OpenSolaris

History

OpenSolaris was based on Solaris, which was originally released by Sun in 1991. Solaris is a version of UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4), jointly developed by Sun and AT&T to merge features from several existing Unix systems. It was licensed by Sun from Novell to replace SunOS. | access-date = 2007-08-07

Planning for OpenSolaris started in early 2004. A pilot program was formed in September 2004 with 18 non-Sun community members and ran for 9 months growing to 145 external participants.{{cite web |access-date = 2010-04-12 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111005100745/http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ogb-discuss/2010-March/007627.html |archive-date = October 5, 2011 |url-status = dead

The first part of the Solaris code base to be open-sourced was the Solaris Dynamic Tracing facility (commonly known as DTrace), a tool that aids in the analysis, debugging, and tuning of applications and systems. DTrace was released under the CDDL on January 25, 2005, on the newly launched opensolaris.org website. | access-date = 2010-04-12

To direct the newly fledged project, a Community Advisory Board was announced on April 4, 2005: two were elected by the pilot community, two were employees appointed by Sun, and one was appointed from the broader free software community by Sun. The members were Roy Fielding, Al Hopper, Rich Teer, Casper Dik, and Simon Phipps. On February 10, 2006, Sun approved The OpenSolaris Charter, which reestablished this body as the independent OpenSolaris Governing Board. |access-date = 2009-11-21 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060225090717/http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=opensolaris_independence_day |archive-date = February 25, 2006 | access-date = 21 November 2012

Initially, Sun's Solaris Express program provided a distribution based on the OpenSolaris code in combination with software found only in Solaris releases.{{cite web |access-date = 2010-04-12 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101021031920/http://blogs.sun.com/dp/entry/what_s_new_in_solaris6 |archive-date = October 21, 2010 |url-status = dead |access-date = 2010-04-08 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111109182938/http://schillix.berlios.de/pmwiki.php/Main/Announce |archive-date = November 9, 2011 |url-status = dead

On March 19, 2007, Sun announced that it had hired Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, to head Project Indiana,{{cite web |access-date = 2009-11-21 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090925191020/http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/charting_the_next_25_years |archive-date = September 25, 2009 |url-status = dead |access-date = 2012-12-29 |archive-date = 2013-03-04 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130304190824/http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug080207-story01.html |url-status = dead

On May 5, 2008, OpenSolaris 2008.05 was released in a format that could be booted as a Live CD or installed directly. It uses the GNOME desktop environment as the primary user interface. The later OpenSolaris 2008.11 release included a GUI for ZFS' snapshotting capabilities, known as Time Slider, that provides functionality similar to macOS's Time Machine.

In December 2008, Sun Microsystems and Toshiba America Information Systems announced plans to distribute Toshiba laptops pre-installed with OpenSolaris. | access-date = 2008-12-21 | access-date = 2009-11-21 | access-date = 2009-11-21 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100305071903/http://www.shopopensolaris.com/suntoshiba/home.htm | archive-date = 2010-03-05 | url-status = dead

On June 1, 2009, OpenSolaris 2009.06 was released, with support for the SPARC platform. | access-date = 2009-11-21

On January 6, 2010, it was announced that the Solaris Express program would be closed while an OpenSolaris binary release was scheduled to be released on March 26, 2010. |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120224073441/http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=121181 |archive-date = February 24, 2012

On August 13, 2010, Oracle was rumored to have discontinued the OpenSolaris binary distribution to focus on the Solaris Express binary distribution program. Source code would continue to be accepted from the community and Oracle source code would continue to be released into Open Source, but Oracle code releases would occur only after binary releases. The internal email was released by an OpenSolaris kernel developer but was unconfirmed by Oracle.{{cite web |access-date = August 17, 2010 |archive-date = November 9, 2020 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201109033546/http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2010/08/opensolaris-is-dead.html |url-status = dead

There was a post confirming the leak posted to the OpenSolaris Forums on August 13, 2010. Upstream contributions will continue through a new Oracle website, downstream source code publishing will continue, and binary distribution will continue under the old Solaris Express model, the but release of source code will occur after binary cuts, and binary cuts will become less frequent.{{cite web |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120514094002/http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=496203&tstart=0 |archive-date = May 14, 2012 |url-status = dead

On September 14, 2010, OpenIndiana was formally launched at the JISC Centre in London. While OpenIndiana is a fork in the technical sense, it is a continuation of OpenSolaris in spirit: the project intends to deliver a System V family operating system that is binary-compatible with the Oracle products Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express. However, rather than being based around the OS/Net consolidation like OpenSolaris was, OpenIndiana became a distribution based on illumos (the first release is still based around OS/Net). The project uses the same IPS package management system as OpenSolaris.

On November 12, 2010, a final build of OpenSolaris (134b) was published by Oracle to the /release repository to serve as an upgrade path to Solaris 11 Express.

Oracle Solaris 11 Express 2010.11, a preview of Solaris 11 and the first release of the post-OpenSolaris distribution from Oracle, was released on November 15, 2010.{{cite web |access-date = 2010-11-15 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111005100825/http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/opensolaris-announce/2010-November/001512.html |archive-date = October 5, 2011 |url-status = dead

Version history

Legend: Release no longer supported

Release model

OpenSolaris was offered as both development (unstable) and production (stable) releases.

• Development releases were built from the latest OpenSolaris codebase (consolidations) and included newer technologies, security updates and bug fixes, and more applications, but may not have undergone extensive testing.
• Production releases were branched from a snapshot of the development codebase (following a code freeze) and underwent a QA process that includes backporting security updates and bug fixes.

OpenSolaris can be installed from CD-ROM, USB drives, or over a network with the Automated Installer.{{Citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111002153713/http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/content/dev/AIinstall/ | archive-date = 2011-10-02 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050701032111/http://www.genunix.org/ | url-status = usurped | archive-date = July 1, 2005

Repositories

OpenSolaris uses a network-aware package management system called the Image Packaging System (also known as pkg(5)) to add, remove, and manage installed software and to update to newer releases.

Packages for development releases of OpenSolaris were published by Oracle typically every two weeks to the /dev repository.{{cite web |access-date = 2010-04-27 | access-date = 2010-04-27

Paid support for production releases which allows access to security updates and bug fixes was offered by Sun through the /support repository on pkg.sun.com.

Documentation

A hardware compatibility list (HCL) for OpenSolaris can be consulted when choosing hardware for OpenSolaris deployment.{{Citation

Extensive OpenSolaris administration, usage, and development documentation is available online,{{Citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091124091118/http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Main/documentation | archive-date = 2009-11-24 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090321075108/http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolarisInfo/Home | archive-date = 2009-03-21 | url-status = dead

License

Main article: Common Development and Distribution License

Sun released most of the Solaris source code under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which is based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 1.1. The CDDL was approved as an open source license by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in January 2005. Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary.{{cite web |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071027082141/http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/licensing_faq/#CDDL-combo |archive-date = 2007-10-27

During Sun's announcement of Java's release under the GNU General Public License (GPL), Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green both hinted at the possibility of releasing Solaris under the GPL, with Green saying he was "certainly not" averse to relicensing under the GPL.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090319020035/http://mediacast.sun.com/share/tmarble/Sun_Opens_Java.ogg | archive-date = 2009-03-19 | url-status = dead |access-date = 2007-01-25 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110717093921/http://blogs.oracle.com/richgreen/entry/all_the_news_that_s |archive-date = July 17, 2011 |url-status = dead

Conferences

The first annual OpenSolaris Developer Conference (abbreviated as OSDevCon) was organized by the German Unix User Group (GUUG) and took place from February 27 to March 2, 2007, at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. The 2008 OSDevCon was a joint effort of the GUUG and the Czech OpenSolaris User Group (CZOSUG) and look place June 25–27, 2008, in Prague, Czech Republic. The 2009 OSDevCon look place October 27–30, 2009, in Dresden, Germany.

In 2007, Sun Microsystems organized the first OpenSolaris Developer Summit, which was held on the weekend of October 13, 2007, at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the United States. The 2008 OpenSolaris Developer Summit returned to UCSC on May 2–3, 2008, and took place immediately prior to the launch of Sun's new OpenSolaris distribution on May 5, 2008, at the CommunityOne conference in San Francisco, California. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090129123710/http://wiki.genunix.org/wiki/index.php/OpenSolaris_Summit | url-status = usurped | archive-date = January 29, 2009 | access-date = 2010-04-12

The first OpenSolaris Storage Summit was organized by Sun and held September 21, 2008, preceding the SNIA Storage Developer Conference (SDC), in Santa Clara, California.{{cite web |access-date = 2010-04-12 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100105205233/http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolaris/OpenSolaris+Storage+Summit+2008 |archive-date = January 5, 2010 |url-status = dead |access-date = 2010-04-12 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100105205233/http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolaris/OpenSolaris+Storage+Summit+2008 |archive-date = January 5, 2010 |url-status = dead

On November 3, 2009, a Solaris/OpenSolaris Security Summit was held by Sun in the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore, Maryland, preceding the Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA).{{cite web |access-date = 2010-04-12 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090926145833/http://wikis.sun.com/display/secsummit09/Security+Summit+November+2009+-+Make+System+Security+Work+for+You |archive-date = September 26, 2009 |url-status = dead

Ports

• PowerPC Port:{{Citation |access-date = 2012-12-29 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091017002900/http://opensolaris.org/os/community/power_pc/ |archive-date = October 17, 2009
• OpenSolaris for System z,{{Citation |access-date = 2012-12-29 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090825162814/http://opensolaris.org/os/project/systemz/ |archive-date = August 25, 2009
• OpenSolaris on ARM Port{{Citation |access-date = 2012-12-29 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091016061205/http://opensolaris.org/os/project/osarm/ |archive-date = October 16, 2009
• OpenSolaris on MIPS Port{{Citation |access-date = 2012-12-29 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091004094537/http://opensolaris.org/os/project/mips/ |archive-date = October 4, 2009

Derivatives

Notable derivatives include:

• illumos, a fully open source fork of the project, started in 2010 by a community of Sun OpenSolaris engineers and the NexentaOS support. Note that OpenSolaris was not 100% open source: Some drivers and some libraries were property of other companies that Sun (now Oracle) licensed and was not able to release.
• OpenIndiana, a project under the illumos umbrella aiming "... to become the defacto OpenSolaris distribution installed on production servers where security and bug fixes are required free of charge."{{Citation | access-date = 2012-12-29 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110209094047/http://wiki.openindiana.org:8080/display/oi/Frequently+Asked+Questions | archive-date = 2011-02-09 | url-status = dead
• NexentaStor, optimized for storage workloads, based on Nexenta OS
• OSDyson: illumos kernel with GNU userland and packages from Debian. Strives to become an official Debian port.
• SmartOS: Virtualization-centered derivative from Joyent.

Discontinued

• Nexenta OS (discontinued October 31, 2012), first distribution based on Ubuntu userland with Solaris-derived kernel{{Citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100405120551/http://www.nexenta.org/os/DownloadMirrors | archive-date = 2010-04-05

References

References

1. The [[Berkeley Software Distribution
2. [http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev/ OpenSolaris Development Release Packaging Repository]{{Dead link. (April 2020)
3. "OpenSolaris Packaging Repository".
4. (February 22, 2007). "OpenSolaris Developer Conference 2007". [[German Unix User Group]].
5. "OpenSolaris Developer Conference 2008".
6. "OpenSolaris Developer Conference 2009".
7. (October 26, 2009). "OpenSolaris Newsletter: October 2007". opensolaris.org.
8. "Polaris native boot". blastwave.org.
9. "Project Pulsar". [[Sun Microsystems]].