The company's multifaceted announcement Thursday also includes intentions to offer ZFS (Zettabyte File System), a 128-byte file system with enhanced error detection correction capabilities, to open source via OpenSolaris.

In accommodating customer requests for an open source database, company officials acknowledged the PostgreSQL arrangement's potential to clash with a renewed relationship Sun has with commercial database vendor Oracle. Oracle was aware of today's move with PostgreSQL, but the company lacks an open source database, according to Sun.

"I would have loved to have Oracle give me an open source version" of its database, said John Loiacono, Sun executive vice president and head of the company's software group. "We'd love to see Oracle move in this direction, as well."

Oracle this week selected Solaris as its preferred development and deployment platform for most x64 hardware architectures and Sun UltraSparc systems. (Oracle officials were unable to comment by the filing of this article.)

As part of its integration with PostgreSQL, Sun will support the product, which is to be available with Solaris in 30 days.