4 ms·

While I'm obviously biased, I think you are succumbing to a kind of cargo culting with respect to both commit activity and hardware support. On commit activity

While I'm obviously biased, I think you are succumbing to a kind of cargo culting with respect to both commit activity and hardware support. On commit activity, we in illumos don't necessarily have the same values as other projects: we really want to get it correct the first time -- a trait inherited from Solaris that we call "FCS quality all the time."[1] As such, commits have to be tested, thoroughly reviewed (four or more reviewers is not uncommon), and (as a practical matter) are more often than not shipping in a downstream repo for an extended period of time before they integrate upstream into illumos. In short, we value quality much, much more than quantity -- and what you perceive to be "low" activity I perceive to be quality activity (and as someone who very much relies on the ability to stay current and deploy into production, high commit activity would leave me nervous). In terms of hardware support, you need to be specific. Yes, there is esoteric hardware we don't support -- but we in illumos are really focused on the server-side, where there is less hardware variation than you might realize. At the moment, the biggest hardware limitations aren't in the traditional domain of CPU/NIC/HBA/flash/spindle (where we have broad support), but rather in the emerging domain of the GPGPU. And anyone who is interested in engaging in the substantial kernel work in this domain (both to make NVIDIA-based GPGPUs to work in hardware virtualized guests and to allow AMD-based GPGPUs to work natively) should consider reaching out -- Joyent is very much hiring![2] [1] http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2015/09/03/software-immaculate-fetid-and-grimy/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2015/09/03/software-immaculate-f... [2] https://www.joyent.com/about/careers https://www.joyent.com/about/careers

sintaxi 9y ago
This is worth pointing out. To me high commit activity is much more an indicator of poorly designed software than a quality project especially when a project has been focused on solving a particular problem for some time. This Solaris news is disappointing. I feel bad for those of you who have worked on this project for a significant portion of your career. Hope those who have been working on it find a good home somewhere. Bryan, do you expect this will affect the direction of SmartOS in any significant way?
- bcantrill 9y ago
  For us, with the exception of the human toil on former colleagues (which shouldn't be minimized), this is a total positive: it eliminates the Solaris confusion (which we've seen recently in Go[1]), and it gives us a new talent pool to draw into illumos. While I don't know how many will matriculate, I can say with confidence that it will be significant in terms of magnitude if not in terms of numbers. So yes, I expect it to affect the direction of SmartOS -- and very much for the better! [1] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/20603 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/20603
ssvss 9y ago
Has anyone tried to boot smartos/illumos in Xeon phi knights landing chip (not the coprocessor card). Does it work. Also how well does intel's userland network and storage libraries dpdk and spdk, work with smartos.
appleflaxen 9y ago
what is FCS? flight control system is the best candidate from reading the link (which doesn't use the acronym) and google.
- pedrow 9y ago
  I believe it's "First Customer Shipment" and it's similar to what Microsoft call RTM "Release To Manufacture". You can see it mentioned in passing at the bottom of this page : https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/solaris-10-0508-update-5-patch-bundle https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/solaris-10-0508-update-5-patc...
- Annatar 9y ago
  First customer ship. Historically it refers to a first release of a new Solaris (any Solaris) version. That version needed to pass all known regression tests and needed to be suitable for use in mission critical production environments. Any time a commit to the code base would be made, it needed to satisfy that criteria, else Jeff Bonwick (the father of ZFS, who was the gatekeeper back then) would unceremoniously rip it out. Any kind of breakage, even during normal development, was unacceptable. This engineering ethos lives on in illumos and SmartOS, which is why commits to the code base are all about quality, not quantity. The commits might not be as frequent as elsewhere, but can pack tremendous amounts of functionality and must pass both peer reviews and all kinds of regression testing, not to mention have a complete and usable documentation, before being committed. In addition to all of this, as far as I am aware, no commits to the illumos code base may be made without a corresponding tracking identifier.

sintaxi 9y ago

This is worth pointing out. To me high commit activity is much more an indicator of poorly designed software than a quality project especially when a project has been focused on solving a particular problem for some time. This Solaris news is disappointing. I feel bad for those of you who have worked on this project for a significant portion of your career. Hope those who have been working on it find a good home somewhere. Bryan, do you expect this will affect the direction of SmartOS in any significant way?

bcantrill 9y ago
For us, with the exception of the human toil on former colleagues (which shouldn't be minimized), this is a total positive: it eliminates the Solaris confusion (which we've seen recently in Go[1]), and it gives us a new talent pool to draw into illumos. While I don't know how many will matriculate, I can say with confidence that it will be significant in terms of magnitude if not in terms of numbers. So yes, I expect it to affect the direction of SmartOS -- and very much for the better! [1] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/20603 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/20603

ssvss 9y ago

Has anyone tried to boot smartos/illumos in Xeon phi knights landing chip (not the coprocessor card). Does it work. Also how well does intel's userland network and storage libraries dpdk and spdk, work with smartos.

appleflaxen 9y ago

what is FCS? flight control system is the best candidate from reading the link (which doesn't use the acronym) and google.

pedrow 9y ago
I believe it's "First Customer Shipment" and it's similar to what Microsoft call RTM "Release To Manufacture". You can see it mentioned in passing at the bottom of this page : https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/solaris-10-0508-update-5-patch-bundle https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/solaris-10-0508-update-5-patc...
Annatar 9y ago
First customer ship. Historically it refers to a first release of a new Solaris (any Solaris) version. That version needed to pass all known regression tests and needed to be suitable for use in mission critical production environments. Any time a commit to the code base would be made, it needed to satisfy that criteria, else Jeff Bonwick (the father of ZFS, who was the gatekeeper back then) would unceremoniously rip it out. Any kind of breakage, even during normal development, was unacceptable. This engineering ethos lives on in illumos and SmartOS, which is why commits to the code base are all about quality, not quantity. The commits might not be as frequent as elsewhere, but can pack tremendous amounts of functionality and must pass both peer reviews and all kinds of regression testing, not to mention have a complete and usable documentation, before being committed. In addition to all of this, as far as I am aware, no commits to the illumos code base may be made without a corresponding tracking identifier.