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Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet)
ZDNet attended a talk by Ian Murdock shortly after his move to Sun. "You can make a real argument that Solaris innovated more than Linux in the last few years—such as DTrace and ZFS—but usability stands in the way of appreciating that,' Murdock said. 'Part of what we are working on is closing the usability gap so that it doesn’t stand in the way.'"
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Davem responds Posted Mar 28, 2007 20:22 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] For the curious, David Miller has responded to the above quote from Ian Murdock. He doesn't agree...
Davem responds Posted Mar 28, 2007 20:34 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] And DTrace has been around for long time too, has not it? Perhaps not in CDDL form, but still.
Davem responds Posted Mar 28, 2007 21:18 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] While Dave's argument has some validity, it is true that Linux lacks features like dtrace and ZFS, and they would be nice to have. I'm fine with Solaris copying the best Linux ideas and vice versa, and we shouldn't be so arrogant as to pretend that the other guy is lacking in good ideas.
Davem responds Posted Mar 29, 2007 9:47 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] ZFS does work under Linux, using FUSE. It may not be fast but it does run, which is more than OpenSolaris does on my spare 256MB RAM box (not enough RAM for the kernel to boot whilst Ubuntu Edgy is quite happy on it).
Davem responds Posted Mar 30, 2007 17:56 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] which is more than OpenSolaris does on my spare 256MB RAM box (not enough RAM Solaris 11.snv_59 can boot with 64 MB RAM (on x86). It swaps a bit, though. But it is better than 11.snv_39, which needed about 256 MB RAM to swap the same amount.
dprobes, kprobes, dtrace, and systemtap Posted Mar 29, 2007 13:37 UTC (Thu) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link] I find the Linux community reaction to dtrace amusing. IBM released dprobes and the code languished, unloved, for a long time. [dprobes had a bunch of problems, and cleanly integrating userspace probing is as yet unsolved.] When dtrace was presented by Sun folks [strutting around like peacocks], the initial reaction was "why doesn't Linux have this?" Answer: because developers were uninterested or hostile towards dprobes, generally arguing that patching the kernel was sufficient. It's only now that enterprise license agreements from major vendors [that are void if you patch or compile your own bits] are commonplace that interested in kprobes/systemtap has risen. So the Linux community had a head start, and squandered it.
dprobes, kprobes, dtrace, and systemtap Posted Mar 30, 2007 1:10 UTC (Fri) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link] Dear Armchair Commentator:
Patches Welcome.
dprobes, kprobes, dtrace, and systemtap Posted Mar 30, 2007 17:51 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Patches for what? It has to be said that your comment is less informative than the one your were replying to.By the way, your nickname has some interesting connotations (yes, I know, Godwin and all that).
Davem responds Posted Mar 28, 2007 21:19 UTC (Wed) by cajal (guest, #4167) [Link] David Miller is wrong. There's a world of difference between TSO and DTrace or ZFS. DTrace is a comprehensive, system-wide, production-safe tracing framework. ZFS is the first filesystem to realistically address disk failure and data integrity. Both projects took several years of development, and offer end-users advantages in a wide range of uses. Comparing them to a specific feature of the network stack is idiotic, at best.
Davem responds Posted Mar 28, 2007 21:48 UTC (Wed) by blocke (guest, #5105) [Link] cajal your argument is dishonest.
He was not saying that TSO is a more valuable innovation or knocking ZFS or DTrace. He is knocking statements like Ian Murdock's that make it sound like Linux doesn't innovate and overvalues Solaris.
Davem's mention of TSO was an example of something he deals with in his field (as a TCP/IP stack hacker) of a feature Solaris lacks that both Windows and Linux have had available for years in various forms. Davem made a statement from his view in his field of expertise (TCP/IP stacks and the like) Solaris is definitely not the only true innovater that statements like Ian's make it sound like.
A filesystem and a debug tool are not the only possible sources of innovation in the industry. Davem's comment was to simply point that out and to express annoyance at a seemingly desperate attempt by Sun evengelicals to create continue the FUD narrative that Linux doesn't innovate.
To say otherwise about Davem's statement is dishonest.
And frankly I find Ian's statements amusing. It smells of "our userspace still sucks so the more we make it Linux like the better people will view it". And they even hired a former Linux guy to apparently help them in that. Huh, imagine that.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 1:03 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (guest, #42402) [Link] Hey. Mister. Close the license gap. That's all we care about. The rest we can deal with.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 8:04 UTC (Thu) by jmansion (guest, #36515) [Link] What 'license gap'? CDDL is a free license. Are you actually a proponent of GPL monoculture?
I think its a *good idea* to have systems with a variety of licenses, and a variety of degrees of vendor control and a variety of levels of 'firendliness' to ISVs wishing to add user value outside of open source per se. As a user, I can choose.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 9:50 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] OpenSolaris has good bits (ZFS, DTrace), Linux has good bits (long listelided). It would be nice if they could both benefit from each other by sharing code.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 10:48 UTC (Thu) by cajal (guest, #4167) [Link] What good bits does Linux have?
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 22:55 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Drivers? That it is fast and frugal? 16+ architectures? Excellent preemption? Great configurability? Did I say drivers?
I'm afraid you fell for it... Posted Mar 30, 2007 3:14 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] I think the expression is "Please do not feed the troll". Just another Sun worshiper...
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 10:45 UTC (Thu) by Randakar (guest, #27808) [Link] "Are you actually a proponent of GPL monoculture?"
A single license means "no more artificial barriers to innovation".
You seem to think that is a bad thing, as if it made FOSS more susceptible to disease or something.
The CDDL was designed to get the FOSS advantages without actually allowing the Linux Kernel to just copy the new Solaris features and get on with life. I understand Sun wants Solaris to remain a selling point for Sun, but from where I'm sitting it seems to me Sun should just move to Linux like everyone else. Then they'd get all the innovation Linux gets, and Linux would get all the innovation Sun produces for Solaris. Everyone wins.
They can then their own Linux "Solaris Linux" for all I care ;-)
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 20:34 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] GPL monoculture would kick-ass.
This means that nobody has to worry about any sort of licensing conflicts anymore. The GPL is the 'grand unifying force' for licensing in the Linux system, the lowest it-doesn't-get-worse-then-this common denominator.
I've seen smaller Mozilla-based projects that had no less then 4 different licenses associated with a single program just thrown together in a rather ad-hoc fasion. The mosillz license, some other thing, and a couple different ones that it looked like the software authors just made up on the spot.
Could you imagine a OS were you had to worry about different licenses per header file? :-P
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 16:07 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] While those are indeed great innovations, just because linux does have them doesn't mean that it doesn't innovate. Despite the way it sounded, I don't think Ian meant it quite that way.
Off the top of my head, some major innovations in linux:
DRBD
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 17:41 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] Don't forget RCU, the O(1) scheduler, futexes, NTPL, and such.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 20:32 UTC (Thu) by cajal (guest, #4167) [Link] Sorry, I don't see how those are innovative.
Solaris had an O(1) scheduler several years before Linux got one. So strike that off your innovation list. I don't see how NTPL could be considered innovative (really, when NTPL was introduced, Linux was playing catchup to the state of threading on commercial Unix). RCU wasn't "innovated" by the Linux kernel community, it was donated by IBM (and originally developed for commercial Unix).
They're all certainly useful, but they're not a disruptive technology like DTrace or ZFS, both of which made significant contributions to state of the art in their respective areas.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 29, 2007 21:50 UTC (Thu) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link] > RCU wasn't "innovated" by the Linux kernel community, it was donated by IBM IBM is part of "the Linux kernel community".
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 30, 2007 7:00 UTC (Fri) by Nick (subscriber, #15060) [Link] Solaris had an O(1) scheduler several years before Linux got one. So strike that off your innovation list.How about a arbitrary topology aware multiprocessor scheduler that supports smt, cmp, smp, and multiple levels of NUMA? I don't see how NTPL could be considered innovative (really, when NTPL was introduced, Linux was playing catchup to the state of threading on commercial Unix). Before NPTL was introduced, Linux was playing catchup. Not so much afterward, which is the point. After NPTL, didn't Solaris switch from a M:N threading model to a 1:1 one like NPTL? Or do I have my dates wrong... RCU wasn't "innovated" by the Linux kernel community, it was donated by IBM (and originally developed for commercial Unix). The RCU implementation had to be tuned considerably for Linux, and also a lot of the usages of RCU represent some level of innovation. For example the lockless pagecache (not merged, but still innovated). Lockless tries for routing, lockless hash resizing. Scalability in general is pretty good. Linux is now deployed on 1024 processor systems and that number keeps going up. That's an order of magnitude more than Solaris, isn't it? What about really fast basic kernel operations (eg. fork, exit, context switch, syscall, networking). Linux has been at the front of the pack on these for a long time, AFAICS. I like it how Linux is significantly faster than solaris on their own hardware here (after said hardware had been in the hands of a single developer for a month or two). And that's even after Linux starts at the disadvantage of being compiled with gcc.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 30, 2007 16:52 UTC (Fri) by captrb (subscriber, #2291) [Link]
Solaris had M:N and 1:1 threading models since, I believe, Solaris 7. Granted, M:N was the default option until Solaris 9.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 30, 2007 0:49 UTC (Fri) by rganesan (subscriber, #1182) [Link] > Knoppix: Live CDs
It's easy to under-estimate the impact Knoppix has had on Linux. It's a truly wonderful innovation that I believe really brings Linux to the masses. Nothing to install, just push in a CD and you can see the full power of Linux. A Live CD installer beats the "Linux is difficult to install" argument to pulp. You should try to install Solaris to see the difference.
That said, OpenSolaris is not the enemy here. Whether you like CDDL or not, the fact is it is a perfectly valid Open Source license. Sun is considering moving to GPLv3, which is even better. OpenSolaris, *BSD, Linux are all innovating and can learn from each other.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Mar 30, 2007 17:47 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] One minor point. Knoppix is NOT an innovation!!!
Knoppix is the johnny-come-lately that made the concept popular. LiveCDs were around long before Knoppix. I believe the LiveCD innovation award actually belongs to SuSE - others may tell me I'm wrong and it even predates that.
Cheers,
LiveCDs Posted Mar 30, 2007 22:46 UTC (Fri) by brugolsky (subscriber, #28) [Link] I believe that honor goes to Adam Richter's 1993 Yggdrasil L/G/X [Linux/GNU/X]. I've still got the media and the documentation.
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Apr 7, 2007 18:06 UTC (Sat) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] >Off the top of my head, some major innovations in linux:> >DRBD
Nice to see DRBD in the first spot (I played a minor role in its
Concerning Ian Murdock's program, for me as a Debian user, I would be
Ian Murdock: Making Solaris more like Linux (ZDNet) Posted Apr 9, 2007 3:28 UTC (Mon) by cajal (guest, #4167) [Link] DRDB looks similar to StorageTek Availability Suite, which has been around for years. It's hardly a Linux innovation.
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