Filed in archive Business by jason on May 17, 2006

Today the New York Times story about how Jonathan Schwartz has decided Sun Microsystems will be releasing an Open Source version of java (see story here). I have a few friends that were laid off in the past few years from Sun Microsystems and I'm sure most folks know the company isn't doing too well these days. Apparently Sun is going to try and move to more of a service organization as IBM has over the past few years.

Releasing Java as Open Source is something most developers have wanted for a longtime. The one argument I've heard against this happening was that there would be the possibility of the Java language splintering. I don't think that is going to happen since Java is so well established right now.

Hopefully this will lead to Java being adopted even more. One area I'd like to see more of Java is in the major Linux distros. Right now many distros ship with a version of Java I don't feel comfortable working with overall
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Related Entries:

Java Mobile Edition Development Tool Open Sourced - 25 August 2006
Open Source Java Plans Finalized By Sun - 07 November 2006
Is IBM Happy Over Sun's Open Source Java? - 20 November 2006
Java SE Development Kit gets open sourced - 10 May 2007

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Permalink: Sun To Release Open Source Java

Tags: Java Open

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Vote for Sun To Release Open Source Java:

Currently 8.00/10
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Rating: 8.00 out of 1 vote(s) cast.

Response from: dario (05/18/06 12:49pm)

You can't really have it both ways, a license retaining full control (to avoid splintering) and a "true" open source license (be it GPL or BSD style) without splintering.

Once example of how you can't avoid splintering is customizing the JVM for embedded systems or to simply make the runtime small enough so that Java becomes more pervasive on the desktop, browsers and mobile devices. Removing many of the license restrictions would help prevent fragmentation but will never eliminate that possibility, as that is the nature of open source.

Response from: The Gadgets Weblog

SonyEricsson Releases New Walkman Handset - from MobileWeblog. Can it replace your MP3 Player? Make the most of a cloudy day - from DigitalShot Sun To Release Open Source Java - from Java Entrepreneur...