Low traffic on maintainers@

[Jonathan Craig via buildfarm]

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Ben Walton via buildfarm
<buildfarm at lists.opencsw.org> wrote:
>
> I'm no longer using Solaris either and I don't have the cycles to keep
> up with maintaining packages using only my personal time. I do miss
> being more involved in the community because it is a great, if small,
> group of talented people.
>
I am continuously struck by the number of long term Solaris users who
are no longer using Solaris.  If it weren't for the negative licensing issues
that oracle places on non-oracle operating system (ie hard partitioning
required for sub system capacity licensing) we would be eliminating this
os as well.  I do think that Solaris has some fabulous features but its
lack of FOSS support is staggering and oracle doesn't seem to really
care.  Solaris 11 supplies a bare minimum and its a bit self serving (postgres
dropped, ruby is ancient, ...).  ISV support is also headed down the tubes
and many look at you strange when you even ask about solaris support.
Solaris 11 finally fixes the packaging/patch issue but the lack of pkg based
open source repository really takes the luster off this feature.

>
> I was recently surprised when a user declined becoming a maintainer
> because even after watching the video they thought it was still dark
> magic. I don't have a way to gauge the skills of this person, so I
> can't measure the person against the problem, but it was still
> noteworthy.
>

I must admit that my interaction with the build environment leaves me 1) amazed
at the flexibility and power included, 2) frustrated that every time I use it
I find myself relearning and/or struggling to figure out the process
as it seems
to subtly change in ways that you'll only know if you follow the dev
list closely and
commit the stuff mentioned on there to memory.

I'm also faced with moving past Solaris 10 and the only viable pkg repo is
unixpackages.com, the commercial follow-on to sunfreeware.  The pricing is
reasonable enough and my  past experience with sunfreeware leads me to
believe the packaging quality will be good.

My preference is for a community supported repository solution as the
attention span of corporations can be limited.  My worst nightmare would be
to have my eggs in a blastwave type basket and have it fold underneath me.

Jon Craig