Sun for obvious reasons have always touched Linux with the tips of two fingers and a clothes peg across the nose, so they had to use the name Java for a desktop that is a pretty standard Linux distro. I think their end game is to try to devise a version of Solaris with all the good stuff from Linux and see if it will fly with customers and if successful will propagate Solaris in place of Linux as better, more robust, secure and the full gamut of buzzwords that Corporations like to see.
I'm sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree. I know it may be off-topic for this list, so I do not wish to start a debate, merely to state my views and observations. Sun has never needed to be careful about Linux in any way. The only reasons it took them so long to get on the bandwagon was because they were completely committed to Solaris, being the #1 Unix flavor. Also, Linux, until as of late, was merely not mature enough to take over the reigns of Solaris for Sun's core market. Solaris was simply, until now, a better OS for the type of work that Sun products were meant to do. But as Bob Dylan once said "times are a changin'". And times are a changing indeed. Sun has openly pulled a complete "about face". They have slowed development on Solaris to a halt and have become completely dedicated to the Gnu/Linux OS. This is why Solaris 9 is freely available for download (for SPARC platform, and only like a $20 fee for x86). Sun now sells it's Sun ONE product family which includes: "Java technology, x86-based hardware, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and soon SuSE Linux Enterprise Server along with the Sun ONE product family--all supported by Sun services" - http://wwws.sun.com/software/linux/index.html And of course, Java is first on the list, I bet you picked up on that too. Times definitely are a changing. The company behind the #1 Unix flavor is now completely dedicated to Linux. People are opening their eyes.