Sun Microsystems is expected to release Solaris as open-source software Tuesday; the move is a centerpiece of the company"s plan to regain lost relevance and fend off rivals Red Hat, IBM and Microsoft.
The company plans to post more than 5 million lines of source code for the heart of the operating system--its kernel and networking code--at the OpenSolaris Web site, said Tom Goguen, Solaris" marketing chief. However, some source code components, such as installation and some administration tools, will arrive later.