Several of us Sun storage software types are at the SNIA Storage Developer Conference this week in San Jose, CA. The agenda has shaped up nicely and attendees can hear talks on everything from device updates and protocols all the way up the software stack to the latest in file systems (ZFS) to SNIA's fixed content standards effort -- XAM (eXtensible Access Method).

Helping to kick off the conference will be Richard Stallman talking about free software following by other keynotes including Jeff Bonwick's "The General-Purpose Storage Revolution" talk.

Think about that... free and open software... general purpose components... for storage.

When we started down the path to open sourcing our Solaris Storage software a couple of years ago very few folks in the storage industry were interested in having a conversation about open source software and general purpose components to solve storage problems.

While the storage industry is still dominated by proprietary companies change is on the wind. I like Sun's position in the upcoming storm. We're focused on collaboration (open standards) and sharing (open source) to bring about innovation (open storage).

 Oh... the memory stick? It's our OpenSolaris Storage Starter Kit that we'll be giving away at the conference. Hurry... I think they'll go fast. You can get one by showing us your OpenSolaris user registration at the conference (while supplies last).