License
MPL 2.0 is an interesting license choice, for an operating system.
EDIT: why the downvotes?
Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
91–100 of 268 posts
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#92I was hoping for this since they announced the server rack... nobody wants a paperweight if (God forbid) oxide were to go out of business.
To be clear about it, the "paperweight problem" is very important to us as well. It's worth remembering that the MPL doesn't care if a copy is posted openly on GitHub or not, and (I am not a lawyer!) we have obligations to our customers under it regardless if non-customers can browse the code.
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#93License MPL 2.0 is an interesting license choice, for an operating system. EDIT: why the downvotes?
Quoting from an RFD co-authored by bcantrill and myself describing Oxide's policies around open source:
> For any new Oxide-created software, the MPL 2.0 should generally be the license of choice. The exception to this should be any software that is a part of a larger ecosystem that has a prevailing license, in which case that prevailing license may be used.
EDIT: I also am confused about why you are downvoted. Are there any major operating systems distributions that are MPL licensed? I can't think of any off the top of my head. Beyond that it's a simple question.
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you get me excited? I spent 20 seconds browsing the homepage and walked away with "so the idea is vertical integration for on-premise server purchases? On custom OS? Why? Why would people pay a premium?" But immediately got myself to "what does a server OS do anyway, doesn't it just launch VMs? You don't need Linux, just the ability to launch Linux VMs" Tell me more? :)
One company making both HW and SW generally leads to really good, integrated experiences. See e.g. Apple.
I am really hoping the broader industry takes note. By owning the platform, the Oxide team was able to dump legacy stuff that no longer makes sense.
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would you say that Oxide would have chosen Illumos if he wasn't part of the company? I don't know how to respond to this question, because to me it reads like "if things were completely different, what would they be like?" I have no idea if you could even argue that a company could be the same company with different founders. What I can say is that this line of questioning still makes me feel like you're implying t…
> we weighed it like we would weigh any technical decision: that is, not as a battle of sports teams, but as a "hey we need to drive some screws: should we use a screwdriver, a hammer, or something else?" sort of nuts-and-bolts engineering decision. I'm not saying otherwise. In fact, when I wrote my original comment, I actually rewrote it multiple time to be sure it wouldn't suggest I was thinking it was some sort of…
It's all good! I re-wrote what I wrote multiple times as well. Communication is hard. I appreciate you taking the effort, sorry to have misunderstood.
Heck, there's a great little mistake of communication in the title: this isn't just "intended" to power the rack, it does power the rack! But they said that because we said that in the README, because that line in the README was written before it ended up happening. Oops!
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#96I would be interested in how did you first hear of Oxide . I somehow landed on their podcast because it covered . The podcast is for me amazeballs marketing - it does everything but sell their product (might be a good idea to add a pitch in for each out-tro!) I mean they talk about it, like “we had such a tough time getting the compiler to do something something and then veer off to discuss back in the day stories. A…
If you listen to their original podcast 'On The Metal' it was infamous for it's overly repeated use of 2 or 3 pre-recorded self promotions, so much so that a fan recorded their own commercial for them to air.
'Oxide and Friends' however isn't really what I would consider a podcast, but a recording of live "spaces" or group calls, beginning on Twitter and now happening in Discord. IMO it's not really best consumed as a podcast, but rather to participate in live. If you tune in live you'll pick up on the vibe of the recordings a lot better.
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#97What even is Oxide Computer? It makes no sense - it was publicized with all sorts of anti-blob, freedom, and posts about management engines and a sort of alternative to RaptorCS/IBM (which now has blobs again)... Yet most of that stuff is now buried/removed and Oxide Computer is just a hardware platform with unnecessary lock-in. For the bunker of the rich to be able to run their own mini-cloud? Sure. For anything els…
> Yet most of that stuff is now buried/removed
Nothing has changed with regards to our anti-blob and pro-open source stances. I am not sure what you're referring to here.
> with unnecessary lock-in.
What lock-in are you referring to here? The way that things run on the rack is via virtual machines, you can run virtual machines on many providers. We even have a terraform provider so that you can use familiar tools instead of the API directly, if you believe that is lock-in (and that stuff is all also fully open source).
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#98Not that I'm not rooting for Oxide, but their product is still so niche and early stage that I can't imagine any actual businesses buying their stuff for a long time. They only just shipped their first rack to their first customer at the end of last summer and it's Idaho National Laboratory. State research institutions are basically the only entities positioned to gamble on this right now.
Large financial institutions surprisingly are good customers for new, still-untested computing technology.
I would not get surprised if Oxide next customers were a few giant banks and funds.
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#99License MPL 2.0 is an interesting license choice, for an operating system. EDIT: why the downvotes?
Quoting from an RFD co-authored by bcantrill and myself describing Oxide's policies around open source: > For any new Oxide-created software, the MPL 2.0 should generally be the license of choice. The exception to this should be any software that is a part of a larger ecosystem that has a prevailing license, in which case that prevailing license may be used. EDIT: I also am confused about why you are downvoted. Are t…
> [if Oxide-created software] is a part of a larger ecosystem that has a prevailing license, in which case that prevailing license may be used
How does that work if the prevailing is BSD/MIT/ISC?
You're saying that Oxide can then be licensed under BSD/MIT/ISC?
Re: Helios: A distribution of Illumos powering the Oxide Rack
#100License MPL 2.0 is an interesting license choice, for an operating system. EDIT: why the downvotes?
Quoting from an RFD co-authored by bcantrill and myself describing Oxide's policies around open source: > For any new Oxide-created software, the MPL 2.0 should generally be the license of choice. The exception to this should be any software that is a part of a larger ecosystem that has a prevailing license, in which case that prevailing license may be used. EDIT: I also am confused about why you are downvoted. Are t…
I had to look up RFD, and I like the idea!