You might recall that back in February, Sun Microsystems introduced the OpenSPARC program to assist and encourage hardware and software developers in their effort to build an ecosystem around Sun's UltraSPARC T1 processor. Well, looks like the OpenSPARC initiative is getting a bit of a boost, in the form of an independent advisory board that will "set the rules, policies and expectations of the community and help elect the initial members to what will eventually be the permanent governance board." The independent board is set to include analysts, academics and Sun employees. "For a community to run itself in an independent and open way, you need a board independent of Sun," said Fadi Azhari, director of marketing and business development for the OpenSPARC project.

In addition, it appears that OpenSPARC is also being embraced by the Linux community. Ubuntu Linux, which supports OpenSPARC in its GNU/Linux OS, has lead to over 3000 downloads onto OpenSPARC, according to Sun. The company has similar hopes for the upcoming release of Gentoo Linux, which also supports the platform. So far, it seems as if Sun's open-source initiative has proven beneficial for both the company and the open-source community.

For more on OpenSPARC:
- see this eWeek article