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Sun to Release Java Source Code

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the long-time-coming dept.

pete314 writes "After resisting for years, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz at JavaOne this morning said that he will release the source code for Java. The company is asking developers to provide feedback on how to best get there and prevent forking and fragmentation."

2 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How to prevent forking and fragmentation by gronofer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think this concern is outdated. Now that Microsoft have .NET they are hardly likely to put much effort into Java.

    I think even at the time such problems could have been avoided by releasing Java with a GPL licence. Most likely Microsoft simply wouldn't have touched it on those terms. Any changes they made would have been available to anyone in any case. Even if the "market decided" to prefer Microsoft's version over Sun's, it's would hardly have been the end of Java.

    Now with a dominant .NET on the other hand, what would be Sun's position in the desktop computing world? The supplier of a browser plugin for use by a few legacy web games.

  2. Re:Misleading Headline by Decaff · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OTOH you could view it like this:

    Sun doesn't support Java on Linux. Open sourcers complain. Now, they do, thanks to open sourcers complaining.

    Sun didn't support Java on Linux because of open source pressure. They supported it because Linux was very successful commercially and so needed an implementation of the primary commercial development language - Java.

    Sun doesn't support Java on Linux as a tier-1 platform. Open sourcers complain. Now, they do, thanks to open sourcers complaining.

    Which is complete nonsense. Sun have supported Java on Linux as a primary platform for a very long time.

    Sun doesn't release source code for Java. Open sourcers complain. Now, they do, thanks to open sourcers copmlaining.

    You need to have a far better understanding of Linux and Java history.

    I really don't think you understand how little open source matters in this respect. Java is already the number one development language in almost all areas of development - open source, server side, commercial application development. Sun has open sourced more lines of code in the past year than any other organisation - the entire Solaris codebase, and now they are doing this for Java. However, unless they deliver the entire source code as GPL directly to Richard Stallman, along with a grovelling apology for ever having doubted the true open source faith, some people will never be satisfied!