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OpenSolaris

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OpenSolaris
Company typeOpen source project
IndustryOperating system
PredecessorSolaris
Founded2004; 22 years ago (2004)
FounderSun Microsystems
Defunct2010 (2010)
FateDiscontinued after Oracle acquisition; forked into OpenIndiana
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Ian Murdock (Project Indiana lead)
ProductsOperating system
OwnerSun Microsystems (original), Oracle Corporation (after 2010)
ParentSolaris (Sun Microsystems)

OpenSolaris () was an open-source operating system designed for both SPARC and x86 architectures, originally created by Sun Microsystems and derived from the Solaris platform. Its development started in the mid-2000s and concluded in 2010.

This operating system integrated numerous open-source elements beginning with Solaris 10, incorporating a variety of free software tailored for desktop and server environments. Its lineage traces back to the UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) codebase, jointly developed by Sun and AT&T during the late 1980s, standing as the sole open-source variant of this System V UNIX lineage.

After Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, it ceased OpenSolaris development to concentrate on the proprietary Solaris Express, now known as Oracle Solaris. In reaction to this, former OpenSolaris contributors initiated a fork called OpenIndiana, which is supported by the illumos Foundation and continues to maintain both the kernel and userland components. Since then, various commercial and community-driven illumos-based distributions have emerged and remain actively maintained.

History

The roots of OpenSolaris lie in Solaris, first introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1991. Solaris itself is a variant of UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4), developed collaboratively by Sun and AT&T to unify features from multiple UNIX systems and licensed from Novell as a successor to SunOS.

OpenSolaris planning commenced in early 2004 with an initial pilot involving 18 external contributors, which expanded to 145 participants within nine months. Sun submitted the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for approval to the Open Source Initiative, which was granted in January 2005.

The first open-source component released was Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), a diagnostic and debugging utility, made available under CDDL in January 2005. The majority of Solaris system source code followed in June 2005, although certain elements remained proprietary binaries.

To oversee the project’s direction, a Community Advisory Board was formed in April 2005; this was later reorganized into the independent OpenSolaris Governing Board in February 2006. The upcoming Solaris operating system version under development—codenamed 'Nevada'—was based on OpenSolaris code and served as the foundation for stable OpenSolaris releases.

Sun’s Solaris Express initiative initially offered distributions combining OpenSolaris source with proprietary Solaris components. The first standalone OpenSolaris distribution was released in June 2005, leading to several community-driven variants.

In March 2007, Sun appointed Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, to lead Project Indiana—an effort to produce a complete OpenSolaris distribution featuring the GNOME desktop environment, GNU userland utilities, and network-based package management. This distribution aimed to replace Solaris Express as the platform for future Solaris versions.

OpenSolaris 2008.05 debuted as a Live CD with installation capabilities using GNOME. The subsequent 2008.11 update introduced Time Slider, a graphical interface for ZFS snapshots comparable to macOS’s Time Machine. Later that year, Sun collaborated with Toshiba America to ship laptops preloaded with OpenSolaris, broadening its hardware presence.

The 2009.06 release extended support to SPARC hardware platforms. However, in January 2010, Sun announced it would discontinue the Solaris Express program; an anticipated OpenSolaris binary slated for March was never released.

By August 2010, Oracle had reportedly ended distribution of OpenSolaris binaries to prioritize Solaris Express releases. Although Oracle maintained contributions to the source code, it delayed source publication until after binary releases and reduced update frequency.

In September 2010, the OpenIndiana project emerged as a community-led continuation of OpenSolaris development. It sought binary compatibility with Oracle’s Solaris 11/11 Express but utilized the illumos kernel instead of OS/Net consolidation.

Oracle issued a final OpenSolaris build in November 2010 intended as an upgrade path toward Solaris 11 Express. Soon after, Oracle launched Solaris 11 Express 2010.11—the first preview release following OpenSolaris—signaling Oracle’s strategic pivot toward proprietary Solaris development.

Version history

Key: Versions no longer maintained

Version Build Release date Support termination phases
General Availability (GA) After Version End (EOV) SunSpectrum Service End (SS-EOSL)
2008.05 86 Template:Sort Template:Sort Template:Sort -
2008.11 101b Template:Sort Template:Sort Template:Sort -
2009.06 111b Template:Sort Template:Sort Template:Sort Template:Sort

Release model

OpenSolaris was distributed in two primary forms: development versions, which were less stable, and production versions, which were stable.

  • Development editions contained the most recent codebase, introduced new features, incorporated security patches, and included additional applications but had undergone limited testing.
  • Production editions were derived from development snapshots following a code freeze and subjected to thorough quality assurance processes, including the integration of security fixes.

Installation options included CD-ROM, USB devices, or network deployment using the Automated Installer.[1] Both development and production images were made available accordingly.[2]

Repositories

Software management and update distribution in OpenSolaris relied on the network-capable Image Packaging System (pkg(5)).

The /dev repository was refreshed every two weeks with updated development packages.[3] Conversely, production releases utilized the /release repository, which received updates only alongside new production versions. Access to these production updates required a valid paid support agreement.[4]

Sun offered commercial support through the /support repository hosted on pkg.sun.com, providing security patches and bug fixes specifically for production releases.

Documentation

An available hardware compatibility list (HCL) assists users in selecting compatible hardware for deploying OpenSolaris. Comprehensive documentation covering administration, usage, and development topics—including materials contributed by the community—is accessible online.

License

Sun Microsystems released the majority of Solaris source code under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which is derived from the Mozilla Public License 1.1. This license, approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in 2005, permits integration of its covered files with other open source or proprietary licenses.

When Sun announced Java's GPL licensing, executives Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green hinted at the possibility of relicensing Solaris under the GPL as well. In 2007, there were discussions about potentially dual-licensing OpenSolaris under both CDDL and GPLv3; however, Green emphasized that while this was under serious consideration, any such change would require consensus from the community.

Conferences

The first OpenSolaris Developer Conference (OSDevCon) was hosted by the German Unix User Group (GUUG) between February 27 and March 2, 2007, at Berlin's Freie Universität Berlin. The following year, in 2008, GUUG partnered with the Czech OpenSolaris User Group (CZOSUG) to hold the conference from June 25 to 27 in Prague, Czech Republic. The 2009 edition of OSDevCon took place from October 27 to 30 in Dresden, Germany.

Sun Microsystems organized the inaugural OpenSolaris Developer Summit on October 13, 2007, at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). The summit returned to UCSC on May 2–3, 2008, shortly before Sun unveiled its new OpenSolaris distribution on May 5 at the CommunityOne event in San Francisco, California.

The initial OpenSolaris Storage Summit occurred on September 21, 2008, hosted by Sun prior to the SNIA Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in Santa Clara, California. The second summit was held on February 23, 2009, in San Francisco ahead of the USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST).

On November 3, 2009, Sun convened a Solaris/OpenSolaris Security Summit in Baltimore, Maryland, just before the Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA).

Ports

  • PowerPC Port: Known as Project Polaris, this experimental port for PowerPC builds upon the earlier Project Pulsar developed by Sun Labs.
  • OpenSolaris for System z: Referred to as Project Sirius, this port targets IBM mainframe systems and is developed by Sine Nomine Associates; its name draws a parallel with Polaris.
  • OpenSolaris on ARM Port
  • OpenSolaris on MIPS Port

Derivatives

Prominent derivatives include:

  • illumos, an entirely open source fork initiated in 2010 by former Sun OpenSolaris engineers alongside NexentaOS contributors; OpenSolaris itself was not fully open source due to proprietary drivers and libraries licensed by Sun/Oracle.
  • OpenIndiana, built upon illumos with the goal of becoming the primary OpenSolaris distribution for production environments needing free security updates and bug fixes.
  • NexentaStor, tailored for storage workloads and based on Nexenta OS.
  • OSDyson: combines the illumos kernel with GNU userland and Debian packages, aiming to be recognized as an official Debian port.
  • SmartOS: a derivative focused on virtualization technology developed by Joyent.

Discontinued

  • Nexenta OS (discontinued October 31, 2012), which was the first distribution to merge an Ubuntu userland with a kernel derived from Solaris

See also

Further reading

External links

  1. ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2123: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2123: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2123: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ↑ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2123: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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