But there are still issues for Sun and Solaris. The goal of Project Indiana was to make OpenSolaris more accessible to IT managers who have become accustomed to Linux. So Sun is walking a tightrope: As it works to incorporate new Linux-like features, it risks alienating existing Solaris users who like the OS the way it is.

Furthermore, OpenSolaris still has a way to go as a storage platform because many of its new features are relatively untested. If the implementation of CIFS does make it into the commercial version of Solaris, it probably won't be for a year or so.

Blankenhorn also noted that Samba, the other option for implementing CIFS on non-Windows systems, just got a shot in the arm. In December, Microsoft, in accordance with the European Commission antitrust lawsuit, released the protocol documentation needed to make Windows workgroup server products interoperate with free software projects such as Samba.

--Peter Bochner