Sun seeks developer help to make Solaris ubiquitous

IDG News Service - Sun Microsystems Inc. has ambitious plans for the commercial and open-source versions of its Solaris operating system, hoping to achieve for Solaris the kind of ubiquity already enjoyed by Java.

To come close to reaching that goal, Sun says it needs to reach out more to developers and try to overcome some long-held prejudices against the operating system.

Sun's Java programming language, which debuted in 1995, is present in most of today's PCs, mobile devices and embedded systems. The vendor is now seeking that same kind of omnipresence for Solaris, its flavor of Unix. Sun intends to take the operating system into markets where it hasn't traditionally been a force, such as desktop and embedded systems, according to Marc Hamilton, vice president of Solaris marketing at Sun. The vendor is also keen to position OpenSolaris as a real alternative to Linux.

"There's an enormous momentum building behind Solaris," said Ian Murdock, chief operating platforms officer at Sun. He joined Sun in March after serving as the chief technology officer of the Linux Foundation. Murdock is also the creator of the Debian Linux distribution and is eager to take the lessons he's learned in the Linux community and apply them to Solaris.

Sun is preparing to release OpenSolaris binaries early next year in a distribution, code-named Project Indiana, that will be similar to Linux distributions. The work, which is getting under way in the OpenSolaris community, is aimed at creating a single CD installation of the basic operating system and desktop environment, giving developers the option to install additional software from network repositories. Developers also will be able to create limited releases of the distribution targeted at attendees of a particular event.

The whole idea behind Indiana is to build more of a developer community around Solaris, Murdock said. "How can we lower the barriers to programmers and run OpenSolaris as an ideal open-source operating system not originating from Sun?" he asked. Indiana will also enable faster release cycles, with a new version appearing every six months.

With Indiana in place, Sun will adopt a two-tier development model, Murdock said, establishing a clear path -- for developers and early adopters -- from Indiana and OpenSolaris to Solaris, which will be largely used by more conservative enterprise users. The challenge will be delivering what's effectively a single Solaris platform to two very different communities, he added.

Sun has already managed various versions of Java, including mobile, standard and enterprise editions of the software. But with Java, the challenge was getting developers interested in a new technology; with Solaris, Sun needs to appeal to people who may have had previous negative experiences with the operating system.