Editing Sun Microsystems (section)

===Operating systems===
{{Main|Solaris (operating system)}}

Sun is best known for its Unix systems, which have a reputation for system stability and a consistent design philosophy.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

Sun's first workstation shipped with [[UniSoft]] [[Version 7 Unix|V7 Unix]]. Later in 1982 Sun began providing [[SunOS]], a customized 4.2BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations.
SunOS included [[suntools]], an early [[GUI]] [[window system]].

In the late 1980s, AT&T tapped Sun to help them develop the next release of their branded UNIX, and in 1988 announced they would purchase up to a 20% stake in Sun.<ref>{{cite news | first = Burgess | last = John | title = AT&T to Buy Stake In Sun Microsystems | url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/406816581.html?dids=406816581:406816581&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=JAN+07%2C+1988&author=John+Burgess+Washington+Post+Staff+Writer&pub=The+Washington+Post | newspaper = The Washington Post | date = January 7, 1988 | access-date = January 23, 2007 | quote = American Telephone & Telegraph Co. announced yesterday that it will buy up to a 20 percent stake in Sun Microsystems Inc., a Silicon Valley-based maker of powerful small computers known as workstations. | archive-date = March 27, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070327204639/https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/406816581.html?dids=406816581:406816581&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=JAN+07%2C+1988&author=John+Burgess+Washington+Post+Staff+Writer&pub=The+Washington+Post | url-status = dead }}</ref> UNIX [[System V Release 4]] (SVR4) was jointly developed by AT&T and Sun.<ref>{{cite book
 |author1     = Simson Garfinkel
 |author2     = Gene Spafford
 |author3     = Alan Schwartz
 |authorlink1 = Simson Garfinkel
 |authorlink2 = Gene Spafford
 |date        = 2003-02-21
 |title       = Practical UNIX and Internet Security
 |publisher   = [[O'Reilly Media]]
 |isbn        = 978-0-596-00323-4
 |page        = 16
 |quote       = In the spring of 1988, AT&T and Sun Microsystems signed a joint development agreement to merge the two versions of Unix.
 |access-date = 2021-11-09
 |url         = https://books.google.com/books?id=50maN7VmpusC&pg=PT46
}}</ref> Sun used SVR4 as the foundation for Solaris 2.x, which became the successor to SunOS 4.1.x (later retroactively named Solaris 1.x). By the mid-1990s, the ensuing [[Unix wars]] had largely subsided, AT&T had sold off their Unix interests, and the relationship between the two companies was significantly reduced.

In the early 1990s, [[Brian P. Dougherty]], founder of [[Berkeley Softworks]] (which would go on to be re-incorporated as the ''GeoWorks Corporation'') accused 
the Java development team at Sun for studying GeoWorks's [[GEOS (16-bit operating system)|PC/GEOS]] operating system and incorporating features of PC/GEOS into their Unix-based operating system. Brian claimed that the object-oriented and flexible UI of PC/GEOS was "to this day the most sophisticated UI technology ever built into an OS".<ref name="Microworks">{{cite web | last=Camen | first=Kroc | date=August 24, 2006 | url=https://www.osnews.com/story/15223/geos-the-graphical-environment-operating-system/ | title=GEOS: The Graphical Environment Operating System | work=[[OSNews]] | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230321041825/https://www.osnews.com/story/15223/geos-the-graphical-environment-operating-system/ | archivedate=March 21, 2023}}</ref>

From 1992 Sun also sold [[Interactive Unix]], an operating system it acquired when it bought Interactive Systems Corporation from Eastman Kodak Company. This was a popular Unix variant for the PC platform and a major competitor to market leader [[SCO UNIX]]. Sun's focus on Interactive Unix diminished in favor of Solaris on both SPARC and x86 systems; it was dropped as a product in 2001.{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}}

Sun dropped the Solaris 2.x version numbering scheme after the Solaris 2.6 release (1997); the following version was branded Solaris 7. This was the first 64-bit release, intended for the new [[UltraSPARC]] CPUs based on the SPARC V9 architecture. Within the next four years, the successors Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 were released in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

Following several years of difficult competition and loss of server market share to competitors' Linux-based systems, Sun began to include Linux as part of its strategy in 2002. Sun supported both [[Red Hat Enterprise Linux]] and [[SUSE Linux Enterprise Server]] on its x64 systems; companies such as [[Canonical Ltd.]], [[Wind River Systems]] and [[MontaVista]] also supported their versions of Linux on Sun's SPARC-based systems.

In 2004, after having cultivated a reputation as one of [[Microsoft]]'s most vocal antagonists, Sun entered into a joint relationship with them, resolving various legal entanglements between the two companies and receiving US$1.95&nbsp;billion in settlement payments from them.<ref>{{cite press release
  |url = http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-04/sunflash.20040402.3.xml
  |title = Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Enter Broad Cooperation Agreement; Settle Outstanding Litigation
  |access-date =June 16, 2008
  |date = April 2, 2004
  |publisher=Microsoft Corporation, Sun Microsystems
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060322045711/http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-04/sunflash.20040402.3.xml
  |archive-date = March 22, 2006
}}</ref> Sun supported Microsoft Windows on its x64 systems, and announced other collaborative agreements with Microsoft, including plans to support each other's virtualization environments.<ref>{{cite news
  | author = Mary Jo Foley
  | title = Microsoft and Sun agree to support each other in virtualized environments
  | url = http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=712
  | work = [[ZDNet]]
  | date = September 12, 2007
  | access-date = February 6, 2008
  | archive-date = September 15, 2007
  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070915061739/http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=712
  | url-status = dead
  }}</ref>

In 2005, the company released Solaris 10. The new version included a large number of enhancements to the operating system, as well as very novel features, previously unseen in the industry. Solaris 10 update releases continued through the next 8 years, the last release from Sun Microsystems being Solaris 10 10/09. The following updates were released by Oracle under the new license agreement; the final release is Solaris 10 1/13.<ref>{{cite news
  | author= Oracle Corporation
  | title = Oracle Solaris 10 1/13
  | url = http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris10/overview/solaris-latest-version-170418.html
  | work= Oracle Web site
  | date = Feb 8, 2013
  | access-date = March 13, 2013
}}</ref>

Previously, Sun offered a separate variant of Solaris called [[Trusted Solaris]], which included augmented security features such as [[multilevel security]] and a [[least privilege]] access model. Solaris 10 included many of the same capabilities as Trusted Solaris at the time of its initial release; Solaris 10 11/06 included Solaris Trusted Extensions, which give it the remaining capabilities needed to make it the functional successor to Trusted Solaris.

After the release of Solaris 10, the Solaris source code was opened under the [[Common Development and Distribution License|CDDL]] [[free software]] license and developed in open with contributing [[OpenSolaris#History|Opensolaris community]] through [[Solaris (operating system)#Development release|SXCE]] that used [[UNIX System V#SVR4|SVR4]] [[.pkg]] packaging and supported [[OpenSolaris]] releases that used [[Image Packaging System|IPS]].
Following the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, OpenSolaris continued to develop in open under [[illumos]] with [[illumos#Distributions|illumos distributions]].

Oracle Corporation continued to develop Solaris, reverting new development back to the [[proprietary software|proprietary]] licensing; its next release was [[Oracle Solaris 11]] in November 2011.