|
|
| The Wonderful World of Open, by Philip Peake |
 |
|
Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 04:22 PM EDT
|
The Wonderful World of Open
~ by Philip Peake
Our friend Jonathan Schwartz has a
blog
(if you didn't know). In a recent entry he discusses "open"
as applied to computing and attempts to put his spin on what
the word open really means.
I think he misses the point. So let's take a look at what open systems
are all about, their history and meaning.
Do, please, note though that Open Systems and Open Source are not the same
thing. Open Source was alive and well at the time that Open Systems were
first defined, with Richard Stallman's GNU project and the USENET comp.source
group both providing an array of Open Source for those that wanted to make use
of it.
Virtually all of my professional life has been working with Unix.
From my first Version 7 copy running on a PDP11/34 to the present day
with Solaris running on Sparc and Linux running on a variety of systems.
(I will also hang my head in shame and admit to having run Microsoft
systems, from Dos to WinXP-SP2).
I have been involved, sometimes directly and sometimes peripherally with
the evolution of Unix and standardization efforts around it during that time,
and so can claim to have at least some knowledge of the subject.
Jonathan's
blog
entry on this subject confuses the issue of what an open system is really about.
He confuses the issue by referring to
an
article by David Kirkpatrick, writing for Fortune,
and claiming that this article suggests that
"open" is really defined by the degree to which
a vendor seeks interoperability with other vendors' products.
This isn't exactly how I read the article. David Kirkpatrick clearly
differentiates between the open and proprietary worlds, but he suggests that
what really matters is the completeness of the whole solution,
how well the components work together, and that better profits appear
to be associated with the proprietary model. He also suggests that this
is the direction that Linux is being dragged by Red Hat adding proprietary
software to its distribution.
Jonathan's view is that "open" is really in the eye of the beholder, and that it means
the ease of substituting one product for another. Well, that is one definition
of "open", but it is certainly not the definition of an Open System, and not one that
I have heard before. Jonathan appears to confuse
"open system", "open source", "open standards" and a few other "opens" too.
Open systems came into being following the balkanization of Unix caused by
the AT&T/Bell labs (System3/System5) and BSD camps. These Balkan states were then further fragmented
by the efforts of various Unix vendors to "improve" Unix by adding their own
proprietary extensions. Independent software vendors (ISVs) found that code written to
any given Unix variant was a real pain to port to another, and the incremental costs
associated with maintaining each port soon became prohibitive.
There were several attempts to define a common API and utility subset by different groups, but that
was a problem in itself -- there were several attempts. In addition, there were attempts
by various commercial interests to insert standards into those efforts which validated
their products and excluded competitors. It took a formal standards organization, IEEE,
to accept the task and to create the POSIX standard before any level of standardization
was possible.
Now POSIX only addresses basic operating system functionality and APIs. But this was enough
to enable ISVs to create applications with many less differences across Unix systems. The idea
behind POSIX was never that this would completely define every possible thing to ensure
perfect compatibility between systems, only in the areas covered by the standard.
The standard was general enough that non-Unix systems were able to implement it, for example,
VMS from Digital (DEC).
This meant that applications targeted at the POSIX standard were now potentially
candidates not just for Unix systems, but for a range of systems, all
of which implemented the POSIX standard.
Because it was possible for non-Unix systems to implement POSIX, the generic term "Open Systems"
was coined. This was intended to cover systems which no longer has proprietary interfaces to
system services, but which implemented interfaces covered by an openly available standard. Programmers
could develop code independently of the OS, following only the openly available interface definitions.
As an interesting side note, POSIX was so successful and resolved so many of the
problems with vendor lock-in that the US government set procurement policies requiring
POSIX conformance for any new computing systems. When Microsoft came out with NT, which was designed
and built by the chief VMS architect from DEC, it too included a POSIX conformant subsystem.
However, this subsystem was virtually independent of, and isolated from, the normal Windows
environment other than being able to see the same filesystems and networking.
Only the most trivial applications from either environment could successfully execute in
the other environment.
Microsoft never produced any applications for this environment that I am aware of and never encouraged ISVs
to do so either. The POSIX subsystem apparently was purely a ploy to get around the US procurement policies.
By any reasonable interpretation of the spirit of POSIX, this did not make NT an Open System.
Now Jonathan is actually correct that by this definition Solaris is an open system. It is. It
is POSIX conformant. Beyond that, it actually implements a range of other published open standards,
such as X3J11 for the C language. Source code availability has nothing to do with a
system being an Open System or not.
Jonathan goes on to say:
Let's instead look at what it takes to move off Solaris, and onto, say, IBM's AIX.
How easy is the move? It's not particularly easy. There are features in Solaris, like the
Java Enterprise System Directory Service, N1 Grid Containers, dTrace or ZFS that don't show up
in AIX. Nor is there an industry agreed upon definition of Unix to enable a neutral test, or a
certification, of what you're using. There was, it was called POSIX, but then all the vendors
(Sun among them), went well beyond POSIX in delivering operating system distributions - we added
app servers and directory engines and web services infrastructure, innovations that saved
customers millions of dollars, and tons of effort. But using those features made it difficult
(but by no means impossible) for customers to substitute Unix vendors - and as IBM slows AIX
investment, Solaris is bound to leapfrog even further. So is AIX open? Does it promote choice?
Well, by that sword, is Solaris? Or moreover, Red Hat?
What we have here is a perfect description of why you should never use any
of those proprietary extensions that Sun has bundled into Solaris, unless you clearly understand
the trade-off in doing so.
Actually, most of what he lists isn't available to most Solaris users anyway, unless they upgrade
to Solaris 10, which makes the list just a little bit disingenuous, and also brings up the question
of why is Sun adding these non-standard technologies rather than turning them into open standards,
either via existing standards bodies, or via open source. This couldn't be to lock users into
Solaris could it?
Picking fault a bit more, the Java Enterprise System Directory Service (which would otherwise be
called an LDAP server, if Sun's marketing team hadn't become involved) really isn't a required part
of Solaris anyway. It will run happily without it. It also contains some specific extensions, so although
it is an LDAP V3 server, you find that for use with much of the rest of Sun's software stack, you can't
simply replace it with an LDAP V3 conformant LDAP server, because that software requires the specific
extensions to work fully, or even work at all.
It's this pretty-much deliberate lock-in that is the problem.
Although by the definition of Open System being equivalent to POSIX conformance,
Solaris makes it, by the spirit of Open Systems, Sun fails to make the grade.
Sun has a long and distinguished history of contributing to and promoting Open Systems,
Open Standards and Open Source. Not so very long ago, a Sun workstation was what a Linux system is today,
a reference platform for just about any free software/open source available. If it wouldn't compile on
a Sun workstation, it wouldn't compile. Sun worked on technologies intended to improve its competitiveness
in the market, but also took the time and effort to make certain that its protocols were well documented
and the subject of relevant standards, remote procedure calls and NFS being perhaps the most obvious,
and still widely used today.
Sun was an active participant in the POSIX standards process, not only because they saw it as key to
commercial success, but because they believed in the Open Systems philosophy.
Perhaps it's time to revitalize the Open Systems movement with something like POSIX II to include
all developments of the last 20 years. It seems to me that Sun has a lot they could
contribute to that effort.
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: overshoot on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 04:31 PM EDT |
| Does being polite help? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Daily Telegraph: Ditch IE for Mozilla - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 04:58 PM EDT
- One Yes Vote for Politeness - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 05:28 PM EDT
- ATI Petition for Adequate Drivers in Linux - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 06:26 PM EDT
- SCO on tour. - Authored by: Aim Here on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 07:52 PM EDT
- ldap and solaris 10 - Authored by: iccaros on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:06 PM EDT
- Clueless "journalist" alert - Authored by: harrytuttle on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:21 PM EDT
- On the subject of petitions - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 12:56 AM EDT
- Lack of copyright and licensing details AGAIN? - Authored by: seanlynch on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 09:01 AM EDT
- Being polite *always* helps - Authored by: lilo on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 12:09 PM EDT
- Apache Foundation pulled its support of Microsoft's Sender ID - Authored by: seeRpea on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 05:39 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 04:59 PM EDT |
The article says: applications with many less
differences but the pedantic among us would suggest that it should
say applications with many fewer
differences Otherwise, I think the author makes good points.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: DannyB on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 05:01 PM EDT |
Trolls here please.
---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: ray08 on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 05:03 PM EDT |
Seems like every time Schwartz opens his mouth, he spews FOSS FUD. He reminds me
of the Romulans on DSN...an ally that is warily accepted. I know Sun has done
some good things for open source, but they now have 2 faces.
---
Caldera is toast! And Groklaw is the toaster! (with toast level set to BURN)[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: hipster on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 05:33 PM EDT |
Doesn´t it look to you that this path has already been treaded by none other
than our good old friends SCO?
I mean, first they embrace open source with all its benefits, then they turn
around and claim that the open source backers have misappropriated their IP,
then they sue.
I don´t want to sound negative, but it seems that Sun's probably trying to send
signals as of their next moves; and that may not be too pretty.
Your turn.
---
--
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in
not exceeding the limit. ~Elbert Hubbard[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: paul_cooke on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 05:48 PM EDT |
| Posix compliance was Microsoft's means of sneaking Windows past
purchasing
requirements and by this means, they were able to then
place "easy to use"
office software such as MS-Word etc. into the
workplace by bundling it with
the boxes with which they were then
able to lock in the users to the closed,
proprietary file
formats. After locking the users in to .doc etc. it then
became a
purchasing requirement for systems procured to support those file
formats which then locked out non-windows platforms from the
workplace. The
government departments effectively "helped"
Microsoft by locking themselves
into the file format handcuffs. ---
Use Linux - Computer power for the
people: Down with cybercrud... [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 06:02 PM EDT |
... to make it simpler for trolls to browse through the selection of
"trolls here" threads and choose the one they wish to post in ...
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: John M. Horn on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 06:08 PM EDT |
"...Not so very long ago, a Sun workstation was what a Linux system is
today, a reference platform for just about any free software/open source
available. If it wouldn't compile on a Sun workstation, it wouldn't compile. Sun
worked on technologies intended to improve its competitiveness in the market,
but also took the time and effort to make certain that its protocols were well
documented and the subject of relevant standards, remote procedure calls and NFS
being perhaps the most obvious, and still widely used today..."
Yes, and most of us no doubt remember those days. As late as 1996 or 1997 I
still felt most comfortable on a Sun workstation, using it for most of my work -
except when I had to do certain things for SCO machines, but that was mostly
because of the differing 'endianess' of the two platforms.
However, Sun began to change its philosophy several years ago and, as its
revenues began to decline, that change seemed to accelerate. For me, the final
indicator that this was no longer the Sun of yore was when Bill Joy left the
company. Few have given more to the world of Unix, Linux and yes, even Open
Source, than Bill Joy. With the vi editor alone, he has given us one of the
world's most revered editors. (You'll never take my vi from me!!!) How many
programs, perl scripts, shell scripts and assorted other files have YOU edited
with vi in your lifetime? Could you even begin to count them?
Today, Sun seems to be little more than a toady for Microsoft. It is sad to say,
but this appears to be the case to me. Otherwise, why would Sun be funneling
money to SCO to purchase a 'license' for something it has been shipping for many
years. Sun bought their license from USL back in the early nineties if I recall
correctly, for some preposterous sum of money like 150 million or so... Perhaps
someone else recalls the details.
My $0.02...
John Horn
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 10:33 PM EDT |
I've lost track of when SCO's responses to IBM's 2nd and 3rd partial summary
judgement motions (on IBM counterclaim 8 about SCO's copyright infringement of
16 IBM Linux copyrights, and SCO contract claims (1-4)) are due
If anybody knows the dates, could you remind me.
If they're already filed, a link would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Quatermass
IANAL IMHO[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Oloryn on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 10:36 PM EDT |
I suspect that we've gotten far too used to the typical terms of proprietary
software licenses. Way back in the day, I worked for a small tire retailer as a
programmer, developing in COBOL on a Burroughs mini system (yup, I put in my
time suffering with COBOL). My boss wasn't an IT type, but he was a former
lawyer (I think he left because he found out he didn't like lawyering). The
major software for the system was purchased before I started work there, but he
once gave me his impression of the licensing contracts required to get software
for the system. It went along the lines of "It's as though the vendor said to
me (as a lawyer), 'Look, I've got this guy (the customer) on the ground, flat on
his back, and my foot is on his throat. Write the appropriate contract.'" How
did we get used to accepting such arrogantly one-sided contracts from
proprietary software vendors? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:21 PM EDT |
| Daniel Lyons at Forbes.com (won't give him the satisfaction of a link) has
outdone himself. A sample:
56% of companies now cite Microsoft's .NET
technologies as their primary development platform, while 44% use a rival
platform called Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) (Note these sum to
100%)
Torvalds' Linux kernel (the core of the operating system) is 13
years old. Other parts of the operating system are even older. Even if Linux
does catch up, will it matter? (I assume he means catch up to the 13-year
old NT kernel?)
the cost of paying separately for programs like
application servers, Web servers and directories (which come bundled with
Windows).
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:42 PM EDT |
Did I get this right? I hope this post is on topic and not too long.
I hope this is the right place to post this but it looks like IBM is opening up
thier blade servers. see
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/business/02blue.html
<A
HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/business/02blue.html">
I.B.M to Share Technology and Designs for new comuter</A>
http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/fcgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&a
mp;appname=iSource&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS104-270
It is intresting that the above link still list SCO Linux as an option so they
have not pulled SCO products from there offerings.
It is located under "Software requirements" as shown below
"
The following network operating systems have been tested for compatibility with
the BladeCenter HS20:
* Microsoft^(TM)
* Windows^(TM) 2000 Advanced Server (requires SP 3)
* Windows 2000 Server (requires SP 3)
* Windows 2000 7-License Bundle for BladeCenter
* Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
* Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
* Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
* Linux^(TM)
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 Advanced Server
* SCO Linux 4.0 -- (UL1.0 based)9
* SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8 -- (UL 1.0 based)9
* TurboLinux Enterprise Server 8 -- (UL 1.0 based)9
9
IDE RAID will not be supported on this network operating system.
For additional information support, certification, and versions of network
operating systems, access
http://www.ibm.com/pc/us/compat
"
http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/fcgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=ca&infotype=an&a
mp;appname=iSource&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS104-270
I did some searching on the ibm web site but was unable to yet find the tech
data on these machines but maybe it has not made it there yet.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:42 PM EDT |
The balkinization of UNIX started when each vendor took their system
proprietary. After that, open just meant what you did to your wallet.
GPL is Free Software strikes back, with a major lesson learned. <troll mode
engage>Unfortunately some BSD people still think that if businesses can't
take code proprietary they're not going to assist with its development. History
has shown that help to be short-lived and the damage long-lasting. Goodbye BSD.
Hello GPL. <troll mode disengage> [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 01 2004 @ 11:58 PM EDT |
I haven't used the Sun Java Enterprise System Directory Service.
However, I don't think one should be yelling "vendor lock-in" just
because Sun created their own flavor of LDAP.
Firstly, Sun hasn't been the paradigm of compatibility this article makes it out
to be. Sun's versions of Unix utilities such as cp and tar have always been
different than those of Linux and those of BSD. This is nothing to do with Sun
in particular. All non-POSIX parts of Unix have always varied quite a bit. BSD
and Linux aren't just two different kernels, you know.
So this directory service isn't an exception. The specification seems to be
open. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Given that, what's the big deal? Isn't it possible that Sun's way may actually
be BETTER? Linux works that way. For instance, the Linux kernel does not have
POSIX-threads. Rather, it has its own system, which Linus felt was better.
And by the same coin, all the Linux programs which use the linux-kernel threads
instead of POSIX ones are locked into Linux.
This is a double-standard folks.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: bingotailspin on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 12:03 AM EDT |
Were I a CIO facing these issues, I'd stay focused on the one thing
definitively under my control - keeping the cost of substitution, of at least
application portability, as close to zero as possible.
How?
You
guessed it, I'd write to Java. And I'd keep my options...
open.
I
think C is also a good way to keep your code portable. Us Solaris admins always
finish off an install by compiling OpenSSH, vim, grep (from GNU so you can use
the recursive option), etc. Solaris runs all the open source stuff fine, look
at Gnome desktop. A good way to keep your code portable is to write to Linux.
Solaris will always run those apps (soon even in binary). Although vender
lock-in is not something that most executives advertise, the one's listed here
are not significant. Dtrace is Solaris 10 (beta) and you don't write it into
your app, it's a performance monitor. The directory server is just LDAP, if you
want to throw it out and put in OpenLDAP or Novell there's no problem. LDAP is
a standard.
He's right about Java though, it's the bomb! RMS might not like
it, but if your a programmer it's the best. What other mature language lets you
write SSL, LDAP, database, HTTP, Grid, ... and all for free. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: bingotailspin on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 12:06 AM EDT |
Were I a CIO facing these issues, I'd stay focused on the one thing
definitively under my control - keeping the cost of substitution, of at least
application portability, as close to zero as possible.
How?
You
guessed it, I'd write to Java. And I'd keep my options...
open.
I
think C is also a good way to keep your code portable. Us Solaris admins always
finish off an install by compiling OpenSSH, vim, grep (from GNU so you can use
the recursive option), etc. Solaris runs all the open source stuff fine, look
at Gnome desktop. A good way to keep your code portable is to write to Linux.
Solaris will always run those apps (soon even in binary). Although vender
lock-in is not something that most executives advertise, the one's listed here
are not significant. Dtrace is Solaris 10 (beta) and you don't write it into
your app, it's a performance monitor. The directory server is just LDAP, if you
want to throw it out and put in OpenLDAP or Novell there's no problem. LDAP is
a standard.
He's right about Java though, it's the bomb! RMS might not like
it, but if your a programmer it's the best. What other mature language lets you
write SSL, LDAP, database, HTTP, Grid, ... and all for free. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: grayhawk on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 12:28 AM EDT |
It amazes me how people see open source as something new and wonderful. It is
as old as the hills and closed source/proprietary ware only really came into
existence with the advent of the P.C. and MS.
During the hayday of the mainframe one would purchase the software needed for
running ones business and if you wanted to pay extra you could get the source
code and modify it to suit your shop. The downside was that when you did this
the supplier would no longer provide support and you would have to have inhouse
staff to take upgrades and patch them in themselves.
These were the days of programmers writing in Cobol, Fortran, RPG, Assembler
etc. and people having dumb terminals on their desks instead of P.C.'s. Many
companies would also work with software developers and companies that provided
time share on larger system to jointly develop their own applications. These
are the systems referred to these days as legacy systems. Programs were written
using punch cards and run from tape drives, huge disks or the cards themselves.
It was the job of the programmers to make sure that programs were maintained,
updated, customized and could interact with other programs (open standard) in
house.
During those days companies would share in developing programs so as to lower
the development costs and each would have the source to their programs. Most
companies who purchased proprietary software would also have its source since
much customization was required to make it fit the operation.
Source code and custom programming was the way things were done back then. It
is only with the advent of the desktop computer that we were no longer allowed
to have the source code to the software we purchased.
I personally learned to write such source and my earliest program written was
written on ticker tape. I remember carrying boxes and boxes of punch cards all
hopefully numbered so that should a box fall and the cards spill they could with
a sorter be put back in proper order.
So open source is not a new concept nor a new idea. It is an old idea from the
mainframe days now finally being applied to the desktop computer with fewer
restrictions than there were way back then.
---
All ships are safe in a harbour but that is not where they were meant to be.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: cheros on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 04:08 AM EDT |
I may be wrong here (donning flame proof underwear), but was/is/shall the main
aim of all this Openness not to ensure things actually work together? In other
words, interoperate? I'm deliberately stating "things" because the
concept extends well beyond the world of computers IMO.
This whole idea comes from quite a while back. The invention of the screw (no,
the threaded metal type ;-) did not go together with a standard, which meant
that any vendor had to keep its own stock of screws for customers. Only when
standards like BA and metric appeared became it possible to be a bit more
sensible about spares - and that's just a simple example (and a shameless rip
from an IBM ad ;-).
The challenge is to convey this whole concept in words of less than 3 syllables,
and "interoperable" fails there on account of being both long and hard
to pronounce after a few cocktails. Hence Open.
Comments?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 02 2004 @ 11:36 AM EDT |
Perhaps it's time to revitalize the Open Systems movement with
something like POSIX II to include all developments of the last 20 years. It
seems to me that Sun has a lot they could contribute to that
effort.
Well, actually, something like that has already
happened. There's a 2001 Version out of POSIX, which is a shared document with
the Single Unix standard (you know, the one made by the UNIX(tm) people), and
this encompasses a lot of additions to POSIX.
Incidentally, POSIX 2001 was
created, not via a typical semi- or mostly-closed committee, but via a mailing
list open (this word again) to everyone, including a significant number
of Linux and GNU people (such as the glibc maintainer, for example).
And,
different from the old standard, it's available for free on the Web. Go to www.unix.org, and follow the links to read
and/or download the Single Unix Spec version 3 ... and while you're there, note
that close to that link is a lawsuit link, so you can feel right at home. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: jbn on Friday, September 03 2004 @ 02:52 AM EDT |
Do, please, note though that Open Systems and Open Source are
not the same thing. Open Source was alive and well at the time that Open Systems
were first defined, with Richard Stallman's GNU project and the USENET
comp.source group both providing an array of Open Source for those that wanted
to make use of it.
No, this is quite wrong. The GNU
project predates the "open source" movement by over a decade. Stallman started
the free software movement in 1984 shortly after making this
announcement. Open source is defined by the Open Source Initiative and this
movement began in 1998. The two movements do not share the same philosophy.
RMS and the Free Software Foundation have repeatedly
asked that you not confuse the two movements. By citing the GNU Project as
"open source", you misunderstand what happened when and you convey a profound
misunderstanding of the difference between working to give all computer users
software freedom and working for technical improvements to make businesses
happy. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
