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By qyjohn, November 1, 2008 11:51 pm

On the afternoon of November 1st I attended the 3rd salon of the Chengdu OpenSolaris User Group (CDOSUG). The salon was held in a recreation room at Southwest Jiaotong University. Below are some of the pictures I took when walking through the campus.

What a vibrant community!

What’s special about this picture? Yes the girls are nice looking. But do you notice that 4 of them held a cell phone in his/her hand? Actually the 5th guy was also holding a cell phone but that was not seen in this photo. This is indeed a hugh market.

I actually talked to these pretty little girls. They were freshmen of this campus. Similarly, each of them had a cell phone, much more beautiful than mine.

The OpenSolaris User Group meeting was held in this building. The big sign on the top says “Southwest Jiaotong University, Workers Union Club”, and the fancy one on the ground says “Minority Flavor Entertaiment Club”.

On this fancy sign there was an A4 size paper.  It says “Welcome to the salon of Chengdu OpenSolaris User Group”.

Following that small sign we went upstairs, and that was the CDOSUG meeting. About 20 people joint the meeting, half of them were professional developers, and half of them were students. It was interesting that the students automatically sat on one side of the room, and the professional developers on the other side — they actually didn’t know each other before. The meeting started at 2:30 PM, with people introducing themselves. Rita (in the middle) then gave a 30-minute talk on various features of OpenSolaris 2008.05, followed by long discussion among the participants. At about 4:30 PM, I did a 20-minute demo with Sun SPOT. After that we became unconferenced again. The discussion went on until people became hungary — that was almost 6:00 PM.

At the end of the meeting, people agreed that they would like to come again next month. We also identified two speakers from the participants for our next meeting. One of them will talk about their view and practice in the open source space, and the other will talk about Sun Cluster. None of them are affliated with Sun except through our product and technologies.

In a word, I like this.

Comments (2)

By qyjohn, September 30, 2008 8:43 pm

(中文版本)

The Linux folks seems to be pretty active recently.

On July 15, on the public Linux kernel maillist, Linus Torvalds described the OpenBSD crowd as “a bunch of masterbating monkeys” regarding their concentration on security issues. On September 17, during his keynote presentation on the Linux Plumbers Conference 2008, Greg Kroah criticized Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, for not contributing back to the Linux community. Then, on September 24, in an article published on InfoWorld (which was “accidentally reprinted” on the New York Times), Jim Zemlin (Executive Director of the Linux Foundation) declared that “the future (OS) is Linux and Windows” and “Sun Solaris is on its deathbed”.

When was the last time the Linux folks became so aggressive, launching warfares against other members in the open source movement, and brothers and sisters in the Linux ecosystem as well?

I am not extremely interested in why the Linus Torvalds / Jim Zemlin attacked OpenBSD and Solaris. Linux is not Unix, but competitors of Unix. Therefore it is understandable for Jim Zemlin to denounce ZFS and DTrace on Solaris while Ted Tso (the Linux Foundation’s Chief Platform Strategist) wants them in the Linux kernel. After all, the platinum members of the Linux Foundation include Sun’s business opponents like HP, IBM, Oracle, and Novell. Despite the fact that Sun did not do well financially in recent years, the Solaris operating system still has the largest installed-base among all commercial Unix/Linux distributions. Three years after Sun unveiled the OpenSolaris project (in 2005), there have been tremendous interests coming from people previously using Lunix, and the adoption of OpenSolaris as a development desktop is accelerating. The assertion that “Solaris is on its deathbed” while its market share is growing can only be explained as a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) strategy, which was learned by Jim Zemlin from Microsoft only recently.

But why Greg Kroah set fire on Canonical? Isn’t Ubuntu a brother or sister of the Linux family?

“Companies who rely on Linux must contribute, or they are at the whim of others.” Just like a father reproaching his naughty child, Greg Kroah kindly advised “developers who are not allowed to contribute to Linux should change jobs”. To support his argument, Greg Kroah provided a ranking of the companies contributing to the Linux kernel during the past 3 years. Among all 99,324 patches, Canonical ranked number 79 with 100 patches, while Novell (Greg Kroah’s employer) ranked number 5 with 7222 patches. Well, Greg Kroah forgot the fact that Canonnical has only 130 paid employees, while Novell has about 4100 (Redhat has 2200). Also Suse Linux has been around since 1994, while Ubuntu, since 2004.

It is difficult to know how many employees belongs to engineering or marketing / sales in a company, even more difficult to identify the number of kernel developers or desktop developers. Therefore, it might be fair to measure a company’s contribute to a certain area with the average contribution per employee. Based on the data provided by Greg Kroah, we can compare the average contribution from Redhat, Novell and Canonical to the Linux kernel, as below:

Redhat: 11846/2200 = 5.38
Novell: 7222/4100 = 1.76
Canonical: 100/130 = 0.77

Clearly the average contribution from Canonical employees to the Linux kernel is relatively small, but still on the same scale as that of Novell. Redhat is obviously the most outstanding contributor, its average contribution is 3 times as big as that of Novell. Considering the fact that in recent years Redhat and Novell invest heavily on server-side technologies, which has a lot to do with the Linux kernel, it is reasonable that they contribute more to the Linux kernel. Canonical as a startup that focuses on desktop, might has less contact with the Linux kernel, therefore not being able to contribute more. Nonetherless, the data provided in Greg Kroah’s presentation was extremely misleading, and unfair for Canonical.

Free software, as defined by Richard Stallman, has four degrees of freedom.

• Freedom Zero is the freedom to run the program however you wish.
• Freedom One is the freedom to study the source code of the program and to change it to make the program do what you wish.
• Freedom Two is the freedom to distribute copies of the program to others, when you wish. Now this includes republication of the program.
• And Freedom Three is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others when you wish, and this also includes publication if that’s how far you wish to go.

So, as long as Canonical publishes their source code, they are using GNU/Linux in a legitimate way. And Canonical does exactly that. Should we require Canonical to grow the moral responsibility to put back their modifications to upstream projects, then we are giving Canonical free as “free lunch” rather than “freedom”.

If we continue to explore whether Canonical should contribute more to the Linux community then we are missing the point. During the past years both Redhat and Novell have invested significantly on server-side technologies, with the belief that server-side deals will be the future of the open source economy. However, Ubuntu is gaining market share by providing a user-friendly desktop to entry-level and medium-level developers. The contribution of Canonical to the Linux community lies not in the lines of code or number of patches to the Linux kernel, glibc, or X.org. Rather, it lies in the number of people being influenced by Ubuntu and switch (or consider to switch) from Windows to Linux. By offering free CD’s to anybody who are interested, Ubuntu not only wins users from those who previously use Windows, but also from territories traditionally occupied by Redhat and Novell.

The open source movement today is quite different from what it was 10 years ago. As pointed out by Greg Kroah, most of the components that we see in a Linux distribution — just like the Linux kernel, glibc, gcc, X.org, binutils and others — are maintained and patched by paid developers hired by commercial companies rather than amateur developers. Unlike non-profit organizations or amateur individuals, commercial companies invest in open source projects for financial returns rather than an elevation in morality. (Otherwise there wouldn’t be the notorious Novell-Microsoft deal in 2006.) The above-mentioned financial returns can be in the form of a better public relationship (corporate branding), a higher market share, or more directly, more revenue. In the past Novell — along with a couple of other mainstream distributions — controlled the majority of the Linux market, leaving the rest to other minor Linux distributions. When Ubuntu joined the game in 2004, although the total number of people using Linux is increasing, both Redhat and Novell are losing market share to Canonical. Canonical is offering enterprise-class support services for Ubuntu users with a price tag that is more expensive than that for Windows Vista. The fact that there are companies buying these services makes companies like Novell even more unhappy.

Mr. Canonical, you are an outsider of the Linux community (because you contribute very little). It is OK for you to earn a little bit money from Linux. But, if you are earning too much from our work, then it is too much.

This is exactly the kind of Linux ecosystem that is being destroyed by Canonical with Ubuntu.

More and more companies have realized that open source can be a strong weapon for technology adoption. When OpenSolaris joined the competition, developers have one more option along with Linux and BSD. New companies like Canonical also managed to grab business opportunities with products like Ubuntu. The competition in the operating system market will be a lot more violent, rather than Windows (desktop) and Linux (server side) share the market peacefully. What we are seeing today is only a prelude to the Linux crusade, and we should be well prepared for more eventful warfares.

(PS. Although the author works for Sun Microsystems, the opinions conveyed in this blog entry does not represent the point of view from his employer.)

Comments (4)

By qyjohn, September 25, 2008 11:48 am

Sin-Yaw, your blog title is a little bit misleading. 44% pay increase? I was about to say congratulations, and then I hit the URL you quoted. Oh my…

During the past 12 months, Jonathan Schwartz’s salary increased by 44%, while our stock price decreased by over 60%.  These are really great numbers.

I am still working for Sun, so I can’t commend on our current CEO. However, this makes me recall something Sin-Yaw told us in a meeting: a talent can do good no matter where he/she is, even if the company is going downwards… (Was that a “how to become a staff engineer” meeting? I think I called for that meeting for our engineers.)

And Jonathan Schwartz just proved it.

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By qyjohn, September 7, 2008 4:37 am

The last number you want to call during travel is — yes, medical assistance. Well, there are times that you have to do this, just like today.

The story is, today, we went to the Budapest Zoo for the third time, and had a lot of fun with the lovely animals, until our little daughter got a bite on her right index finger from a prairie dog. It was about 6 o’clock in the afternoon. After feeding the goats and camals, we headed for the exit. Then we saw the prairie dogs on the road side that were being kept in the open air, enclosed by some relatively low glass fencies. They looked so lovely that we stopped to take a closer look, and the little one put her fingers over the glass fency to make some amusement. One of the prairie dogs became interested in her fingers, thinking that fresh food was coming. The little one decided to touch its head, but ended up with a cry that scared the animal away, and her right index finger bleeding.

We rushed to the tap water, washed the wound carefully, and squeezed out the dirty blood. We were not able to find a first aid kit at the zoo, so I wrapped her finger with some clean paper towel. We rushed back to the hotel via Metro, washed once more with soap, and got a bandage from the front desk. Following the front desk’s advice, we went to a pharmacy nearby to seek medical assistance. However, they were only able to administer Betadine (an antibiotic disinfection solution). We then went back to the hotel, found our Europ Assistance card, and dialed the emergency number. A lady in Shanghai (yes, back in China) picked up the phone, and we exchanged some basic information. About 20 minutes later, their agency in Budapest gave me a call, notifying me that a doctor will be coming soon. We waited for another 30 minutes, got another call from the hospital, telling me that they are sending an ambulence to bring us to the hospital. 10 minutes later, we were in an ambulence, with two emergency workers.

We went to a doctor station nearby. The doctor inspected the injury, and recommended us to the children’s hospital. At the children’s hospital, the doctor inspected the injury again, wash the finger with some brown color disinfection solution, determined that it was an epidermal injury, and wrapped it up again. Then they made a call with the zoo, confirmed that the prairie dogs have been properly immune, and reached the conclusion that no further treatment was needed. After paying 7,000 Hungarian Forints at the hospital, we went back to the hotel, where I paid another 15,000 Hungarian Forints (tips included) to the emergency workers. So, the total expense was 23,000 Hungarian Forints, a little bit less than 100 Euro’s.

The little one was crying in the zoo, and remained upset on our way back to the hotel. She felt aleep when we were heading for the pharmacy. When we were waiting for the ambulence we had some food and some fruits, which make her happy again. It is worth mentioning that she was extremely excited in the ambulence, laughing and singing all the way to the children’s hospital — while I was asking the emergency workers many questions in nervous.

So, we were back to the hotel room. The little one got her teeth brushed, and got a shower. After that she demanded a very very long story, which was satisfied. Now, she is sleeping, with a smile on her face.

Comments (1)

By qyjohn, July 29, 2008 9:37 am

Many people are interested in what are prohibited during the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Well, below is a list of the things that I know of.

First, the mailing of dangerous packages are prohibited at China Posts. In theory, you can mail anything that can be recognized and determined to be safe by the attendants at the post office. In practice, you can’t mail anything that can not be recognized and determined to be safe by the attendants at the post office. I myself tried to send a book with a CD from the post office at Tsinghua University, and was denied service because the attendant was not able to determine whether the CD inside the book was safe or not. During this special period you can’t mail packages containing solid, liquid, or gas. This policy knocks down the e-business across China, because you can’t deliver any orders by China Posts.

If your air conditioner or refrigerator is not working, you can still call the service company, but they will have difficulty in coming to provide meaningful service. To service an air conditioner or a refrigerator, the service workers need to carry with them some necessary chemicals which are now prohibited in all public transportations. Unless they are driving their own Benz-Mercediz to your apartment, your air conditioner or refrigerator will have to remain shut down during the summer.

Strictly speaking moving is not prohibited during the game. However, trucks are prohibited in Beijing from July to September. So, the moving companies are now out of business. This is also true for the renovation companies. Starting from July 15, all residents in Beijing are required to terminate their renovation work, and renovation workers are prohibited to enter residences from July 20.

Canine-based cuisine is also prohibited during the game. All local hotels and restaurants have been told by the municipal food safety office to stop serving dog meat to both foreigners and local residents. For an ordinary Chinese person like me, we might accept the idea that animals also have animal rights, but they will certain have difficulties in understanding why dogs are superior to cows, pigs, and chickens. So, there have been suggestions that local government should also respect the muslims, or even the vegetarians.

Peking University is one of the most esteemed advance education institutes in China. Many people would like to visit its beautiful campus while in Beijing but obviously they are going to have bad lucks. At the entrance a guard will politely stop you, ask for your purpose of visit, and inform you that you will need an internal “sponsor” to escort you through out the trip. What? You don’t know of anybody working at Peking University? They can do you a favor by allowing you to have a quick peek at the gate, but don’t assume that they will be kind enough to let you sneak in.

Many gyms and dancing clubs that I know of have been ordered to shutdown because of safety concerns. Gyms are dangerous because the exercise equipment can be used as lethal weapons. Dancing clubs are dangerous because terrorists can easily launch an attack in a dark and noisy environment. After several bus booming accidents in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Kunming, the whole country are scared, just like the US after 911. Don’t go to places where there are a lot of people — this is what the residents in Beijing are told (implicitly).

Human beings are not the only species subjected to these strict policies. Weather armies are now ready to shoot down any rain clouds approaching Beijing, causing unusual precipitation in adjacent areas. Peonies in the city of Luoyang, as well as chrysanthemums in Beijing, are prohibited to bloom in season. Rather, they are instructed to bloom around the game, outside of their ordinary biological life cycle. Many Chinese people are familiar with the female emperor Wu Zhetian in the Tang Dynasty. To celebrate her birthday she ordered flowers of all species to bloom on the same day. However, the peonies refused because that was not the right time for them to bloom. As a result, the peonies were exciled to Luoyang. For thousands of years, the peonies have been a symbol of free spirit that does not surrender to authorities. However, in 2008, for the so-called Beijing Olympics, the lovely peonies finaly lost their dignity.

You might ask, what else are prohibited during this ridiculous Beijing 2008 Olympics? Well, why don’t you try Google for a complete list? I myself actually did that and obtained the answer: according to local laws and policies, some of the search results can not be displayed (据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。).