OpenIndiana

OpenIndiana

OpenIndiana Login Screen
Company / developer	Various, based on software developed by Sun Microsystems and many others
Programmed in	C
OS family	Unix, System V Release 4 (SVR4)
Working state	In Development
Source model	Open source
Latest unstable release	build 151a / September 14, 2011; 2 months ago (2011-09-14)
Available language(s)	English
Update method	Image Packaging System
Package manager	Package Manager, pkg
Supported platforms	i386, x86-64
Kernel type	Monolithic
Userland	Solaris, GNU Core Utilities
Default user interface	GNOME
License	Mostly CDDL, with other licenses
Official website	http://www.openindiana.org

OpenIndiana is a Unix-like computer operating system released as free and open source software. It forked from OpenSolaris after the discontinuation of that project by Oracle^[1] and aims to continue development and distribution of the OpenSolaris codebase.^[2] The project operates under the umbrella of the Illumos Foundation.^[2] The stated aim of the project is "[...] to become the defacto OpenSolaris distribution installed on production servers where security and bug fixes are required free of charge".^[3]

History

Origins

Project Indiana was originally conceived by Sun Microsystems, to construct a binary distribution around the OpenSolaris source code base.^[4]

OpenIndiana was conceived around the time that negotiations between Oracle and Sun Microsystems were proceeding, regarding the takeover of the latter by the former, in order to ensure continued availability and further development of an OS based on OpenSolaris, which is widely used. Uncertainty among the OpenSolaris development community led some developers to form tentative plans for a fork of the existing codebase.

These plans came to full fruition following the announcement of discontinuation of Oracle support for the OpenSolaris project.^[5][6]

Initial reaction

OpenIndiana Package Manager

The formal announcement of the OpenIndiana project was made on September 14, 2010 at the JISC Centre in London.^[7] The first release of the operating system was made available publicly at the same time, despite being untested. The reason for the untested release was that the OpenIndiana team set a launch date ahead of Oracle OpenWorld in order to pre-empt the release of Solaris 11 Express.^[8]

The announcement of OpenIndiana was met with a mainly positive response; over 350 people^[9] viewed the online announcement, the ISO image was downloaded over 2000 times,^[9] the Twitter account obtained over 500 followers,^[10] and numerous notable IT press websites wrote about the release.^{[8][11][12][13][14][15]} The broadcast bandwidth of the announcement was substantial, noted to top 350Mbit/second.^[16] The network package depot server experienced 20x as much traffic interested in their distribution than they originally planned for, resulting in more threads later being provisioned.^[17]

Not all reporting was positive, and some online articles have questioned the relevance of Solaris given the market penetration of Linux.^[18][19] One article was critical of the OpenIndiana launch citing a lack of professionalism with regards to releasing an untested build, and the project's lack of commitment to a release schedule.^[20]

Community concerns

With the OpenSolaris binary distribution moved to SolarisExpress and the real-time feed of OpenSolaris updates discontinued, concerns abounded over what would happen to OpenIndiana if Oracle decided to stop feeding source code back into the community. The OpenIndiana team mitigated these concerns when they announced their intention to move the source code feed to the Illumos Foundation.^[21]

Concerns were raised about possible discontinuation of free access to the Oracle-owned compiler being used to produce OpenIndiana. In response, OpenIndiana was modified to be able to compile under the open source GNU Compiler Collection and work is ongoing to make the compiled binaries bootable.^[22]

Relation to Solaris, Solaris Express, Illumos

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 which 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 will become a distribution built up around Illumos kernel (the first release is still based around OS/Net). The project does use the same IPS package management system as OpenSolaris.^[3]

The OpenIndiana codebase is currently based on the majority of publicly available code from Oracle, although future releases will be based upon the Illumos code. The project is also expending efforts to make its codebase independent from Oracle-owned tools such as Sun Studio, although that is not the main focus of the project.^[3]

Release schedule

The first development release of OpenIndiana, Build 147, was released on September 14, 2010 ^[23], while a second development release, Build 148 was released on December 17, 2010.^[24] A third development release, Build 151 was released on September 14, 2011. This is the first release to be based upon Illumos. A provisional release date for the stable release, codenamed Foreverware, targets either Q1 2011^[25] or H1 2011.^[26]

References

1. ^ Ljubuncic, Igor (23 May 2011). "OpenIndiana — there's still hope". DistroWatch. http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110523#feature. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Welcome to Project OpenIndiana!". Project OpenIndiana. 10 September 2010. http://openindiana.org/. Retrieved 14 September 2010. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Frequently Asked Questions From the OpenIndiana Wiki
4. ^ "Project Indiana". http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+indiana/WebHome. 
5. ^ Lumsden, Alasdair (August 13, 2010). "OpenSolaris cancelled, to be replaced with Solaris 11 Express". osol-discuss mailing list. http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/opensolaris-discuss/2010-August/059310.html. 
6. ^ Michael Larabel (September 10, 2010). "OpenIndiana — Another OpenSolaris Fork — Coming Next Week". Phoronix. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODU4OA. Retrieved 13 September 2010. 
7. ^ Announcement
8. ^ ^{a b} Sam Varghese. "OpenSolaris fork to be announced". ITWire. http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/41808-opensolaris-fork-to-be-announced. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
9. ^ ^{a b} EveryCity Managed Hosting. "EveryCity Sponsors OpenSolaris Fork OpenIndiana". http://blog.everycity.co.uk/2010/09/17/everycity-sponsors-opensolaris-fork-openindiana-2/. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
10. ^ "OpenIndiana Twitter Account". http://twitter.com/openindiana/. 
11. ^ Timothy Prickett Morgan. "OpenSolaris spork ready for download". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/14/openindiana_launch/. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
12. ^ "Illumos Foundation launches OpenIndiana". The H. http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Illumos-Foundation-launches-OpenIndiana-1079376.html. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
13. ^ Luke Hopewell. "Illumos Foundation resurrects OpenSolaris". ZDNet Australia. http://www.zdnet.com.au/illumos-foundation-resurrects-opensolaris-339306036.htm. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
14. ^ Ted Samson (September 15, 2010). "Illumos aims to clone dying OpenSolaris". InfoWorld. http://www.infoworld.com/t/unix/illumos-aims-clone-dying-opensolaris-456. Retrieved 15 September 2010. 
15. ^ (German) Oliver Diedrich (15 September 2010). "OpenIndiana statt OpenSolaris". Heise Online. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OpenIndiana-statt-OpenSolaris-1079302.html. Retrieved 15 September 2010. 
16. ^ http://twitter.com/openindiana/status/24510433571
17. ^ http://twitter.com/openindiana/status/24512194763
18. ^ "From the Editors: Consulting the Oracle". Software Development Times. Software Development Times. 15 September, 2010. http://www.sdtimes.com/FROM_THE_EDITORS_CONSULTING_THE_ORACLE/By_SD_TIMES_EDITORIAL_BOARD/About_ORACLE_and_SOLARIS/34636. Retrieved 15 September 2010. 
19. ^ Joe Brockmeier. "A Quick Look at OpenIndiana". Linux Magazine. http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7861/. Retrieved 18 September 2010. 
20. ^ Lawrence Latif (15 September 2010). "Open Indiana aims for default free Solaris distribution". The Inquirer. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/1733342/open-indiana-aims-default-free-solaris-distribution. Retrieved 15 September 2010. 
21. ^ What if Oracle discontinue providing access to the OpenSolaris source?
22. ^ Is OpenIndiana a desktop or a server operating system?
23. ^ http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/oi_147
24. ^ "oi_148". December 17, 2010. http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=openindiana. 
25. ^ "2010.Q1 - Foreverware". September 18, 2010. http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/2011.Q1+-+Foreverware. 
26. ^ http://twitter.com/openindiana/status/24806464021

External links

• Official website
• Openindiana Announcement by Joerg Moellenkamp
• OpenIndiana Officially Announced Announcement on OSNews