In an effort to spur adoption of Solaris, Sun has begun a project code-named Indiana to try to give its operating system some of the trappings of Linux. The project is one of the items on the to-do list of Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian version of Linux and, as of March, Sun's chief operating systems officer. Though he wouldn't confirm the name of the project, Murdock - who's from Indiana - discussed the project's essence at the JavaOne conference here Monday, and Sun spokesman Russ Castronovo confirmed the name.
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Member since:2005-07-06
You guess wrong then. The only parts they haven't opened are the parts they haven't yet secured the rights to or guaranteed that they have the rights and resources to do so.
If you want "Sun Linux" go use what you find at www.nexenta.com. It would be pointless for Sun to have "yet another distribution."
Member since:2006-01-06
You guess wrong then. The only parts they haven't opened are the parts they haven't yet secured the rights to or guaranteed that they have the rights and resources to do so.
How does your comment contradict my original post?
I'm guessing that Sun probably doesn't want to open source some parts of Solaris...
you want "Sun Linux" go use what you find at www.nexenta.com. It would be pointless for Sun to have "yet another distribution."
Pointless? Hardly. Sun knows that Linux has more momentum than Solaris at the moment. So, it would make sense for Sun to introduce its own Linux distro, leverage the work of the community, and compete with Novell and Red Hat for the Linux market. In some ways, Sun has an advantage due to the fact that it can bundle its offerings with hardware.
Member since:2005-07-06
You missed out on the Sun Linux several years ago. Sun tried that, and found that no one wanted a Sun Linux; they already had enough choice in the Linux space. What they wanted was Solaris, so Sun dropped their Linux distro.
Sun is open sourcing *all* of Solaris, as they get the IP rights straightened out. There's already several million lines of code that have been open sourced, including all of the best features (ZFS, zones, Dtrace, SMF, and most of the kernel).
Member since:2006-01-06
I think thad for Sun, dropping Solaris would be suicide. They invested plenty of money, it is great, matured product, in lots of areas more mature than Linux.
But it is great that they want to learn from Linux, and I believe that they can learn a lot. To be honest, installing and configuring Solaris for me wos a real pain. I found the userland different from GNU's, and in most areas less intuitive. Maybe too many years of using GNU/Linux, but that is just the way it is - Linux gained power and lots of people, just like me, take for granted that commands have similar options.
On the other hand, Solaris has got so many unique features that simply dropping them and using only GNU userland would be pointless. So I hope that Sun will make it's system easier for us, newcomers from Linux and as powerful as it has never been before at the same time.
Member since:
2006-01-06
I don't understand why Sun just doesn't simply create its own Linux distro and incorporate portions of Solaris. I'm guessing that Sun probably doesn't want to open source some parts of Solaris, and it would run up against resistance within the OSS community if it doesn't; however, Sun Linux might make more sense than Sun Solaris with new Linux flavoring!