We don't see enough of mainstream support by Sun for Linux. It also gives a perception that Sun isn't contributing enough to Linux and open source. What is the reason?

All the volume of Linux is in the Intel space. From a systems perspective, it doesn't make sense for us to have Linux on our systems because we don't sell Intel systems. We are actually not building Linux but we are doing a lot with Linux as a software organization. We are working in two areas. One is to ensure that Solaris and Linux are compatible. We are working from the common user and developer prospective to ensure that Linux and Solaris provide the same experience.

Why are you doing that?

Customers want consistency between Linux and Solaris because they have Solaris. I want a Solaris developer to be able to walk up to a Linux machine and be able to use it instantly. Sun technologies such as Java are available on Linux. The final version of JDK 1.3 for Linux was available within one week of it being available for the Solaris platform.

Most traditional Unix companies now embrace Linux. Sun is probably the only company that doesn't. What is the reason?

We don't support multiple operating systems and would rather focus on providing good support for the OS that we understand best.

IBM supports multiple OS'. Why can't Sun?

We are not in the business of supporting multiple OS'. We serve our customers better. In case of IBM, they have a whole range of products which need to be tied to together and they need Linux to bind these together. We don't have the problem IBM is trying to solve. They don't support the OS beyond the first level call. We are providing a consistent environment for our customer. Solaris provides higher-end capabilities that are not available on Linux. As long as there are strong advantages in scalability, manageability and high availability in Solaris, we will continue to focus there. IBM is trying to take the opportunity and ride the wave of Linux right now. We continue to boost Linux. We think continued development of Linux is good thing. We continue to invest in open source utilities.

What about SGI?

SGI is moving to Linux for Intel only. If we have an Intel product line, we will be shipping Linux too. For the other vendors adding Linux isn't a problem because they were anyway supporting multiple OS'.

Is Solaris source code available for download?