An exciting event will be happening later this month: Indiana's new OpenSolaris distro is due for its first preview (milestone) release. Also, the OpenSolaris/Indiana Developer Summit is happening this weekend.

With this in mind, allow me to post a reprise or two of some of the core issues that were on a lot of our minds a while back as this new initiative struggled to find its footing.

Probably the most core of the core issues is this: Is the Indiana project a true collaborative effort? There are many shades to that question, but overall, I believe it is. I base this on the the following two things. (Note, the second rests on the first.)

• This definition of collaborative development
  
• The fact that at the technical level what "Indiana" boils down to -- which is to say, what it is comprised of and defined by --  is the IPS-LiveMedia-Constructor project. And that project is massively engineer-driven, as opposed to upper-management driven.