S0laris 10 has been released and is now available for download for SPARC and x86 platforms.

The BlastWare project is aiming to create AMD64, SPARC, and PowerPC distributions based on the OpenSolaris project from Sun.

Ben Rockwood of CuddleTech, another member of the OpenSolaris Pilot Program, has completed the first external-to-Sun full build of OpenSolaris on the AMD64 platform.

He’s also got a screenshot to prove it!

Along with the OpenSolaris announcements today, Sun has formally announced that the Solaris 10 source code will be released under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL).

Sun today announced the largest single release of patent innovations into the open source community by any organization to date. Open Source developers will have free access to OpenSolaris-related patents under the Common Development and Distribution License.

OpenSolaris.org is now open for business with its first release, the source code to DTrace released under the CDDL. I’m proud to be part of the OpenSolaris Pilot Program, and will be including more OpenSolaris-related news on SunHELP as things are released to the public.

The Gentoo Foundation has announced plans for the Portage packaging system to support OpenSolaris.

Marc Hamilton, Director of Technology for the Global Education and Research Group at Sun Microsystems, will be speaking at the 2005 Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 3x). Mr. Hamilton’s group is responsible for driving the widespread adoption and use of Sun technology and products by education and research institutions around the world. He will present a talk titled “Open Development for Solaris and Linux” where he will discuss the benefits Project Janus and OpenSolaris bring to Solaris, Linux, and open source software.

SCALE 3x will be held on Feb 12-13, 2005 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In addition to Mark’s talk there will be 30 other sessions ranging from beginer tutorials to advanced topics, as well as over 42 exhibits from Linux and open-source related organizations.

In his weblog, Sun’s COO Jonathan Schwartz has posted an open letter to IBM’s CEO about IBM’s refusal to support its WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, Rational and MQSeries products on Solaris 10.

Sun has joined the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and will promote the inclusion of the JavaTM platform within the Blu-ray Disc platform.

The BDA is responsible for establishing format standards, promoting and further developing business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc, which is a next-generation optical disc format being developed for high-definition video and high-capacity software applications. This disc format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data.

A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25 GB, which can be used to record over 2 hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50 GB.

The Next Generation Crypto Team at Sun have developed “Sizzle“, the world’s smallest secure web server.

This server is the size of a U.S. twenty-five cent coin and is designed to be embedded in a wide array of tiny devices (home appliances, light fixtures, utility meters, sprinkler systems, personal medical devices, temperature and pressure sensors) for secure monitoring and control across the Internet. Sizzle runs on the Berkeley/Crossbow “motes” — battery-powered, wireless devices equipped with an 8-bit microprocessor, 128KB of FLASH and a mere 4KB of RAM.

Sun today announced the availability of the Sun Java System RFID Tag and Ship Solution and the Sun RFID Reference Architecture.

The Sun Java System RFID Tag and Ship ISA Solution is a simple, entry-level RFID solution that enables customers to address specific RFID compliance requests, such as those from retailers including: Wal-Mart, Target and Albertsons, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense and other organizations. For customers looking to do more with RFID and integrate RFID data with back-end enterprise systems, the Sun RFID Reference Architecture provides essential guidelines through a designed, tested, tuned, and documented proof-of-concept deployment architecture.

Sun RFID Reference Architecture is the latest in an established methodology that identifies, designs, builds, tests and optimizes Sun technology and premier third-party business applications for safer, more efficient deployments, which yield more predictable performance within a customer’s business environment. Sun RFID Reference Architecture is built upon a foundation of RFID best practices and methodologies, which address performance and scalability for tracking RFID product movement.

Sun reported results today for the fiscal second quarter ending December 26, 2004.

Revenues for the second quarter were $2.843 billion, a decrease of 1.6 percent as compared with $2.888 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2004. Total gross margin as a percent of revenues was 42.3 percent, an increase of 0.5 percentage points as compared with the second quarter of fiscal 2004.

Excluding these amounts, net income for Q2 fiscal 2005 on a non-GAAP basis was $28 million or $0.01 per share as compared with a net loss, on a non-GAAP basis, in Q2 fiscal 2004 of $99 million or a net loss of $0.03 per share.

Sun has terminated the FreeBSD Project‘s Java license. Apparently Sun is terminating all SCSL licenses in preparation for the release of Java 5 under a different license.

If you are an expert Solaris system and network administrator, this is your opportunity to get involved in the creation of four new industry leading certification exams!!! Your participation in this survey will help Sun create an exam that truly measures a system and network administrator’s knowledge and skills to perform the job role.

This survey will permit Sun to collect information about how each testing objective should be weighted in terms of importance of subject matter, level of difficulty, and frequency of use.

For completing this survey, Sun send you a free voucher to take the Solaris 10 certification beta exams. If you take all three surveys, Sun will send you three vouchers. These betas count towards Sun certification.

Instructions:
1. Please go to: http://sestbt.sun.com:8047/sesCert/ to fill out the surveys.
Click “Take an exam survey”
2. Select the Exams to survey: There are three different ones:
– Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 10 OS, Part I
– Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 10 OS, Part II
– Sun Certified Network Administrator for Solaris 10 OS
3. Go to: New Users; and create a new user account and submit.
Please read the survey instructions carefully, for reference you may want to print it.

Please fill out this survey by January 12, 5:00 pm MST. Each survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. The survey will close and will not be available after this date.

You will only receive a free voucher for the beta if you complete the blueprint survey. The vouchers will be sent electronically in February.