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OpenSolaris leader leaves Sun for Amazon

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
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Stephen Shankland

Claire Giordano, the Sun executive who led the introduction of the Sun's OpenSolaris operating system project and its accompanying open-source Community Development and Distribution License, is leaving the company for a to work for Amazon's A9 search engine project.

Giordano announced the move on her blog Sunday. OpenSolaris is an ambitious project to restore the relevance of Sun's Solaris version of Unix by making it open-source software. One of Solaris' chief rivals, Linux, was open-source from the start, but competitors, including IBM's AIX, Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX and Microsoft's Windows, remain proprietary.

"OpenSolaris is now well on its way and I feel comfortable leaving it at this point - there is a lot of community support and leadership to move the project forward," Giordano said. "My decision has little to do with Sun, and everything to do with the exciting opportunity ahead of me at A9."

At A9, Giordano will be director of product management starting in mid-December. "I'm particularly jazzed about the A9 OpenSearch technology which makes it easy for content providers to publish their search results."