Sun Follows Apache Model To Govern OpenSolarisSun Follows Apache Model To Govern OpenSolaris

Sun Microsystems has selected five people for its OpenSolaris Community Advisory Board, including a key developer of the Apache Web server, with the goal of using it as a nucleus for a larger community of open-source developers.

Sun plans to release an open-source version of its Solaris operating system by midyear. Sun would like to see a vigorous community surround OpenSolaris, similar to the one that surrounds Linux, which has been nibbling away at the low end of Sun's customer base.

The board will create governing mechanisms and policies for OpenSolaris, such as establishing procedures for managing development projects. The board also will oversee how soon OpenSolaris innovations are added to Sun's commercial version of Solaris, and vice versa.

Roy Fielding, chief scientist at Day Software Holding AG, was named to the advisory board. He was part of the original Apache development team and remains part of the Apache Software Foundation, managers of the Apache Web server open-source project.

Also named to the board were Sun employees Simon Phipps, Sun's chief technology evangelist, and Casper Dik, a senior staff engineer at Sun.

Two members elected by the OpenSolaris pilot community were Al Hopper, engineer consultant of Logical Approach, a supply-chain consulting firm; and Rich Teer, an independent Solaris consultant and author of the book, Solaris Systems Programming (Prentice Hall, 2004).

In a teleconference Monday, John Loiacono, Sun's executive VP for software, said the advisory board would serve as "stewards" of OpenSolaris and guide it toward a functioning open-source community.

Phipps, in the teleconference, said the board will be expanded to include more developers who contribute code to OpenSolaris, giving those developers more decision-making authority on OpenSolaris' direction. "It will be similar to the Apache Software Foundation. Solaris already has a huge global community (of developers)," Phipps said. "Recognizing contributors is the most appropriate way to structure governance."