If the so-called "cloud" is the next thing, OpenShift is to the cloud what GNU was to operating systems.

Free software web applications created by independent programmers run unmodified on OS, on a free service and no proprietary API unlike other popular offerings like Amazon (and uh... Azure). Java, Ruby, Python, PostgresSQL, MongoDB, MySql, all free software, on a free service for starters.

Sun aimed at something like this years ago but it was too little too late, internal disputes compromised the vision, and then it got lost in the dense fog of Oracle bureaucracy.

Great to see Red Hat delivering on its Free Software DNA.

It contains some inaccuracies, for example when they say OpenShift supports "Ruby 3" ---they actually mean Ruby on Rails 3, which is a web development framework powered by the Ruby programming language, OpenShift does support Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9 flavours (the latest stable releases) among other languages and base software you can install.

If you don't understand it, don't worry. It's not really for your needs. But Groklaw has a lot of developers as members, and they might be interested in something like this.

Think of it like a patent article on injunctions post-Ebay or something even more abstruse, like a red-lined version of AIA. You might immediately understand it, and know what to do with it in the real world, but nonlawyers might not understand it even if they read it, without explanation.

But that is what Groklaw is for, and I'm sure others will explain to you more about it.

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• Don't understand it - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 07 2013 @ 05:17 PM EST

Before we get too far into the low level features of a cartridge, it's important to understand some terms.

• Cartridge: Configuration templates, scripts, deps required to add a feature to OpenShift.
• Cartridge instantiation: The result of a cartridge feature addition.
• Gear: A container on a host that houses one or more cartridges. Consists of some resources like cpu, disk, etc and a unix user.
• StickShift-node: A set of utilities used
• Node: A host (for example, a virtual machine) where OpenShift origin apps live.

We need context to create meaning. This is why it can be difficult for people to create documentation for their own projects. They are immersed in the context that needs to be conveyed to the readers. Likewise, it is easier for someone who is already familiar with the genre of technology to understand the early documentation created for a new project.

People who have a high tolerance for reading things they don't yet full grasp have a much easier time of picking this stuff up. It is the same skill that is needed to work through physics and math text books.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

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I would not compare the jargon specific to one product (even a big one such as the Java language) to the somewhat rigorous legal jargon that is shared by students, professors, judges, and practicing attorneys. When we (software developers) invent new terminology, it serves multiple purposes: Software metaphors may convey intention, attitude, refer to other metaphors or trade disciplines, etc. OpenShift employs a product jargon that seems to me familiar in style and structure to many projects, so it is a common vernacular in a sense, but this particular instance belongs to a product.

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