One of the greatest virtues any computer operating system can have is simple stability. So you really don't want to mess with the thing if you don't have to.
"If you mess with the operating system and get it wrong, the whole machine goes down," notes Mick Jordan, a senior staff engineer in Sun Labs.
As a result, he says, the pace of innovation at the level is necessarily a bit slower. People are reluctant to experiment, and rightly so.
Until now.
