Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Oracle Solaris
open-in-new
<p>Oracle Solaris is a <a href="/facts/Proprietary_software/9zcskxYL">proprietary</a> <a href="/facts/Unix/0pNL2seI">Unix</a> <a href="/facts/Operating_system/8XTuvMh2">operating system</a> offered by <a href="/facts/Oracle_Corporation/0z14FygH">Oracle</a> for <a href="/facts/SPARC/m7KhEtET">SPARC</a> and <a href="/facts/X86-64/cyWvUFlP">x86-64</a> based <a href="/facts/Workstation/h5tK4hTt">workstations</a> and <a href="/facts/Server_(computing)/dEaYFD7r">servers</a>. Originally developed by <a href="/facts/Sun_Microsystems/VJ9EzEFd">Sun Microsystems</a> as Solaris, it superseded the company's earlier <a href="/facts/SunOS/oWMcGLqc">SunOS</a> in 1993 and became known for its <a href="/facts/Scalability/jh7JomPa">scalability</a>, especially on SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as <a href="/facts/DTrace/Q5djxLKt">DTrace</a>, <a href="/facts/ZFS/cmh5BHlp">ZFS</a> and Time Slider. After the <a href="/facts/Acquisition_of_Sun_Microsystems_by_Oracle_Corporation/W2K9XL4y">Sun acquisition by Oracle</a> in 2010, it was renamed Oracle Solaris. </p><p>Solaris was registered as compliant with the <a href="/facts/Single_UNIX_Specification/w1ba5bDt">Single UNIX Specification</a> until 29 April 2019. Historically, Solaris was developed as <a href="/facts/Proprietary_software/9zcskxYL">proprietary software</a>. In June 2005, Sun Microsystems released most of the <a href="/facts/Codebase/MT0CJ4oD">codebase</a> under the <a href="/facts/CDDL/f1gcKWVz">CDDL</a> license, and founded the <a href="/facts/OpenSolaris/7q5ouhPa">OpenSolaris</a> <a href="/facts/Open-source_software/HzTaB8E9">open-source</a> project. Sun aimed to build a developer and user community with OpenSolaris; after the Oracle acquisition in 2010, the OpenSolaris distribution was discontinued and later discontinued providing public updates to the source code of the Solaris kernel, effectively turning Solaris version 11 back into a <a href="/facts/Closed_source/9zcskxYL">closed source</a> proprietary operating system. Following that, OpenSolaris was forked as <a href="/facts/Illumos/helcbXv6">Illumos</a> and is alive through several <a href="/facts/Illumos/helcbXv6">Illumos distributions</a>. In September 2017, Oracle laid off most of the Solaris teams. </p>