Sun opens Solaris

Sun Microsystems has released the source code for a slate of technologies from OpenSolaris, the open source version of the Solaris 10 OS.

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Components, including the kernel and networking software, are available for free under Sun’s Common Development and Distribution License, said Tom Goguen, vice president of platform software at Sun. The kernel includes features such as predictive self-healing and Solaris containers for isolating an application within the OS.

Users can download source code, combine it with their own source code, and make commercial products out of it. “It’s a completely royalty-free open source product,” Goguen said.

OpenSolaris runs on Intel x86 and 64-bit AMD Opteron systems and on Sun’s Sparc hardware. Sun seeks to leverage the OS by offering support packages. The company also hopes that seeding the market with OpenSolaris will boost demand for its other products, Goguen said.

Sun hopes OpenSolaris stems defections to Linux, said Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata.

“In terms of being sort of the mass-market alternative to Linux, that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Sun’s real focus here is more on its customer base and developer community, which are still in the Solaris camp,” Haff said. OpenSolaris is available at opensolaris.org/os.