The Nexenta project has shipped Nexenta Core Platform 3.0, which will be the last version based directly on the OpenSolaris code base as future versions will switch to the Illumos project's OpenSolaris fork

Well, it has been quite a week, last week. Not too long after the OpenSolaris Governing Board issued an ultimatum to Oracle and closely following the unveiling of the Illumos project, Oracle officially announced (in a memo to internal employees) that they will be leaving OpenSolaris behind. To most (including myself) this is not at all surprising.

According to Illumos project leader Garrett D'Amore, Oracle appears to have made its last commit to ON, the core of OpenSolaris, and he's very excited about it

Since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year, the future of the Solaris and OpenSolaris operating systems have been called into question especially as the OpenSolaris 2010.1H release was missing and has been that way for months now with no official communication from Oracle. A new OpenSolaris release hasn't come in more than a year and we still are left wondering if or when it will arrive.

When the OpenSolaris Governing Board issued their ultimatum to Oracle on July 12, few thought it would have the desired effect of saving OpenSolaris.

Frustrated by Oracle's delay in releasing the latest version of OpenSolaris, the OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) is growing uneasy over Oracle's lack of communication regarding the future of the Unix OS code.

OpenSolaris derivative aims to create an all open source baseline for future distributions, with 100% ABI compatibility and more openness, transparency and innovation

While Sun Microsystems may have struggled with making money from its OpenSolaris operating system prior to Sun's acquisition by Oracle, that doesn't mean that others haven't had better success.

There are still a few weeks left before the deadline that demands Oracle appoint a community liaison for their OpenSolaris operating system. However, some OpenSolaris community developers have already had enough: they've begun work on a new project.