This Computerworld UK article has details about Sun’s plan to have OpenSolaris be a serious alternative to Linux for certain markets.

“There’s an enormous momentum building behind Solaris,” said Ian Murdock, chief operating platforms officer at Sun. He joined Sun in March after serving as the chief technology officer of the Linux Foundation. Murdock is also the creator of the Debian Linux distribution and is keen to take the lessons he’s learned in the Linux community and apply them to Solaris.

Sun is preparing to release OpenSolaris binaries early next year in a distribution code-named “Project Indiana” that will be similar to Linux distributions. The work, which is getting under way in the OpenSolaris community, is aimed at creating a single CD installation of the basic OS and desktop environment, giving developers the option to install additional software from network repositories.