With the advent of OpenJDK as the reference implementation of Java 7, it was thought reasonable, if alarmist, to assume that Java as a part of Ubuntu was history. Not so, writes Simon Phipps in "Why Java Isn't Dead on Ubuntu." This is simply housekeeping, he assures panicked readers, not withdrawal by Oracle of support for Java in Ubuntu. The Distro License for Java (DLJ) -- which OpenJDK supplants -- was never more than a stop-gap measure, Phipps argues, instituted to promote Java adoption on Linux while the inevitable announcement of true open source Java was fermenting.
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Open source is about very much more than avoiding licensing fees, Simon Phipps contends in his blog Open Source Nurtures Innovation. He argues cogently that absence of the need for an individual or a small group of developers to maintain code libraries (a must with proprietary software) frees writers of software to concentrate on new applications. In the world of open source, " ... instead of being solely responsible for the sustaining of every innovation they add, innovators can contribute their work to the shared code commons and have the sustaining shared by everyone," according to Phipps.
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Simon Phipps, formerly of Sun Microsystems and Oracle, now founder of the startup ForgeRock and director of the Open Source Initiative, recently addressed The Document Foundation's first LibreOffice Conference, where explained that Open Source as a movement does not require a "white knight" to foster and sustain it. Instead, he maintained. Open Source calls for " ... developers willing to collaborate, and a community willing to contribute both time and money." Fortunately, LibreOffice was brought about by the efforts of both factions.
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Early opposition to Oracle's donation of OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation was overcome when 41 of the 48 binding votes cast by Incubator PMC members were cast for acceptance of OO.o as an Apache incubator project. Certain voters, notably Simon Phipps, former Sun open source chief, were persuaded to soften their resistance with the realization that acceptance would make possible OO.o's being refactored into a reference implementation of office suite components – including ODF (Open Document Format) importers and exporters.
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