OpenSolaris 2008.05 Is Project Indiana

The first general availability release of OpenSolaris, but perhaps better known by its Ian Murdock-generated codename of Project Indiana, was planned for March of 2008. If you didn't notice though, Project Indiana never made it out in March. It's now the middle of April and there is still no sign of this first release that aims to reach Sun's goal of putting Solaris on more desktops. Released so far on Project Indiana has just been an initial Developer Preview release last October followed by a second preview copy in February. When testing that most recent test release, Project Indiana wasn't much more than underlying OpenSolaris technologies with a stock GNOME desktop.

Based upon the documentation for this unreleased Solaris desktop, Project Indiana will come in May -- two months late. The official name for this forthcoming release is OpenSolaris 2008.05. The getting started guide for OpenSolaris 2008.05 can be viewed at Sun's website. Sun plans to have new OpenSolaris desktop releases every six months, which would then place the next release as OpenSolaris 2008.11 in November, which has already been codenamed OpenSolaris Jericho.

When we know any other details surrounding the OpenSolaris 2008.05 "Indiana" release, we'll be sure to pass them along.