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LISA11 - Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos

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  • Recommended by 10 people: 9 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2013 to 2026.
  • Presented by Bryan Cantrill, Joyent
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

310K views14 years ago10 recommendations

Systems programmingHistory and cultureOperating systemsHistory of computingOpen source

Bryan Cantrill details the history of OpenSolaris, the creation of illumos, and the transition of kernel engineers following Oracle's acquisition of Sun.

Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos Bryan M. Cantrill, Joyent In August 2010, illumos, a new OpenSolaris derivative, was born. While not at the time intended to be a fork, Oracle sealed the fate of illumos when it elected to close OpenSolaris: by choosing to cease its contributions, Oracle promoted illumos from a downstream repository to the open source repository of record for such revolutionary technologies as ZFS, DTrace, and Zones. This move accelerated the diaspora of kernel engineers from the former Sun Microsystems, many of whom have landed in the illumos community, where they continue to innovate. We will discuss the history of illumos but will focus on its promising future.

Why it's here

10 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended for its engaging history of Solaris and open source, including a famous, brutally honest rant about Oracle's acquisition of Sun.

Moments people linked to

luizon Lobsters • Recommends

Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos (2011)
12View on Lobsters

Malicon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”

grin Here we go... For "laughing at ourselves" and oddities of computer languages, there is "Wat" by Gary Bernhardt: link For an opinion on the Sun to Oracle transition, there is "Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos" by Bryan M. Cantrill, Joyent. His Larry Ellison rant makes me smile: link to this video
View on Hacker News

gbrown_on Hacker News • Recommends

On “"Solaris being canned, at least 50% of teams to be RIF'd in short term"”

> not a leaked version of it. It's a fork. If you're interested how it came to be check out this epic talk by Bryan Cantrill link to this video
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antoncohenon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”

"Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos" by Bryan Cantrill link to this video He starts with a nice history of SunOS and Solaris, goes into open source, then midway through (33:00) he goes into a brutally honest rant against Oracle. Even better is that Oracle was one of the sponsors of the conference.
View on Hacker News

jiggawattson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Oracle's history highlights a possible downside to its stance on API copyrights”

Whenever I hear Oracle mentioned it reminds me that it's once again time to re-watch the "Never make the mistake of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison" rant. link to this video
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insaneirishon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Linux Performance Analysis and Tools”

DTrace was deliberately licensed in a way to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. This was commented on directly by Bryan Cantrill on HN 1. You should also watch his "Fork Yeah!" 2 and "Corporate Open Source Anti-Patterns" 3 talks for full context. 1: link 2: link to this video 3: link
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TazeTSchnitzelon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice”

Oracle killed OpenSolaris. They literally moved Solaris back to being closed-source. With no justification, even, beyond Oracle not liking open-source. Undoing the massive amount of work the Solaris team made in order to open-source it in the first place. There's no more source code releases for Solaris now. Unsurprisingly, almost all the core Solaris team walked. This talk is informative: link to this video
View on Hacker News

richard_toddon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The sudden death and eternal life of Solaris”

If you are interested, this talk says a lot about what was cool about Solaris, its place in history, the troubles it encountered, and what was wrong with Oracle's approach, leading to little-known open-source forks. link to this video (entitled: Fork yeah! The rise and development of Illumos)
View on Hacker News

TAForObvReasonson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company”

The great Scott McNealy quote about Sun really resonated with me: > We kicked butt, had fun, didn't cheat, loved our customers and changed computing forever ... and in many ways, it seems like only a "lifestyle business" can really prioritize those over core revenue and growth metrics. Bryan Cantrill's discussion is also great: link to this video
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Sammion Hacker News • Recommends

On “Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding”

You need to listen to what Bryan Cantrill said about his experience at Oracle, before you go there. > What you think of Oracle is even truer than what you think it is: "Shit mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money" link to this video > You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle. link to this video
View on Hacker News

bcantrillon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"”

It depends on what you mean by "significantly diverge." If you mean "innovate", then yes -- absolutely. We already have tons of evidence of differentiated innovation in illumos123 -- none of which can be brought back into Solaris.4 1 link 2 link 3 link 4 link to this video
View on Hacker News

yjftsjthsd-hon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Oracle Wins Bid for TikTok in U.S.”

> (that may be a bit too cynical) "You actually don't need to be open-minded about Oracle, you are wasting the openness of your mind ... As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle." - Bryan Cantrill, link to this video
View on Hacker News

yakubinon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Googlespeak – How Google limits thought about antitrust”

> Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is going to tell their employees not to say, "our goal is to crush our competitors, dominate the market, and hear the lamentation of their women." Instead they will tell their employees to focus on making life better for their customers. The lawn mower would like to have a word with you: < link to this video >
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jnsaff2on Hacker News • Mentions

On “After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant finally relieved”

…e days, nothing has changed, russians have zero regard for civilians, nuclear power plants are being endangered with shelling, maternity wards are being bombed, bread lines are bombed. Post-soviet mafia does not care about anything but their own kleptocracy and looting. Every time I think about this I get reminded the Fork Yeah! talk by bcantrill. link to this video "An open mind is completely wasted on russians" "The lawnmower does not care"…
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favoritedon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Oracle is targeting users on Java compliance”

Bryan Cantrill's immortal advice about dealing with Oracle: "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." link to this video
View on Hacker News

Terr_on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Oracle Java police start knocking on Fortune 200's doors for first time”

…hropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just doesn't--like, mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think "Oh, the lawnmower hates me"--lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle. -- Brian Cantrill: link to this video…
View on Hacker News