On August 28, the Project Leader and Founder of OpenIndiana, Alasdair Lumsden, resigned from his position effective immediately. OpenIndiana was the fork of which was originally OpenSolaris. When Oracle announced to sudden death of OpenSolaris, post their acquisition of former technology giant, Sun Microsystems, it was quickly forked and split into two entirely new entities. OpenIndiana would become the new project for a desktop distribution release based around the OpenSolaris model. And Illumos would become the new project for the kernel development.
Since its beginnings, OpenIndiana has struggled to make a real dent in the enterprise desktop Unix market. Although not a crowded market in comparison to the Linux alternative, OpenIndiana persisted nevertheless. But OpenIndiana was not only fighting for desktop share in the Unix world, but they were also fighting against the ever growing Linux market. In which itself has grown in use and popularity in the home, business and enterprise. OpenIndiana has never really been able to grow in the same way has competing open-source operating systems, yet loyal followers, users and developers alike of the project has been very loyal. Illumos has been slightly more productive and progressive when it comes to development. Enjoying the success, Illumos provides the very core base for operating systems such as SmartOS, Nexenta and more.
In the coming days, we’ll be providing Unixmen readers with an exclusive interview with Alasdair Lumsden regarding his resignation.
