Sun Microsystems - Feature Story

Open for business. Sun takes first steps to open source the Solaris Operating System. With the announcement of the Open Source Initiative-approved Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for OpenSolaris, Sun is kicking off a wave of source-code licensing and community-building that stands to benefit Solaris OS - the world's most advanced operating system - for developers, businesses, and their customers. The OpenSolaris program is Sun's contribution of Solaris OS with millions of development hours worth of code to the community. Sun is making Solaris dynamic tracing (DTrace) source code immediately available. Sun also announced that it will grant access to more than 1,600 of its patents under the CDDL for the OpenSolaris program. Today's grant marks the largest single release of patent innovations into the open source community by any organization to date. What OpenSolaris Pilot Program Members Are Saying Members of the OpenSolaris pilot program are expressing their enthusiasm about Sun's open source initiatives. Read what they have to say about the benefits of the open development model, the CDDL, and the OpenSolaris community site.

License to Thrive

The Common Development and Distribution License, which was approved by the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) board of directors on January 14, is based on the well-regarded Mozilla[tm] Public License (MPL). Sun, in partnership with members of the open source community, was able to build on the MPL and create a license that is shorter, clearer, with simplified notice requirements, and contains strong protections against patent litigation. The CDDL was also created to be a reusable license that would be attractive to other open source efforts, so that other projects with similar community and licensing goals would not need to create a new license.

Community Spirit

The OpenSolaris program plans to include a community board of advisors to oversee the project. Expected to be finalized by March, the board would initially consist of five members: two appointed by Sun, two nominated by and elected from the OpenSolaris pilot program, and one to be selected from the broader open source community. Sun expects the board to grow over time to meet the needs of the community.

Sun plans to have full, buildable Solaris OS source code available at OpenSolaris.org in Q2 2005.

Find out more about the OpenSolaris program. With available source code and a vital community, Solaris is open for business.

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