Indiana

The proverbial cat is out of the bag now, and the Indiana project has released something.

I downloaded it last night and installed it in Fusion and Parallels. The installer is still pretty braindead, but I'm sure it'll improve to have options eventually. It is alpha after all.

I ran in to a weird bug where I haven't managed to coerce it in to letting me log in, so aside from that I haven't had a chance to fiddle enough to pass judgement on it.

It unfortunately had to come with what I perceive to be a slap in the face to the OpenSolaris community, when it was pronounced from on high that it shall be called OpenSolaris to the exclusion of all others.

This really gets my goat, so to speak (I'm rocking the animal metaphors today I guess) I don't particularly agree with the name change to begin with. I think OpenSolaris can exist as a noun in and of itself much as Linux does today, or as Joerg put it, like a screwdriver that you build things with, and not a particular screwdriver.

Ian's ranting about being confused how to download "OpenSolaris" notwithstanding (it being nothing but pure rhetoric to serve a purpose anyways), I think the target audience is intelligent and well-accustomed to the idea of distributions by now that calling OpenSolaris a codebase and nothing more isn't a real issue.

The slap in the face part comes primarily from the way that the name was chosen. Had there been a vote which suggested that Indiana be called OpenSolaris, then fine, fair enough. In this case however, the name came from executive fiat from Murdock quite aside from how the community feels about the issue.

Fortunately the OGB seems to have collectively grown a pair (individual members have been outspoken already. They're good.) and seem to be seriously discussing condemning this action by Murdock and the rest of the marketing crew and imploring Sun to hold a vote on the matter, which is something I support 100%.

So, in conclusion
Congrats to the indiana team for pushing something out the door. The marketing team's actions aren't your fault.