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At last year’s JavaONE Conference, Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems and Rich Green, the Executive Vice President, committed to releasing Java SE (Standard Edition) under an Open Source license. Since then, Sun has been slowly edging towards what has been a much-awaited eventuality. Taking this initiative further, Sun has today announced the open sourcing of more components of the Java platform. The components that are being released are the Java C Compiler, HotSpot VM (Virtual Machine), and the Java Helpdesk. Starting today, the community will now be able to download, use and build on an open source implementation of these platform components.

Earlier in August, Sun had announced that the open sourcing would happen in incremental steps, rolling out pieces of the software as incumbencies are cleared. These components, released today, are being released in their entirety. There are still a few incumbencies left though, with most of them having to do with the process of 2D rendering libraries. Speaking to SDA Asia’s Editor-in-Chief Dilip Thomas, Robert Brewin, Co-CTO Software of Sun Microsystems said the entire JDK should be available and buildable in open source form by the next JavaOne Conference, in May 2007.

"We are launching the community around open source Java. It's Real!", Robert Brewin, co-CTO, Software, Sun Microsystems

Simultaneously, Sun has also announced that the platform is being released under the GPL Version 2 licence, putting an end to rampant speculation on what the potential licensing format would eventually turn out to be. For SE that will include the classpath exemption which allows for people to build and bind to the Java platform yet redistribute their application without being bound to the GPL license. Additionally, issues with intellectual property management will also be taken care of under the licensing. “We chose GPL Version 2 because we were looking for a model that was a standard, was well accepted by the community and has a lot of traction. The license provides not only Sun but also the community the ability to protect the platform as best as it possible”, said Brewin. He also added that GPL2 was certainly one the most popular licences out there and it was determined that it provided those qualities that Sun and their customers were looking for.

GPL is primarily used in Linux, and having Java platform open sourced under GPL would allow the platform to be more greatly available on Linux. This is an added bonus for Sun, because today not much of Java is distributed on Linux because of licence-related problems and other issues.

More important than the licence, could be the community that Sun plans to build around the open source implementation of Java. But as of now, nothing has been decided on the governance model for the community. But as far as the compatibility or the evolution of the platform is concerned, there wouldn’t be too many changes. And the good news is that additional innovation and evolution can be expected in the platform, because of the open source nature that basically allows people to contribute in different ways than what has been done so far.

Prior to this announcement, not everybody has been happy with the prospect of open sourcing Java. While the majority had opined that open sourcing Java is the way to go, there were a few who felt that it might just spawn a world of JVMs that are non-standardised. “While it may be great for web services, it will never become a commercial product”, one of the bloggers had opined. But Sun is not overtly concerned. Given the given the maturity of the Java platform, and the JCP in the community, and the number of applications that have been built and deployed on Java, there is a strong belief that the dominant platforms will not diverge. The expectation is that people would want to maintain, use and leverage the promise of ‘Write Once, Run Anywhere’

“While there might be the occasional fork that takes it off on a divergent direction, I don’t think such one off- experiments will survive. Those things that cannot survive in the environment will not. So given the community, given the health, stability, and maturity of the platform, I do not think that forks will be diverging.” said Brewin.

On a final note, he added that Sun would continue to work with the community and other communities around the Java platform to ensure the health and vibrancy of the platform.

Sun is not content with just open sourcing Java, which constitutes 70% of its software portfolio. Sun’s service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite and identity management software, which constitutes the rest of the 30%, will be open sourced in time to come. The plans are in execution, but Brewin was unable to divulge details of the time frame.

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