Sun Micro to revamp Solaris with Linux features

[Cheese Sandwich]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070707/tc_nm/sunmicro_solaris_dc_3



Sun Micro to revamp Solaris with Linux features

Fri Jul 6, 11:09 PM ET

BOSTON (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW - news) is revamping its Solaris operating system, incorporating key pieces of rival Linux software in a move that could gain better support from developers who have massed behind Linux.

Solaris is one of the main varieties of the Unix family of operating systems, known for their ability to safely and securely handle major computing tasks rather than for ease of use.

Sun itself is known for its business computers that can handle major corporate loads and it long has courted programmers who cooperatively develop Linux and other so-called open-source software, with mixed success.

The revamped Solaris system will have features borrowed from Linux that could make it easier to use, correspondence on Sun's Web site shows.

"This is a big deal to the extent that it lowers the barrier for adoption of Solaris," said IDC software analyst Al Gillen.

The new system will keep the Solaris kernel, which is a basic group of code at the heart of the operating system that controls the way other programs interact with each other as well as the computer's hardware.

"Solaris is hard to set up. It doesn't have good hardware support," said Ladislav Bodnar, founder of Distrowatch.com, a Web site that reviews open-source software. "The hope is that things may change."

Sun executives declined to comment in advance of a formal unveiling next week of the plans, called Project Indiana.

Sun competes in high-end computers and operating systems with IBM (NYSE:IBM - HPQ - MSFT - news)

Linux also has spawned a market for companies like Red Hat Inc. (NYSE:RHT - NOVL - news), which sell support and services to back free, open-source software.

"Everything that the Linux developer likes to have at their fingertips, I think they would like to have for Solaris," said George Weiss, an analyst with Gartner who follows open-source software.

[iladw]

I like SUN Solaris. I would like to see it gaining some market share amongst ordinary users.

However as i see it is really for professional IT guys. I've used it and it is hard - it is difficult to adjust and tune and there is few books on the subject.

But why would you use SUN UNIX when you have MAC?!

If they don't rival Windows :D I'm not planning to change my Ubuntu ;)

[darkog]

so, does that mean they will open source ZFS?

[igknighted]

so, does that mean they will open source ZFS?

It is open source, just the license has issues with the GPL. Theoretically it will be moving to GPL v3, but that would still cause issues with linux support if Linus keeps the kernel at GPL v2. In other words, don't hold your breathe for full ZFS support any time soon.

[family]

I still don't like Solaris.

[beefcurry]

ZFS >.< please come our way.

[Hex_Mandos]

Linus will most likely adopt GPL3 if Sun does so first. Solaris being GPLed would be great, I'd love to see good GNU/Solaris distros other than Nexenta.

[az]

I'd love to see good GNU/Solaris distros other than Nexenta.

The reason Ian Murdoch was hired by Sun to head Solaris' free-libre open source path, was so that Solaris would become more accessible to FLOSS developers and users. Both Sun and Ian Murdoch have made it clear that just taking the Solaris kernel and running GNU on it is not the point - Solaris (the whole OS) has a lot more to offer.

Not that Nexenta is bad, and I think that could benefit both kernels' development. Both kernels being under the same licence could mean that Solaris gets to dupport all the hardware that linux presently does, almost overnight.

[juxtaposed]

Solaris supporting all the hardware linux does would be great!

Sun is nice to us, so I have no problem with them using some of the things in linux. I'd consider trying solaris if it had all the hardware support of linux.