In an apparent internal memo addressed to Oracle Solaris engineers, Oracle outlined plans to effectively end the OpenSolaris project.

The memo, signed by Mike Shapiro, Bill Nesheim, and Chris Armes, was posted on the blog of OpenSolaris kernel developer Steven Stallion, with the headline "" Indeed, after reading through the memo, this seems to be the case.

Specifically, the company will continue to make all Common Development and Distribution Licensed (CDDL) code available per the terms of the license, but will no longer release binary versions of OpenSolaris 2010.05 or later:

"All of Oracle's efforts on binary distributions of Solaris technology will be focused on Solaris 11. We will not release any other binary distributions, such as nightly or bi-weekly builds of Solaris binaries, or an OpenSolaris 2010.05 or later distribution. We will determine a simple, cost-effective means of getting enterprise users of prior OpenSolaris binary releases to migrate to S11 Express," the memo states.

Oracle's reasoning for this move seems to be two-fold. The memo cites that all decisions regarding Oracle's participation in open source projects will be based on "two core principles":