Solaris OS, Solaris Express and OpenSolaris

In this post, I want to discuss the main differences between Solaris OS, Solaris Express and OpenSolaris... coz I guess many of you are confusing and thinking that they are the same, and this is wrong.

(Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems.)

Solaris OS: is Sun's operating system product, and future versions of Solaris will be based on technology from the OpenSolaris project. Solaris is available as a free binary download.


OpenSolaris: is an open source project created by Sun Microsystems to build a developer community around the Solaris Operating System technology. The project's goals are innovation, collaboration and the extension of OpenSolaris technology. It aimed at developers, system administrators, and users who want to develop and improve operating systems. OpenSolaris is available for download.

Solaris Express: is Sun's official release of the OpenSolaris bits as well as additional technology that has not been released into the OpenSolaris source base. It consists of Solaris combined with a range of software (both current and future) to help you evaluate and Sun software as quickly as possible. It is primarily intended for Solaris customers to try out the very latest technology that will eventually be productized by Sun. Solaris Express is updated monthly and is available as a free binary download.

Therefore, Solaris is a product supported by a company; OpenSolaris is a development project run by a community of developers.

Check this site.