Sun will open source JAVA within 30-60 days

[greggh]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20061025/tc_infoworld/83138


Demonstrating a perhaps more aggressive path than anticipated, Sun Microsystems is set to announce the open-sourcing of the core Java platform within 30 to 60 days, Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz said at the Oracle OpenWorld conference on Wednesday morning.

The core platform encompasses the Standard Edition of Java, and it will be offered via an open source format under an OSI (Open Source Initiative)-approved license, likely the same one used for Sun's open source Solaris OS.

[user1397]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20061025/tc_infoworld/83138awesome, now it will probably be easier to install java in ubuntu than before.

[darkhatter]

:confused: how come everyone is going open source now...:-k
Once Windows open source, and os x releases the rest of the code there will be no more closed O.S.

[Brunellus]

"Open Source" is not "Free Software." I will be keen to see how free the license terms are.

[Virogenesis]

Its going to be quite restrictive like how opensolaris is, its not going to be much use.

[samir85]

Its going to be quite restrictive like how opensolaris is, its not going to be much use.

Well at least they say it will be an OSI-compatible license and that's enough for me :)

Well, I hope that by making Java open source more Java applications will be adopted into Linux. I already wanted to develop Java applications, but I could never realize that, because most libraries in Linux are not written in Java, so hopefully this will change now !

[darkhatter]

all I want to see is more speed increases and I'm done, Open Source truly is the future

[Virogenesis]

Well at least they say it will be an OSI-compatible license and that's enough for me :)

Well, I hope that by making Java open source more Java applications will be adopted into Linux. I already wanted to develop Java applications, but I could never realize that, because most libraries in Linux are not written in Java, so hopefully this will change now !
Really?
As ZFS is part of the OpenSolaris code base, the source code is readily available under the OSI-approved Common Development and Distribution (CDDL) license. Developers that are interested in learning more about ZFS may want to take a look at the sources for more details on what's under the hood.

When ZFS was first announced, I'm sure many Linux hackers had a thought how it would be a great idea to port such a great filesystem to Linux. Unfortunately, ZFS source is distributed under Sun's CDDL license which is (some say deliberatly) incompatible with the GPL license that Linux kernel uses. So, it looks like there will be no native port of ZFS for Linux in the foreseeable future. What a pity.

Taken from two different articles.... this isn't progress.

[BWF89]

I don't care whether Java is open source or proprietary. It's a great programming language if your looking to use a program across Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. It's already one of the most popular programming languages even though it's proprietary. Even if the license it's going to be distributed under (CDDL) isn't considered by some to be open enough it's still a step up from being wholly proprietary.

[deepwave]

So Sun Microsystems finally flinched. :D

That is good to hear. But I guess Java will be licensed under the same license as OpenOffice, which is not one of my OSI favorites. I wonder what the impact of this annoucement will be on the blackdown-java and gcj projects.

[Rhapsody]

"Open Source" is not "Free Software." I will be keen to see how free the license terms are.

If it's the same as OpenSolaris, then it'll be under the Common Development and Distribution License, which is considered a free software licence (though GPL-incompatible).

However, software in the Ubuntu main or universe repositories has to meet the Ubuntu licence requirements, which correspond roughly to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and it is thought that the CDDL may not comply with the DFSG.

All in all, this might not change very much at all. Sun seem rather similar to Apple in this, in that they want the advantages of open source development without having to give back to the community as much as they take. If I'm wrong about that, licencing Java under a GPL-compatible licence would be a nice gesture...

[Brunellus]

in fairness to Sun, "the community" aren't owed anything. It's their software (for now); they get to determine the license under which they release it.

[warlorddagaz]

To be honest, I don't really care whether it's open source or not - I onyl use it occasionally, as my programs never want to compile or run properly.

however, I am a fan of open source stuff, and it's good to see them going that way.