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Open source Java?

Posted by Zonk on from the open-source-that-wakes-you-up-in-the-morning dept.

Bruce writes "Newsforge is reporting that Java 2 Standard Edition, may soon be set free of Sun Microsystems' notoriously complicated licensing. A group of 12 Apache developers have put together a proposal called Harmony. The proposal appeared as a simple project call last Friday on an Apache incubator mailing list. It would make this new, built-from-the-ground-up version of Java available under the Apache 2.0 free software license. And it's causing quite a stir in the Java community, especially since respected Sun frontmen Tim Bray, Simon Phipps, and Graham Hamilton have given the project their blessing. As yet there has been no reaction from Dr. Java, James Gosling himself, who is in Brazil talking to developers. In a FAQ on the Apache site, Harmony project leader Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote: 'We believe that there is broad community interest in coming together to create and use an open source, compatible implementation of J2SE 5, the latest version of the Java 2 Standard Edition specification. While the Java Community Process has allowed open source implementations of JSRs for a few years now, Java 5 is the first of the J2SE specs that we are able to do due to licensing reasons.'"

3 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. The apache 2 license is not free. by Some+Random+Username · · Score: 0, Troll

    They put in a bungled mess of patent nonsense, despite software licenses being for copyright law, not patent law. This mess is worded such that if you use software licensed under this license, you agree never to sue them, even if they say, steal your GPL code and stick it in a project of theirs. If you do sue them, then you aren't allowed to use the software anymore, and they can sue you for using it. It may not have been intended to facilitate code theft, but it can still be used that way, and despite being warned of this issue before the license was finalized, the apache people went ahead with the broken version anyhow.

  2. wasting time in java by ghostzerg · · Score: 0, Troll

    dont needed. python is already open-source.

  3. Re:Not Embarassing by Donny+Smith · · Score: 0, Troll

    > This is not embarassing. It's news that is good enough to repeat.

    Hah!
    It is irresponsible, iritiating, disgraceful and stupid, that's what it is.

    >I can't wait for Java to be fully open source so I can gut it and re-release it how I would like to see it written.

    Yeah, I'm sure you're skillful enough to issue a spelling-fixing patch.