Sun looks to steal Linux thunder with Project Indiana
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(InfoWorld) - Looking to steal thunder from the Linux juggernaut or at least catch the same wave, Sun plans to release binaries in Spring 2008 for its OpenSolaris Unix platform, similar to how Linux is offered, as part of the company's Project Indiana. Sun officials discussed the effort at a meeting in San Francisco on Thursday. The company wants to mimic the Linux distribution model as a way to grow the market for Solaris. "Over the last five or 10 years, orders of magnitude more people in the world know Linux environment than know Solaris. This is a problem," said Ian Murdock, Sun's chief OS strategist and a former CTO of the Linux Foundation. Having already offered up Solaris to open source via the OpenSolaris project, Sun will expand its proselytizing of the platform by releasing binaries. Project Indiana seeks to combine what Sun described as the best of Solaris -- its enterprise-class capabilities, innovation, and backward compatibility -- with the best of Linux -- its distribution model, community, and its being free and open source. "Even with open source, the binary platform is the key thing of value," said Murdock. Pre-releases of Project Indiana are expected to start this fall. Also featured as part of the project will be short release cycles that will offer something downloadable offered every six months. Developers will get the latest Solaris innovations without having to build the Solaris code. "The main goal of Indiana is to reorient Solaris around the distribution model," said Murdock. With the project, Sun is moving to a two-tier development environment in which enterprise customers can get the commercial version of Solaris and developers can access the Indiana binary version. Sun's Indiana project was called "a good step" by analyst Tom Kucharvy, senior vice president at Ovum. "By releasing Indiana as a binary, it has the potential of creating the foundation for a market for add-ons," which would be third-party extensions to the operating environment, Kucharvy said. With Indiana, Sun does not seek to slow down Linux but to increase exposure for Solaris in a big marketplace, Kucharvy said. "Well, I think itâs too late to significantly slow the momentum of Linux because it's just so established in so many markets," said Kucharvy. The Indiana variant will feature ease of installation, network-based package management, and Solaris's ZFS (Zettabyte File System) as the default file system. ZFS recaptures states of a system to assist in problem resolution. Murdock, who noted his number one charge is building developer mindshare for Solaris, stressed Solaris has the edge when it comes to support and compatibility. "There's very little compatibility between Linux distributions," he said. While there is competition between Solaris and Linux, it is in the same sense as how Red Hat competes with Debian, said Murdock. "Competition is a healthy thing in a free market," he said. Sun expects Indiana to be deployed in production environments and plans to sell support services for it. The idea, though, is that the Indiana release would be used for one or two releases and then the user would move to the enterprise product over time, said Marc Hamilton, Sun vice president of marketing for the Solaris group. Project Indiana grows the open-source platform, said Murdock. By making the project available, a large number of people can help make the product better, he said. It will serve as a test bed for future Solaris releases. Acknowledging concerns about potential fragmentation, Murdock said Solaris does not have the problem that Linux has had because anybody can call anything Linux. With Solaris, Indiana will be the reference implementation, and others would have to be compatible with it to call their version Solaris. Sun has done this with the Java brand in that multiple implementations must be compatible with the reference implementation, Murdock said. Processes for reviewing of Solaris, however, are moving from behind the Sun firewall to the community, he said. Also during the meeting, Hamilton said the company continues to see rapid adoption of Intel servers running Linux. Sun talked about Project Indiana during the JavaOne conference in San Francisco in May.
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100-man team working on name Sun Microsystems has moved to slice and dice I/O operations with a new â albeit unnamed â network interface card (NIC).â¦
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COMMENTARY -- Judging by his latest blog entry, Sun COO and president Jonathan Schwartz has something new to keep him up at night -- the growing perception that Solaris x86 is anti-Linux -- anti-GNU/Linux, to be specific.
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Hey, let's meet up, says Sun's Schwartz You can almost hear the ebb of conversation on everything from Linux drivers to closing the information gap over the crackle of a roaring log fire and playful popping of wine corks.â¦
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InfoWorld - Looking to steal thunder from the Linux juggernaut or at least catch the same wave, Sun plans to release binaries in Spring 2008 for its OpenSolaris Unix platform, similar to how Linux is offered, as part of the company&#39;s Project Indiana.
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Sun Microsystems Inc.&#39;s plan to give away the latest version of its Solaris operating system highlights the technology giant&#39;s bid to roll back the gains of Linux in the corporate technology market, analysts say.
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Sun is reaching out to Linux, and specially Linus Torvalds, in an effort to explain its motives in placing Solaris under GPLv3, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - You've heard of LAMP, the popular open-source infrastructure stack featuring the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server, MySQL's database, and the Perl, Python and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) scripting languages. Well, Sun plans to spotlight a variation on that mixture, replacing Linux with its own Solaris Unix OS as part of its Solaris + AMP, or SAMP, stack for building Web applications. Featured in Sun's rollout on Tuesday are versions of the open-source AMP components optimized for the Solaris 10 OS plus Sun developer tools. The Solaris + AMP unveiling is part of a multifaceted announcement of free development offerings to debut on Tuesday with Sun hoping to sell support as a way to generate revenues. While stressing that Sun was not trying to compete with LAMP itself, Dan Roberts, Sun's director of developer tools marketing, did note that Sun believes its Solaris platform presents a viable competitor to Linux. Developers can build to Apache, MySQL, and the scripting languages but deploy their applications on Solaris or the open-source variant, OpenSolaris, to get advantages such as reliability and security, he said. "We're very much competing [with] Red Hat," and Suse, Roberts said. The company is featuring the PostgreSQL object-relational database as part of the stack along with MySQL. Sun tools and other open-source technologies also are included, and step-by-step instructions on deploying the stack are offered. Analysts recognized Sun's Solaris + AMP effort as a way to entice open-source developers to the Sun camp. "Theyâre trying to make it more comfortable for those who had been working in Linux to consider coming to Solaris as an alternative," said analyst Jean Bozman of IDC. Although IDC does not rank operating systems, Sun does have tools in its Solaris arsenal, such as the DTrace tracing framework and ZFS (Zettabyte File System), that could be attractive to Linux developers, Bozman said. "It's very clear that Sun is going after the same set of developers in the open-source community," as Linux, she said. Making a stronger case for Sun, Andi Mann, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates, said Sun with Solaris + AMP had taken the best parts of the LAMP stack, swapped out Linux with Solaris, and added other open-source technologies. "In terms of standing a chance against LAMP, absolutely, I think it's a very strong offering," Mann said. But Sun faces an obstacle in that Solaris still is considered by some to be a proprietary Unix variant, even if that is not true anymore, Mann said. "It's going to be difficult just to get mind share over Linux," he said. Users of Solaris + AMP also can avail themselves to Sun's Try and Buy program, in which customers can try out Sun hardware for 60 days. Sun also plans to unveil Solaris Express, Developer Edition on Tuesday. "Itâs a new distribution of OpenSolaris specifically targeted at developers on x86 or x64 workstations or Intel AMD-based laptops and workstations," Roberts said. Developers can use the OpenSolaris distribution to build applications that would then be deployed on Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris. "It's just like [how] a Windows developer can deploy a solution that runs on Linux." Roberts said. An integrated environment for developing applications for Solaris, Java, and Web 2.0 is featured, and a simplified install mechanism is part of the package. Also included is an improved Gnome-based desktop and Sun development tools, including Sun Studio 11 and the NetBeans 5.5 IDE. Sun is packaging more than 150 open-source applications with Solaris Express, Developer Edition. The Glassfish application server is featured as well. Also on Tuesday, Sun will offer a second iteration of its Startup Essentials Program for startup firms to use discounted Sun hardware and Solaris. New to the program is the inclusion of storage solutions and low-end SPARC systems. Discounts have been 60 percent to 70 percent less than list prices. Through its Sun Developer Expert Assistance Program, Sun offers support for $49 per request. An annual subscription featuring support for unlimited requests costs $249.
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If you were expecting a sneak peak of an open source Solaris or to buy the new commercial version next week, don&#39;t hold your breath.
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SAN JOSE, Calif.--When Sun Microsystems releases Solaris as open-source software, it plans to provide legal protection from patent-infringement suits to outsiders using or developing the operating system--one of several ways Sun hopes to make Solaris more
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InfoWorld - With an incremental update to its Solaris 10 OS, Sun is extending the platform&#39;s virtualization capabilities to accommodate Linux and Solaris on the same computer.
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Analysis: To promote the popularity of its Solaris operating system, Sun must entice developers and mend rifts.
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Sun is getting into the open-source business with Solaris, but will this automatically translate into better sales?
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InfoWorld - Sun will unveil compiler and tool technologies on Monday that leverage multicore chip architectures and extend to Linux application development.
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Jonathan Corbet talks about the development process, why Sun's ZFS won't become part of the mainline Linux kernel and other issues.
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(InfoWorld) - SunÂ 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 needs to reach out more to developers and endeavor to overcome some long-held prejudices against the OS. 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 toÂ 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 CTO of the Linux Foundation. Murdock's also the creator of the Debian Linux distribution and is keen 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 OS 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 from Indiana and OpenSolaris -- for developers and early adopters -- 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 whereas 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 OS. Founded in 2004, online messaging security provider DigiTar begun life as an all-Linux shop using Suse Linux, according to Jason Williams, CTO and COO of the Boise, Idaho, company. "We had a very anti-Sun bias," he said, dating back to the frustration he and a colleague experienced in college trying to use Solaris 8, which they quickly abandoned in favor of Suse. However, DigiTar ran into problems with the way Linux handled a storage subsystem in 2005. With OpenSolaris freely available, they tried out the OS and it worked well. "Solaris has resolved a lot of issues that Linux is just getting hit by," Williams said. Over time, DigiTar has made use of new Solaris features such as DTrace and ZFS (Zettabyte File System), which have helped the company quickly pin down the locations of performance bottlenecks and better optimize the system. "Our experience with Solaris has been very evolutionary," Williams said. "We came for one thing, then other benefits emerged." "We very much want to move to Indiana," Williams said, because it will fix two immediate issues DigiTar has with OpenSolaris: Ease of use and ease of installation. The company's keen to migrate all its software to Solaris, but compiling applications on Solaris has always been a little different from compiling on a GNU Linux distribution. Today, about 60 percent of its software runs on Gentoo Linux, versus 40 percent on OpenSolaris. Indiana will support GNU userland, the part of an application that requests system activities from the operating system kernel, making it easier to move Linux applications to Solaris. The other feature Indiana offers over previous versions of OpenSolaris is its packaging so it can be more easily installed. Williams is impressed by the community that's already grown up around OpenSolaris. "It's the most productive community I've ever been a part of," he said, with a posted query drawing 4 to 5 informed responses within an hour from both third parties and Sun engineers. Sun's approach to open source is "very mature and adult," Williams added, largely because Sun engineers are used to fielding customers' questions and know it's important to respond rapidly. In order to win other converts, Williams recommends that Sun go back to school. "The key thing they need to do is get back into the colleges," he said. "That's where we formed our opinion of Sun." Making Solaris easy to use and highlighting useful tools such as DTrace could go a long way toward wooing developers, Williams added. Sun is encouraging more use of OpenSolaris in universities with plans to add 500 more Campus Ambassadors around the world to the several hundred that were already in academia, Hamilton said. The Ambassadors are students who receive free training and support from Sun and then establish open-source developer communities in their colleges and evangelize OpenSolaris and Java to their peers and teachers. Williams also recommends letting Indiana "splinter" so that developers can freely create their own distributions and further spread the Solaris technology. Sun hopes that if it establishes Indiana as a reference platform for OpenSolaris, people are less likely to seek out or develop other distributions, Hamilton said. "With Linux, what happened was there was a void and people filled it," Murdock said, referring to the large number of Linux distributions in the market. "Everything we do here is to allow for flexibility, so there is the possibility of multiple distributions." Going after developers is only one of several strategies Sun is pursuing to raise the profile of Solaris. The vendor's also keen to increase the number of hardware platforms on which the OS is available on. Earlier this month, in a deal that would have been unthinkable a few years back,Â IBM, one of Sun's main hardware rivals, agreed to redistribute Solaris OS and Solaris Subscriptions for some of its System x and BladeCenter servers. From IBM's perspective, the move is in line with its pledge to offer users a range of operating systems and also will enable the vendor to make money on support calls involving Solaris running on IBM hardware. Hamilton said Sun's in discussions with about 40 original equipment manufacturers to make the OS available on their hardware. The companies include smaller hardware vendors that operate in particular geographies, but he's also interested in having IBM-like relationships with HP and Dell.
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Blog: Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz invited Linux leader Linus Torvalds to dinner and made the case that Linux and Solaris should join open-source forces.