Linux is just one part of the complete operating system

How does the Linux distribution model work?



People often refer to Linux as a single platform and a complete operating

system, but its not that. Its just one part of the complete operating system.

The role of Linux distribution is to take the Linux kernel, and aggregate and

integrate other open source technologies around it to form the platform that

forms the operating system. So, a pool of open source technologiesLinux,

Apache, Gnome and various distributionsare aggregating together.

Now the problem is that they are pooling from the same technology at

different times, they are adding their own patches. At the end of the day, they

are all competing with each other, they have to differentiate from each other,

and they do things differently. The popular conception of Linux as the single

platform has not actually matched the reality and there is a bunch of different

platforms which are compatible with each other but different in some important

ways.

How would you differentiate Solaris from OpenSolaris?



To the point of Linux not being one platform but many, the problem is that

it looks like a good thing which means you have a lot of choiceone Linux and

you have a whole lot of favors around it; but the thing that drives a platform

is the ecosystem that you can build around it.

With OpenSolaris, we can consume open source applications and participate in

those communities and make them fully integrated with the Solaris platform. But

think about ISVs, packaged applications; if you look at Linux, even if there is

a lot of different choices in terms of distribution, ISVs support just two of

them.

Basically, we have one Solaris-one technology, and we think of it as an

ongoing stream of innovation in software and operating systems and we have two

release cycles on top of that.

Where do you see all this heading?



We were late to the game and its more accurate to say that we have returned

to our roots. For twenty-five years, Sun has been about open standards, we had

too much success in the nineties and forgot some of those things. So, you are

going to see more things like OpenSolaris reaching new markets, and more things

like MySQL.

Prasad Ramasubramanian/CyberMedia News



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