Sun Microsystems has become its own free software foundation, open-sourcing everything from Java to Solaris, and acquiring the open-source MySQL database for $1 billion in January of this year, as a way to grow its revenue.

Under its new owner, Sun Microsystems, MySQL will remain true to its Linux roots and won’t be pulled towards Solaris or become overshadowed by the Solaris-distributed Postgres.

While announcing open-source-based virtualization and a Solaris server partnership with Dell on Wednesday, Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz told Oracle's OpenWorld that Sun was "one of the first" in the industry to deliver a virtual machine - the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Jonathan Schwartz is a man on a mission. While at Linuxworld today, I took an hour to visit with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems.

Back in August we shared that Sun would be discontinuing SXCE, or formally known as Solaris Express Community Edition.

Oracle has announced it is purchasing Sun Microsystems for just over $7 billion. The official word from Oracle is that the purchase gives it two key assets - Java and Solaris - but open sourcerers will understandably be more interested in MySQL and OpenOffice.org.

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, an advocate of Web 2.0, used Twitter early Thursday to announce his resignation. He was named CEO in 2006 as Sun faced a switch in strategic direction away from proprietary systems and toward open source code, including its valued Solaris 10 operating system.

Sun Microsystems plans to countersue Network Appliance later this week, Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz said Wednesday, a suit that will include a request to remove the company's products from the market.

For this article we have taken NVIDIA's latest display driver for Linux and Solaris (v100.14.11) and ran it on both operating systems. Specifically, we had used Fedora 7 with the Linux 2.6.21 kernel and on the Solaris side had used both Solaris Express Developer Edition 5/07 and Solaris Express Community Edition Build 66 "Nevada".