>>>>> "ms" == Michael Schuster <Michael.Schuster@XXX writes:
ms> (oh, btw: wasn't IPS created in part to get away from the
ms> whole patch ... ermm ... issue? ;-)
hah! yeah, it sounds like it's working extremely well for people,
especially with the ZFS root. The speed and casualness with which
they upgrade is stunning. The combination of IPS, ZFS, and the LiveCD
idea seems to be just awesome.
but this is just UI-optimisation and showmanship. IPS is the small
part of what people like---it could almost be just 'tar', like BSD.
I do not like IPS.
I concede the idea of a single arrow of time is not stupid. I was
briefly an HPUX sysadmin and got yelled at for applying all patches I
could find because apparently doing this makes your system unstable.
You have to apply patches only after your system starts crashing.
``It's not Solaris'' the more senior SA said. The
single-arrow-of-time kool-aid retreats even farther from the HPUX
best-practice: ``we are going to make something like fake dependencies
among our patches, to force them into a linear progression, which will
make them easier for us to regression-test.'' Great idea!
Regression testing is expensive, is an ugly trade-off against
security, and is extremely unpleasant frustrating repetitive work
duplicated at each site that makes the whole system feel like rickety
crap. Maybe if Sun regression-testing gets really good, people at the
edge can start being lazier about it. And the more software
bundles---not just solaris---that can come under this
we-regression-test-it umbrella, the more valuable the whole ball of
wares becomes. I'm not sure how many years a person needs to watch
RedHat winning to learn this lesson, but it's still a good lesson.
The problem is, OpenSolaris has gone much too far! It has taken away
not just the spaghetti created by playing dim-sum with patches, but
also the two levels of stability branches: sol8 sol9 sol10, and
sol10u2 sol10u3, sol10u4. ``Single arrow of time'' should mean that
the binary revision control tree follows the source revision control
tree exactly, so every customer's system is in a state that could be
built from a 'nightly' script. It should not mean there are no
branches in the scm!
Also AIUI, IPS isn't a source packaging system. It doesn't make it
easier for me to get from installed-package back to source, then make
one tiny tweak and rebuild. or to maintain site-local changes while
still tracking upstream fixes. BSD ports/pkgsrc and Gentoo do this,
and it's fantastic especially for web sites dependent on low-quality
software written by screaching web2.0 monkeys with lots of
dependencies where the code in the package system to build them is
much more elegant than the code-feces being built. I need the package
system just to document the monkey-spaghetti. Leaving this gap---I
mean, creating a perhaps-deliberate mysteriousness about how the
source tree is transformed into the binary packages---is a mistake.
My sneaking suspicion based on hints at the bottom of the opensolaris
Download web page, is of a plan is to offer only OpenSolaris for free.
The old Sol10/SXCE will go back inside the wall, available by
subscription only. And SXCE will, just like Sol10, lack the freedom
to rebuild your system with small local changes. I don't worry as
much that fear of CentOS-like ``cannibals'' will put Solaris back
behind a wall because I don't think that's what'll do it. (but don't
you love the way these people who believe in free markets like a
religion equate `giving customers choices' with `cannibalizing other
products'?)
Anyway, not that. I think CYA-ist attitude is what's going to do it.
There seems to be a concept built into all parts of Solaris OS, and
internalized by the older customers, that of course They cannot LET
you do _____ with your system because that will Generate Calls. There
are people who believe a system that gives meaningful software freedom
to end users cannot be supported because people will ``tamper'' with
the sacred binary releases passed down from the tower. It's not
enough to tell customers ``we won't support that'' because some of
them will pay a lot of money, expect to get something for it, and make
your life hell by bargaining. It follows in this binary-software
advocate's mind that making money on support means trying to create
many situations in which you can use phrases like, ``oh Gosh i WISH i
could help you but i just CANT because our lawyers/licensing/property
simply will not allow, you have to understand so so much code and
relationships and <hazy confusing things behind wall> hands are tied
nothing I can do no matter how desperately i want to help you is there
anything ELSE i can help you with (not this)?''
but this is exactly why I rarely pay for support. I can't think of
many times when I've had a problem and actually gotten help. When I
do pay, it's usually in truth a payment to download software, and the
person taking my money enjoys his private fantasy from his
business-college days that he's selling me a relationship rather than
a ball of bits. But if I have to talk to someone on the phone to get a
URL I'm annoyed, think this MBA-heavy corporation has a shitty
website, and am angry at them for wasting my time with their effort to
control my future behavior by manipulating my ``experience''---if I
want a mind-fuck or a snow-job I'll go to the theater where at least
the players are pretty, speak well, and have some style and talent.
It's happening right here in front of us---ZFS users are fleeing to
OpenSolaris because the formal Sun support is slow to deliver patches,
unhelpful (restore pool from backup), suspect (blame-the-sysadmin,
weirdly absurd stories delivered with icy certainty). My favorite
advice was ``get support that allows escalation to engineering.
patch-only support is worthless.'' In other words, there's nothing on
the menu they've written that will fill your belly. If you can't
afford to order off the menu, don't bother. Just get a hot dog from
the cart in front of their building.
Before, my main disincentive to buying support was that the time I
spend on the phone talking to front-line PR-techs telling me to jump
through hoops would be better-spent googling forums, or digging in
myself offline and trying to solve the problem. Now, added to that
incentive, I have to give up source to get access to the stable branch
with the best support.
No, fuck that. better to wait for a slightly-more-free alternative to
Nexenta, or to stick with RedHat/CentOS and use single-branch ``arrow
of time'' OpenSolaris for the unstable stuff---exactly the opposite of
how I imagine Sun hoped to grab some territory from Linux.
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