OpenSolaris, that is. As of today, buildable Solaris source code is available for download. And the Solaris engineers are talking about it. Check out their blogs.

Today's release of the OpenSolaris source code culminates years of effort. Everyone always asks why it took so long. It's simple, really: Solaris is big, and has been in development for more than 20 years. Going back and finding the provenance of every line of code in Solaris was, to put it mildly, hard. Whenever we found code that belonged to someone else we either had to get their approval to release it as open source (assuming they still existed and we could find them), find an alternative, rewrite it, or decide to release it as binary only. When you see the size of the OpenSolaris source you'll understand how massive an effort this was. I hope you'll be as grateful to the Solaris engineers as I am for doing this tedious but very necessary work.

Once we had the code figured out, we had to provide a way to build it. This meant putting tools, documentation, websites, and so forth together. It wasn't just a matter of using the same toolset we use internally to bulid Solaris, because OpenSolaris will require a combination of source and binary files to build. So the build tools must allow people to do that. And there was the question of compilers. There was a big internal debate between gcc and the Sun Studio tools. In the end we decided to support both, hoping to accomodate as many developers as possible.

Let's not forget the licensing question, either. Although we resolved this some months ago with the release of the CDDL, it took us a long time to get to that point. Lots of people were involved, from engineers to lawyers to executives. As you might imagine, with something this big and this important, we had to get approval from Sun's board of directors. All of this took time to work through, but the dedication and commitment of the CDDL team made it happen in the end.

In some ways it's hard to believe that we're finally here. I certainly wasn't an original proponent of open sourcing Solaris. I was constantly asking, "What's the business case? What are we trying to accomplish?" Over time the answer became clear: extend the reach of Solaris. Build a broad, strong community. Make it easy for people to get access to an enterprise-class open source operating system. And, yes, lead people to Sun's portfolio of systems, software and services. We're not going to be bashful about the fact that Sun is in business to make a profit. We hope and expect that OpenSolaris will generate opportunity for all members of the OpenSolaris community.

I'm incredibly proud of the OpenSolaris team for delivering on something many people thought impossible. If you're one of those, all I have to say is, take a look at the code. See for yourself if you think we delivered on our commitment. Either way, please let us know. We'll do everything we can to respond to your comments and concerns.

That's all I have to say today, because I want you to spend your time communing with the engineers - the real stars of the show. Still, if there's something you think I can help you with, as always feel free to drop me a line.

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