Musings and Open Questions

It may be easy for some to feel that this does not directly or indirectly effect them, and they are likely right. However, news like this is part of a much more profound trend of which I'm am increasingly aware. I'm not making an arrogant assertion that this reality did not exist until I noticed, but more a humble plea for those who haven't noticed yet to take pause before the moment is lost. To put it simply - be careful what you wish for.

Large scale software engineering requires extraordinary resources. Perhaps it is the way of things that only so many such projects are sustainable at once, or perhaps not. There was a time when many people like myself couldn't wait for total "full spectrum" world wide Linux domination. Today I would argue that such an aim is the wish of a fool. Every time a technology is left behind, a project abandoned, a dream left to wither and die - the grip of monoculture tightness around our neck.

Remember when "all of us" couldn't wait until computers were so cheap that everyone could have as much hardware as they could ever dream of? In such short order we filled landfills with yesterday's treasures. Just as fast in so many ways, we abandoned skills, craft, and respect for our tools. Seemingly forever adrift in a future of unhackable, disposable, inefficient consumerism.

Remember when "all of us" couldn't wait until the Internet was omnipresent? Remember that it seemed that it would take forever? Well that came so very fast, and with so much praise that so few even noticed all that was lost (hint: watch BBS the documentary).

Remember when "all we wanted" was to just get to use Linux for everything? Well (despite these nearly daily popular hallucinogenic alternative reality articles to the contrary), that day was long ago. Linux essentially has killed just about everything else. So is that good or bad?

It's simply nature. Things live, they die, and evolve. Here's the thing though - we are humans, we exorcise dominion over nature, not the other way around. (That is we aim to anyway.) We annihilate entire species, then place others into protective breading programs. Why? Because there is inherent value in the diversity itself!

The scope of human endeavours into computing is such a rich history to which we are all heirs. The question is what is it that we choose to do with this legacy. At the very least, know and let it be known that there are those whom - regardless of their motivations and intentions - do try to take the roads less travelled even if we perceive them as adversaries. Our hearts should always long for exploration.

So the next time you start to work yourself into another heart attack about say, Gnome 3, consider this. Sure not all ideas are valid, but if it were not for all those other desktops & window managers, the cage would be closed on many of us.

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As for what remains on the Solaris branch on the tree of life, I would like to hear from those in the know. What exactly is out there that is worth "supporting" at this point? I remember being very intrigued at the NexentaOS concept (gnu/linux sans linux replaced with solaris kernel), but after that initial release it never made it to another VM for me. I currently have the OI on an older box that I did actually verify some things of mine at least build on, but that was long ago. The debian kernel variants might be worth loading up. Someone actually wrote me the other day using "solaris". I wonder what that even means now. Is there a download on oracle?