Sun to Fully Open Source Java

Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf brings news that Sun Microsystems will be removing the last restrictions on Java to make it completely open source. Sun wants Java to be easily available for use in Linux distributions. We've discussed the steps Sun has taken to open-source Java over the past couple years. From Yahoo! News: "'We've been engaging with the open-source community for Java to finish off the OpenJDK project, and the specific thing that we've been working on with them is clearing the last bits that we didn't have the rights,' to distribute, Sands said. 'Over the past year, we have pretty much removed most of those encumbrances.' Work still needs to be done to offer the Java sound engine and SNMP code via open source; that effort is expected to be completed this year. Developers, though, may be able to proceed without a component like the sound engine, Sands said.

Comments

What,

[Trogre]

again?

Re:Kudos to them, I guess

[SeePage87]

It's ok guys, I'll handle this.

How has Java being closed source affected you personally I can't count the number of times I've cried myself to sleep thinking of the poor children who blindly agree to arbitrary EULAs which they are incapable of understanding.

What effects do you see this having in the future

Now those children blindly agree to the somewhat less arbitrary GPL which they are incapable of understanding.

This is truly a magnificent day!

Re:Kudos to them, I guess

[CajunArson]

A lot of us don't have the time to waste multiple hours compiling software.

And the rest of us use Gentoo. If this new "open source" Java takes less than a week to compile, I will be extremely disappointed in Sun's efforts!

Re:Sun's source code

[wild_quinine]

Now if only we could have the Sun's source code to modify the Sun and fix global warming...

No good, you wouldn't be able to see it when doing a nightly build.

Re:Better late than early

[hotfireball]

Job search hits from Dice.com

Java [dice.com]: 15786 jobs
Python: [dice.com] 1395 jobs
Ruby: [dice.com] 757 jobs
C/C++ [dice.com] 6283 jobs

BTW, same site says:
Excel: 10742 jobs
Coffee making: 22 jobs
Micromanagement: 96539 jobs
Yelling on Employees: 1 job (Junior Technolohist)

Re:Kudos to them, I guess

[iapetus]

Actually, Sun used to have my favourite EULAs in the computing world. Because they displayed them in editable text areas. The contracts into which I have entered with Sun in order to download Java are many and varied, as a result. And Sun still owe me upwards of $10m for using their software.