Farewell To OpenSolaris. Oracle Just Killed It Off.

[kraftman]

Is it just me, or does this seem to be headed for "My mum is better than your mum" or "Your mum is a slag!" kinda dialog.

You both probably have a point! :> However, it was explained many times to Kebabbert he won't prove what he's claiming, but he continues from some obvious reasons.

[kraftman]

So what? The Linux scaling EXPERTS say that 16 cores is good scaling. In the interview, the EXPERTS try to dispel all the Unix vendors FUD that Linux scales bad. They say "Linux scales good, contrary to all the FUD, in v2.6 Linux will scale to 16 cores!". What does that prove to you?
-Hey! Dont come here lying about Linus scaling bad! It scales excellent, in v2.6 it will scale to 16 cores! You hear me? SIXTEEN CORES! Now THAT rocks! Gosh! Ok, stop telling everyone that Linux scales bad, because it is only FUD! Google uses Linux on their 10.000 pc network cluster. Linux scales excellent! You are a FUDer! Shut up!

Oh damn. 2.6 is eight year old. As a troll and a FUDer you're ignoring this. What does it proves me? It proves you're an idiot.

In one word: Ridiculous. It doesnt matter if this discussion is eight years old, it only shows the Linux SCALING EXPERT's attitude. They claim Linux scales to 10.000 computers, and at the same time they say Linux scales to 16 cores - which is excellent scaling!!! Of course Linux scales better today. It may even scale to... 32 cores? I dont know. When Linux scaling experts today say that Linux scales excellent, they probably mean it scales to 32 cores today. But the step from 16 cores to 4096 cpus, is... quite a big step and not very likely? IBM highend Unix AIX does not scale well even today, after decades. It takes decades to scale well. And the developers need to have access to big machines. Linux developers mostly use 1-2 cpus with quad cores. I really do think Linux are fastest on such desktops, faster than Solaris. But they typically dont have access to large machines, and can not tune Linux to such machines.

How it's possible you don't know Linux scales to 32 cores while you show paper where it scaled to 48cores and I showed you it scaled linearly up to 64 cores? Idiot? :>

You know what kind of servers are expensive? The servers with high RAS are expensive. You pay for RAS. Not performance. Performance is not expensive. IBM Mainframes are dog slow cpu wise, but have very good RAS. That is the reason IBM Mainframes are shitload expensive. Wrong again.

What's wrong here? Like stated hardware can limit operating system to achieve more utilization.

And, Linux machine used faster RAM sticks and faster CPU. The reason Linux machine did not use 256GB RAM, but instead went for the lower 128GB RAM, is because if Linux went for 256GB, then Linux must use much slower RAM sticks. I have written this many times. But you just ignore it. SAP benchmark does not require 256GB RAM, because then Linux would go for 256GB RAM as well.

And, Solaris machine used more RAM, different hardware and database. Where did you get those revelations about RAM sticks from? It doesn't change the thing if SAP benchmark requires 256GB RAM, but it can have influence on scalability.

If you wish, I can mail SAP technical support and ask how many GB RAM is required to complete SAP benchmark. Maybe it is 8GB RAM? Or even 12GB? Or maybe it is better that you do it. Because when I show you the answer from SAP, you will just say "lies, it is FUD, it is Sun propaganda".

Will that mean scalability isn't affected by amount of RAM? Sounds ridiculous.

The SAS benchmark simulates many users that log on and do some simple tasks. This work load is easy to parallellize. Just like SETI client. And the work load has very low CPU utilization. This is a workload which is not taxing nor demanding. Any OS could handle this work load. For instance, let 5 independent users be assigned to one core. When there are 10 users, assing two cores. etc. Does this work load sound challenging to you? Does it sound like hard to parallellize? Do you think SETI is hard to parallellize?

I think you're trying to undermine SAS benchmark which shows Linux reached 95% of CPU utilization, scaled wonderfully and it didn't even reach higher utilization, because of hardware limitations. I wonder if any OS could handle this workload and I wonder Solaris could reach 95% of CPU utilization on a 64 core machine. :>

We had this discussion before and llama wrote about scalability and work loads that are hard to scale (SAS benchmark is not hard to scale). You was in this thread, but still you ignore it.

http://phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=62703&postcount=80

"We're not talking about clusters. We're talking about single system-image big iron, where _one_ kernel runs on a single machine with > 16 CPUs in a cache-coherent shared-memory system. The most cost-effective machines for cluster-building, in CPU power per dollar, are dual-socket quad core Intel Core2-based machines. i.e. 8 cores per node. That's great if you have a workload that has some coarse-grained parallelism, or is embarrassingly parallel, e.g. processing 100 separate data sets with single-thread processes that don't depend on each other. That's not so great if you have a lot of processes that need fine-grained access to the same shared resource. The canonical example here is a database server handling a database with a significant amount of write accesses. Otherwise you could just replicate it to a big cluster and spread the read load around. Locking for write access in a big cluster, even with low latency interconnects like infiniband, is still _way_ higher overhead than you'd get in e.g. a 4 or 8 socket quad-core machine. Even NUMA big iron is better suited for this than a cluster.

I'm failing to see how this 64 core machine isn't a single system-image big iron, where _one_ kernel runs on a single machine. I also don't understand why did you paste this. How is it related? Pasting more and more text won't help you in any way.

CLUSTERS DON'T COUNT AS BIG IRON. They're just a pile of normal machines. They do have their uses, though."

It's funny you're jumping at clusters right now.

And you also ignore this:
http://phoronix.com/forums/showpost....2&postcount=54

Some fanboy talk?

I showed my post with all research papers several times to you. And each time you denied they exists, that I FUD and lie. And you ask me to post research papers, otherwise I FUD and lie. And I post them, and you still say I FUD and lie:

http://phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=140667&postcount=149

But I said the paper was there all the time.

http://phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=141010&postcount=163

In short I have proved you FUD and lie about me. The paper and the rest of the research papers are there. You just deny them. Obviously, you are trolling, Kraftman. Just as usual. You also confessed you FUD, Kraftman, in a post. Here I show you lie and FUD about me, and about Solaris. Earlier you confess you FUD. this is fun. How much longer will you claim that it is kebabbert that FUDs? I have showed links and papers and research papers, and links to Linux kernel developers. There is no lies there, nor FUD. You are quite stubborn. Dont understand when you have lost a battle. Sure, continue to say that Solaris scales to 64 cpus, but that is not true. Continue to say that I did not post research papers, that is also not true. etc.

You showed some crap, unrelated papers and you spread the FUD. It doesn't matter if you showed some crap and unrelated papers. It's such simple.

Of course Solaris does not scale. You have explained to us that 128 cpu Solaris machines such as this:

http://news.cnet.com/Fujitsu-to-debut-128-CPU-server/2100-1001_3-269806.html

does not exist. That we lie and FUD. And also, the Solaris machine with 144 cpus also doesnt exist. That is also FUD and lies. We are just a bunch of FUDers and liars everyone of us.

I think you should say that Solaris scales to 16 cpus, that is a much lower than 64 cpus. Why do you say Solaris scale to 64 cpus? If you are going to FUD about Solaris, at least FUD properly. Say Solaris scales to 16 cpus instead of 64 cpus.

I explained this, but you're ignoring this as a troll like usual. How many times I have to repeat what I said to such troll accept this? The whole point is you're basing on two different SAP benchmarks and you want me to believe Solaris scales better. This is damn stupid.

[nanonyme]

You both probably have a point! :> However, it was explained many times to Kebabbert he won't prove what he's claiming, but he continues from some obvious reasons.

And you continue fueling the debate for other obvious reasons.
You really can't win an argument on the Internet. Even if you don't end up losing, you've still wasted a lot of time on something completely useless. ^^

[nanonyme]

Or more graphically http://xkcd.com/386/

[jadrevenge]

which is better, the phrase "You're both right", or the phrase "You're both wrong" ?

[nanonyme]

which is better, the phrase "You're both right", or the phrase "You're both wrong" ?

More along the lines of "you are both right and you're both going to lose if you continue this argument".

[kraftman]

Or more graphically http://xkcd.com/386/

You're both are right. Time to rest.

[PGHammer]

Dangerous Teachings

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

OpenSolaris is once.

If they repeat this pattern anywhere else in their currently-open-source lineup, I'm going to prod my FSF contacts (I'm a card-carrying member) to scrounge up some campaign funds to resume the "Java Trap" campaign and to advocate KOffice or AbiWord to replace OO.o, and Postgres to replace MySQL. I might even donate specifically for that cause.

The real problem out of the above, though, is Java.

If Java turns into an "IP base" that Oracle uses for suing companies over patents that they own on Java, this is going to hurt a lot more people than the sum total of losing OpenOffice, MySQL, and OpenSolaris.

1. Java is the language taught to beginning computer science and computer engineering students in accredited public and private universities across the U.S. Java is often used as the "gold standard" language when professors are trying to teach students a particular programming concept or system concept that is language-agnostic, because they know that the syntax of the language will not get in the way of students' understanding of the salient points.

Java was a safe bet under Sun -- especially in the years after they open sourced their own JDK. Now, is teaching Java in universities going to be as dangerous as teaching Microsoft C++ (using C++ primarily backed by the Windows API) or Delphi, or Cocoa/Obj-C?

The problem with teaching "closed" platforms to students is that they imprint on the first thing they learn, and they always end up going back to that when they are given a choice of what language to implement something in. So it biases students on using a particular platform. This is not really a problem if the platform is cross-platform and patent-free (like standard C++, or ANSI C, or GLib/GNOME/GTK+), but if the platform is closed, this means that the apps of the future will be written for a closed platform, too, which regresses the goals of the Free Software movement significantly.

2. There are an enormous amount of deployed lines of Java application code, ranging from the system level to middleware, to desktop apps, games, and web apps. Java ME is used extensively for all sorts of applications on mobile platforms. It appears where you least expect it. And it runs on umpteen different JVMs, many of them not licensed explicitly with a monetized agreement with Snoracle -- some of them are even Free Software, like GCJ/Classpath and Harmony. Are the users of apps that run on these JVMs, and the developers of these JVMs, vulnerable to Java patent lawsuits?

3. There aren't really any other languages that you can port Java programs to without much effort. The closest language neighbor to Java is probably C#. The ironic part is that Microsoft has been a better open source citizen about the .NET platform (at least as far as patents are concerned), because they made a "promise" that they won't sue Mono, or even more generally, some other unrelated project that just aims to follow in Microsoft's footsteps and re-implement .NET for any reason. But it is valid to doubt Microsoft's intentions on this, and to think that they might not cover some particular implementation detail under their promise if they really want to sue you. Therefore, Java developers who want to work with a very similar language (syntactically and library-semantically) are stuck going with the next nearest neighbor, which is probably Qt4/C++. But then you've got pointers and stack-allocated objects; Java kids have an allergic reaction to both of these.

TL;DR: Java filled an important hole in the educational and commercial segments, providing a useful Virtual Machine + JIT + static typing runtime, cross-platform, royalty-free, while happily allowing others to re-implement any part of the Java technology stack. Even Richard Stallman -- the most wary evil-corporation-doubter I know of -- had begun to have faith in this platform after Sun opened up the JDK. Now, under ownership of a bunch of absolute idiots who think they can foil our techno-cultural movement and make a cool buck while they're at it, we have reason to doubt whether Java is still a safe bet.

This is more than a sad day for (Open)Solaris. This is a sad day for Free Software.

My opinion is that we should give Oracle one more chance to f*** up. If they pull this stunt on any other piece of software, it's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum. Until then, I'm willing to let this slide, attributing it to mismanagement during the Sun transition. This news, by itself, isn't the end of the world for the vast majority of the people, who don't use (Open)Solaris. But it might be the harbinger of a dangerous precedent within Oracle. If that turns out to be true, then it's time for Free Software and Open Source advocates alike to inject renewed energy into the bazaar development model, and replace all software we depend on that is primarily copyright-attributed to Oracle, GPL or otherwise.

Teaching C++ *used* to be dangerous; however, that was only in the period between the death of the old "Learning C++" (Microsoft Academic) package and the birth of Visual Studio Express (which included C++ from the beginning). That period was less than two years in length. Today, Visual Studio Express has expanded to cover *all* of Microsoft's non-SQL-based programming languages (an Express version of SQL Server itself is also available). Further, Microsoft has *lowered* the requirements of their development tool add-ons (including that for Windows Phone) to Visual Studio Express (from Visual Studio Professional). Further, the runtime-distribution problem has been solved - via the use of Windows Update/Microsoft Update, in most cases, developers (especially small or student developers) no longer have to *fatten* their code with truckloads of runtimes - just include the runtimes used in developing the original application (WU/MU on the target platform handles the rest). Can this be extended to non-Windows development? Rather easily (in fact, I know of no Linux distribution, or even BSD distribution, that lacks an updating method), so using Moonlight/Mono .NET is feasible.

Lastly, you don't even have to be a student - Visual Studio Express Editions are available, in over sixty languages, to most of the planet, for only the cost of storage and bandwidth. (In short, it's a download away.) While Oracle (and to a large extent, IBM) are trying to monetize all their IP, Microsoft, which had often been accused of it, is actually loosening the apron strings. Is Microsoft the anti-Oracle?

[jadrevenge]

Teaching C++ *used* to be dangerous; however, that was only in the period between the death of the old "Learning C++" (Microsoft Academic) package and the birth of Visual Studio Express (which included C++ from the beginning). That period was less than two years in length. Today, Visual Studio Express has expanded to cover *all* of Microsoft's non-SQL-based programming languages (an Express version of SQL Server itself is also available). Further, Microsoft has *lowered* the requirements of their development tool add-ons (including that for Windows Phone) to Visual Studio Express (from Visual Studio Professional). Further, the runtime-distribution problem has been solved - via the use of Windows Update/Microsoft Update, in most cases, developers (especially small or student developers) no longer have to *fatten* their code with truckloads of runtimes - just include the runtimes used in developing the original application (WU/MU on the target platform handles the rest). Can this be extended to non-Windows development? Rather easily (in fact, I know of no Linux distribution, or even BSD distribution, that lacks an updating method), so using Moonlight/Mono .NET is feasible.

Lastly, you don't even have to be a student - Visual Studio Express Editions are available, in over sixty languages, to most of the planet, for only the cost of storage and bandwidth. (In short, it's a download away.) While Oracle (and to a large extent, IBM) are trying to monetize all their IP, Microsoft, which had often been accused of it, is actually loosening the apron strings. Is Microsoft the anti-Oracle?

Umm ... you do realise that this forum is for Solaris-philes and Solaris-haters, and I guess between us we all pretty much hate windows, or developing on it ...

[PGHammer]

My Feelings on Solaris

Umm ... you do realise that this forum is for Solaris-philes and Solaris-haters, and I guess between us we all pretty much hate windows, or developing on it ...

I actually like Solaris (and had been a long-time user of OpenSolaris) as a testing/education platform; Sun's licensing program (especially for Solaris on Intel, and later for OpenSolaris) made self-paced learning on Solaris worthwhile (Solaris in particular has a solid niche in the financial-services industry; particularly banks and credit unions). However, given Larry Ellison, even I could see the writing on the wall after Oracle's acquisition of Sun.

I was speaking in terms of *development* (and development languages); thus my referring to Mono/Moonlight and alternatives to Java (which is also Oracle-owned), as opposed to operating systems/distributions.