Clarke earlier this month announced that his group had ported IBM's Power chip to Solaris; he's now hoping that over time, user interest in Solaris on the Power processor will develop.

Karen Anaya, chairwoman and CEO of Sparc International Inc. in Campbell Inc., said that the plan to open-source the T1 is a positive move and that the group is expecting a T1 port to Linux. 'We're excited about it,' she said.

Anaya said she believes that the specification release will improve Linux's capability to run on UltraSparc and will draw third-party support.