[illumos-Discuss] Questions

[Garrett D'Amore]

On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 22:23 +1000, Alexander Cox wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I've been following the mailing lists and just would like to get
> something clarified. I noticed that Garrett has stated that Illumos
> will have full ABI compatibility with Solaris. With the latest leak of
> Orcale's plans, will this continue to be true? Also will Illumos be
> fully POSIX compliant? Is there any chance that Oracle will break
> compatibility with Solaris 10 in Solaris 11?
> 
> I think it's great that this community has been formed/relocated, and
> I'm looking forward to see how things pan out.

I expect we will continue to be ABI compatible with Solaris, unless
Oracle breaks that compatibility with itself.

There are already some incompatible changes, but for the most part, the
intent is that the vast majority of applications that work on Solaris 10
and earlier will work on Solaris 11.

Of course, Oracle *could* change its mind and direction here.  Whether
or not that actually happens only time will tell.

I think Joerg answered about POSIX compatibility.   Here's my take on
the matter of POSIX:  Compatibility with Solaris is for now our highest
priority.  To the extent that this is compatible with POSIX compliance,
I'm in favor of POSIX compliance.  If I have to choose between the two,
then at this juncture I will chose Solaris compatibility.

This may change in the future when illumos has enough traction to stand
on its own rather than living as an echo of Oracle Solaris.  Originally
I had thought this would take a long time, and maybe even be unlikely to
occur at all.  However, with recent events (including things I'm not at
liberty to share) I believe its quite possible that illumos may become
*the* premiere source for Solaris technology in the not-too-distant
future.

	- Garrett
> 
> -
> Alexander
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