April 1, 2003, 10:50 AM MST
Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW), in a surprise announcement, has

stated that it will offer the OpenBSD operating system as the default

operating system for its Intel-based workstations.  The move came

shortly after Sun announced the death of its own Linux distribution,

internally known as "Mad Hatter Linux".
This new direction comes on the heels of a strategic partnership

between Intel and Fujitsu, long-time Sun partner and manufacturer

of Sparc chips, to build competing Linux-based servers and mainframe

computers.
"Our polling shows a strong demand for Sun-branded Intel workstations

running OpenBSD" said head of Open Source Solutions Brad S. Downey.

"Customers who wish to run Solaris generally do so on our

enterprise-strength UltraSparc-based machines.  Anyone can sell a

PC running Linux, here at Sun we strive to differentiate ourselves

and produce a product with superior hardware and software.  With

its dedication to industrial strength security OpenBSD allows us

to do just that."  Both OpenBSD and Solaris have their roots in a

version of Unix developed at the University of California, Berkeley.

Downey stated "Sun engineers are more comfortable inside the OpenBSD

kernel than they are inside Linux.  Furthermore, Sun has shipped

OpenSSH, an OpenBSD spin off project, for the past several releases

so we already have good contacts within the OpenBSD leadership."
When asked about the recent tiff between OpenBSD lead Theo de Raadt

and Sun regarding hardware documentation for the UltraSparc III

CPU, Downey said "We have a good rapport with the OpenBSD team.

Our assistance in gaining access to hardware documentation has been

invaluable to them regarding the continued development of their

UltraSparc port."  When asked whether he was worried about OpenBSD

on the UltraSparc taking market share from Sun's one Solaris (tm)

operating system, Downey had the following to say: "We don't see

ourselves as being in direct competition.  While it's true that we

both give away operating systems that run on the UltraSparc CPU,

Solaris has a much higher version number and our customers appreciate

that.  Now, if OpenBSD were to release a version 10 tomorrow we

might have a problem."