On August 14, 2006, in San Francisco, Sun held a small event to provide an update on plans for open sourcing JavaTM technology. The JDK Community web site reported that Rich Green (Executive Vice President of Software at Sun), Laurie Tolson (Vice President Developer Products and Programs at Sun), and Alan Brenner (Vice President Mobile and Embedded at Sun) attended the event and talked about open sourcing the JavaTM SE platform, and also Sun’s implementations of the JavaTM ME CLDC (Connected, Limited Device Configuration) and CDC (Connected Device Configuration) platforms.

Here are some of the highlights that were discussed:

Significant components of Java SE will be released by the end of 2006. (Calendar year, not fiscal year.) Exactly which ones is unknown at this time, "but the javac bytecode compiler and the HotSpot VM — among other things — are on the table."

"The rest of a buildable JDK will be released in early 2007. Not all of the code will be available under an open-source license. Some nontrivial bits of encumbered code (that is, code to which Sun does not have the rights to ship as open source) will have to be shipped in a separate package for now."

"Sun plans to open source the entire Java ME (mobile) platform (both CLDC and CDC)", targeted to roll out by the end of 2006.

"Sun is working through the licensing, governance and infrastructure decisions that must be made around open sourcing Java and is interested in community input/feedback. There are many stakeholders: individual developers, corporations, licensees, ISVs and users - balancing their needs will mean compromises."

Sun has created a new site where developers can learn more about Sun's plans to open source its Java SE implementation.

"Most importantly, we’re not doing this in isolation. We want to learn from successful open-source projects how best to go about this and we want to include the Java developer community in the process. Without involving the developer community, Java won't reap the benefits of the open source development model," said Jean Elliott, Director of Developer Marketing at Sun.

An audio link is also available at The Java Posse web site.

An interview with Laurie Tolson is also available on the Sun Developer Network. [...read more...]

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