development has stagnated. But you are free to disagree.

[kraftman]

And I doubt someone knowledgable would say that OpenSolaris development stagnates. The development is extremely rapid: Crossbow, ZFS deduplication, Comstar, etc

This says nothing if development is rapid or not.

[kebabbert]

This says nothing if development is rapid or not.

No? I dont agree. If OpenSolaris adds much more cool features such as ZFS, DTrace, Crossbow, SMF, etc etc than other OSes, then at least I would say that development is rapid. I doubt anyone would say that development of for instance, ZFS for OpenSolaris is "stagnated". Just recently ZFS allows Deduplication on OpenSolaris. There are lots of other cool features added very fast, much more faster than other OSes. That is not "stagnation", just because one release slipped a couple of months? But you are free to disagree.

[kraftman]

No? I dont agree. If OpenSolaris adds much more cool features such as ZFS, DTrace, Crossbow, SMF, etc etc than other OSes, then at least I would say that development is rapid.

Some of this exist since years. OpenSolaris only took them from Solaris. We've got probably different point of view when comes to rapid development.

I doubt anyone would say that development of for instance, ZFS for OpenSolaris is "stagnated". Just recently ZFS allows Deduplication on OpenSolaris.

Probably nobody claims ZFS is in stagnancy and I doubt if it can be said it "stagnated".

There are lots of other cool features added very fast, much more faster than other OSes. That is not "stagnation", just because one release slipped a couple of months? But you are free to disagree.

I'm not talking about copying features from Solaris, but about developing new. Of course if some release slipped a couple of months it probably doesn't mean it's because of stagnation. I'm not even saying OpenSolaris is in stagnation, but I wonder if it's being developed so rapidly.

[LinuxID10T]

Well, officially, the target is 6 month release cycle. Sun did slip on it once, but that was because Soalris 10 was also released, so Sun prioritized S10, which is understandable.

Anyway, I dont see the point of making fuss if the release cycle slips once or twice. I know there are lots of people saying that OpenSolaris adds more cool features faster, than other OSes. I doubt they think development has stagnated. But you are free to disagree.

Solaris 10 was released years ago, but if you mean the latest version of Solaris 10, I could understand from Sun's (now Oracle's) point of view. I am sorry, but not having a new release ready before the old one's end of general availability is stagnation. I am not saying that the features going into OpenSolaris are stagnating, but just the distribution is not updated enough with new releases.

[kebabbert]

Some of this exist since years. OpenSolaris only took them from Solaris.

Wrong. Sometimes it is helpful to check claims with links before posting? Solaris took ZFS from OpenSolaris.

We've got probably different point of view when comes to rapid development.

Yes, probably.

I'm not talking about copying features from Solaris, but about developing new.

OpenSolaris is copied, and new development occurs in OpenSolaris.

I'm not even saying OpenSolaris is in stagnation, but I wonder if it's being developed so rapidly.

Well I know people disagreeing with you. They think lots of cool features are added very fast into OpenSolaris: ZFS, DTrace, etc

Solaris 10 was released years ago, but if you mean the latest version of Solaris 10, I could understand from Sun's (now Oracle's) point of view. I am sorry, but not having a new release ready before the old one's end of general availability is stagnation. I am not saying that the features going into OpenSolaris are stagnating, but just the distribution is not updated enough with new releases.

All new features such as ZFS, DTrace etc are first released in OpenSolaris. When they have been tested, only then the features will be back ported to Solaris 10. Just like Fedora(?) backports features to RedHat(?). Now recently Crossbow has been integrated. I think the OpenSolaris distro is updated very fast with radical cool new tech? Not small kernel improvements, but radical unique new tech. ZFS changes everything. DTrace changes everything. etc.

Regarding rest of your post, I dont really understand? It seems that you believe that Solaris 10 is released far to seldom? There are too many years between Solaris releases?

S10 is developed slow, not OpenSolaris. Solaris versions have traditionally had long release cycles, several years. Solaris is Enterpries, where you dont change things rapidly, stability is the most important. Some OpenVMS machines have uptime of 17 years. That is Enterprise. I have never heard of 17 years uptimes for Solaris, but I have heard of Solaris uptimes of many years.

Solaris are well tested and stable. Such Enterprise Unix has long cycles, many years. To rapidly upgrade Enterprise Unixes is traditionally not viewed as positive. You can not force your customers to upgrade each year (like windows does). The support cycles are very long, you just dont discontinue a release after a few years (like Windows does). Solaris 10 will be supported for many years to come.

Stable code and new funtionalit works against each other. Only old well tested code is stable. New code is always buggy. If you rewrite lots of code all the time, it will be unstable. It is said that Windows requires at leat SP1 before being usable.

Compare Playstation and Xbox, where PS2 is still supported and games are released today, 10 years after. Compare to Xbox 1, which was discontinued in 2006, after only 5 years. A short life span is negative, when you talk about Enterprise customers.

Or did I misunderstood you?

[kraftman]

Wrong. Sometimes it is helpful to check claims with links before posting? Solaris took ZFS from OpenSolaris.

My bad. So it looks OpenSolaris is for Solaris what Fedora is for RedHat.

Well I know people disagreeing with you. They think lots of cool features are added very fast into OpenSolaris: ZFS, DTrace, etc

That's for sure.

[shmerl]

To check what's changed ye can always look at the "Flag days" page which details changes that have gone into Builds. So just a matter of looking at the builds since 111 (2009.06).
http://static.opensolaris.org/on/flagdays/

Likewise for the x11 consolidation:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/...win/changelogs

The other page I tend to keep an eye on is the ARC case page. For example here are all the ARC cases for 2010/2009 so far along with reference material.
http://arc.opensolaris.org/caselog/year/2010.html
http://arc.opensolaris.org/caselog/year/2009.html

Thanks! These are very useful links. They should really be placed on the front opensolaris.org page under changelog or something.