Oracle closes OpenSolaris loop

Oracle has decided to exclude open source developers from making real-time additions to future versions of its Sun-inherited Solaris operating system, the company told staff in an internal email leaked over the weekend.

The email, written by Oracle Solaris executives Mike Shapiro, Bill Nesheim and Chris Armes, was posted by OpenSolaris software engineer, Steve Stallion on Friday.

"We will no longer distribute source code for the entirety of the Solaris operating system in real-time while it is developed, on a nightly basis," the executives explained.

Oracle wants "new technology innovations [to] show up in our releases before anywhere else," the executives said.

The move is part of a broader push by Oracle to sharpen its storage, server and application businesses.

Stallion criticised Oracle's decision as "perversion of the open source spirit".

Oracle said it will now release a developer edition of Solaris 11 under "Solaris 11 Express" - with optional support services - by the end of the year. Customers on older OpenSolaris releases will be encouraged to migrate to the new Express platform.

While developers under the Sun's CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License) will have to wait for Oracle to release the full version of Solaris, key partners such as Intel will be kept in the loop under the Oracle Technology Network.

"Our core, existing technology partnerships, such as the one with Intel, are examples of valued participation," the executives explained.

Frustrated by Oracle's lack of communication with the OpenSolaris movement, the OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) threatened to dissolve in July if Oracle failed to appoint a liason officer by August.

Oracle also recently shut down servers that supported the open source database software project, PostgreSQL, and last week launched an attack on Google, accusing the company of using patented portions of Sun's Java platform within Android.