

KVM on Illumos (OpenSolaris fork) - timf
http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2011/08/15/kvm-on-illumos/

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sgt
Illumos. I'm still very excited about this project. Let's not forget how
powerful OpenSolaris still is.

~~~
nz
You should be! As far as I can tell, Illumos is the only kernel project out
there that is solving exciting new problems, instead of reimplementing
solutions to old ones.

~~~
djcapelis
Taking code from the Linux kernel and porting it to Solaris is solving
exciting new problems and not re-implementing solutions?

~~~
nz
They didn't re-implement KVM. They ported it (to the greatest extent
possible), because it was already a suitable solution.

I wasn't referring to the KVM port as a solution to an exciting new problem
(it was, but a while ago, thus making the problem stale). But it was a much
needed solution. I was referring to innovations that originated in the Illumos
code base such as ZFS, DTrace, zones, doors, crossbow, ctf, least-privilege,
etc. All of these are either unavailable on most systems, have inferior clones
(i.e. systemtap, btrfs), or are partially available (the Mac DTrace port
doesn't have a complete, systemic scope, due to Apple's classist tendencies,
and most of the kernel providers like fsinfo are missing, for example).

Either way, I still maintain that Illumos is a nexus of systems innovation
compared to other kernels, based on how much innovative technology originated
in the Illumos kernel, before being ported to or reimplemented on other
kernels (the Slab Allocator is an example of a technology that originated in
this code-base and has been reimplemented on almost all other kernels; ZFS and
DTrace are examples of technologies that have been ported over to some other
kernels, albeit with less functionality/stability).

Also, the release of Illumos-KVM (among other improvements in the last year)
only goes to show that Illumos is still innovating in various ways, while
other kernels are either still catching up (I believe that FreeBSD didn't
support DTrace'ing userland apps until their 2009 release) or losing
differentiators (linux just lost KVM). Seeing as how the Illumos project has
quite a bit of engineering talent and corporate investment behind it, I doubt
that the rate of innovation will drop below that of other kernels... in fact
it might just increase, now that potential contributors know that Oracle/Sun
doesn't have a monopoly

~~~
nz
The last sentence was cut off:

"... a monopoly on the engineering talent."

------
timf
This announcement is part of their SmartOS release:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2887170>

