August 7th, 2007
Morton: no merging of OpenSolaris with Linux
Don’t expect to see key features of OpenSolaris showing up in the Linux kernel, said a top Linux maintainer.
At his LinuxWorld opening keynote, Andrew Morton made it very clear that the appointment of former OSDL CTO and Debian co-founder Ian Murdock to Sun’s OS platforms organization will not translate into a merging between the open source version of Solaris Unix with Linux.
He didn’t mince words. “It’s a great shame that OpenSolaris still exists. They should have killed it,” said Morton, addressing one attendee’s question about the possibility of Solaris’ most notable features being integrated into the kernel. “It’s a disappointment and a mistake by Sun.”
Morton said none of those features — Zones, ZFS or DTrace — will end up in the Linux kernel because Sun refuses to adopt the GPL. The ZFS license is incompatible with with the GPL and SystemTAP — with a little bit of work — will do everything Sun’s DTrace can do, Morton said.
He also said he hasn’t seen much use of Sun’s OpenSolaris. “From where I sit, I don’t hear much about it and and don’t hear about anyone considering it seriously.”
Perhaps Sun’s Project Indiana may change his mind. Perhaps not.
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for almost two decades. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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