On Thursday night I presented a talk on OpenSolaris Governance at the SIlicon Valley OpenSolaris Users Group. When I arrived I was shocked to find a full parking lot, “sweet!” I thought… I then realized that Dr. James Gosling was downstairs presenting to the Java Users Group… doh. Still, the presentation was well attended and I was happy with the reception. Dr. Tim Marsland presented first regarding Virtualization (VirtualBox and Xen… no Zones mentioned), and then I gave my talk.

The slides are available here. Here is the video, its blurry so follow along with the slides… when I present I put 90% of the content in the slides so its easy to follow with, but I still recommend watching/listening to the presentation to get the other 10%. (To go straight to my presentation skip forward to the 45 minute mark.)

I want to lay down some ground rules for viewers:

• This is intended for “family”, community members following the action. If you are new to the community or not really following things it will seem more negative than it really is. Note that I gave this talk at a OpenSolaris Users Group, I would not give this talk at OSCon or some non-community event.
• It is largely background and constitutional, I’m talking about how it should be based on the constitution, not strictly how its currently done.
• These are ideas and thoughts to fuel constructive discussion and refocus energy, draw your own conclusions! I ask that you consider what I say, think about it, and decide for yourself, I’m not convince people or suggest that there isn’t more to it.
• A very small portion of my audience felt I was harsh to Sun and very negative, this is in no way my intent I ask that you step back and consider the larger picture. I’m offering an external “what some people on the outside feel” perspective, and given my time constraints didn’t have time to list all the good things that have happened.
• I hope that this presentation will serve the future OGB(s) as a milestone in time for reference sake.
• Most importantly, this presentation is solely my own, representing no one else or the OGB in any official way. As with everything I do, it should be approached as “one mans opinion” which may or may not reflect others.

That said, I hope you find it interesting and useful. Any one of my slides can be nitpicked to death, I ask that you look at the big picture from a variety of vantage points which I attempt to do. There are slides that you’ll like and slides that you don’t, but I think there is a little something for everyone.

Finally, let me say that everyone, inside and outside of Sun, internal or external, is doing the best that they can to push our effort toward success for all. We all have different means and methods, we have a very passionate community and frankly I’d rather have passionate people arguing for a better future than a dull group of luke-warm people who just increase our download numbers. We should be very proud and thankful to everyone, from Jonathan Schwartz to Al Hopper, for the time, energy and love everyone pours into OpenSolaris.