Sun was quick to deny published reports today that it plans to open source Java in the next few months. The company is working on the project, but any transition to open source is closer to a year away. Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, made a comment he said was misconstrued at the Open Source Business Conference in London earlier this week concerning Sun's efforts to release Java as an entirely open source project.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I'm somewhat skeptical that they will go with a straight GNU license.
I can tell you now it won't be GPL. I hard-pressed to think of anything Sun released under pure GPL; they dislike Linux too much to want to make it easy for Linux distros, and they want to keep control after all.
No control = loss of primary Java feature.
Member since:2006-05-22
What are you talking about? Sun has spent a lot of effort to make Java distributable in competing operating systems, even if the license is not free enough for some OSes.
I am a FreeBSD user so I wouldn't know about the current state of Java on your Linux distribution of choice, but as far as I know Sun has provided the FreeBSD developers with internal test kits and has been very willing to allow certification of the JDK on FreeBSD. There are now certified binary packages which can be installed with a one-liner. That sounds easy to me. Is it really so different on Linux?
Member since:2005-11-14
Member since:2005-07-06
I can tell you now it won't be GPL. I hard-pressed to think of anything Sun released under pure GPL;
You didn't look very hard then. SUN has released quite a few things under the licenses created by the Free Software Foundation. These items include:
LGPL
* OpenOffice - http://www.openoffice.org/license.html
GPL
* Open Sparc - http://www.opensparc.org
* Looking Glass - https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/
* Evolution Java Enteprise Server Calendar - http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/evolution-jescs/COPYING?rev=1.2&view=m...
* Sun is one of the largest contributors to the GNU/Linux operating system and continues to maintain much of the code that GNU/Linux users execute every time they boot the operating system.
* Sun contributed most of the documentation and online help to the GNOME desktop project. Sun's contribution of the accessibility framework to GNOME allows desktop Linux to achieve Section 508 compliance (to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities).
There are other things too, but you can look them up.
they dislike Linux too much to want to make it easy for Linux distros, and they want to keep control after all.
That is an unproven theory on your part, and certainly doesn't fit with SUN's consistent and valuable contributions to the Linux community. Indeed, they have even partnered with Canonical to ensure that Ubuntu, for example, runs very well on their hardware. What you're saying is a slap in the face to many of the engineers at SUN, and to many community members in the OpenSolaris community. It certainly isn't true from any indication I've seen.
Member since:2006-01-12
they dislike Linux too much to want to make it easy for Linux distros, and they want to keep control after all.
I don't think Sun has anything against Linux distros or BSDs, otherwise they wouldn't bother to craft the new, simplified distribution license for Java 6.
I can tell you now it won't be GPL
They never ruled the GPL out. After all, source code licensed under the GPL would be a great deterrent to MS!
Member since:2006-04-30
I can tell you now it won't be GPL. I hard-pressed to think of anything Sun released under pure GPL; they dislike Linux too much to want to make it easy for Linux distros, and they want to keep control after all.
You should further the scope of your reading before you make a statement like this. Below is from Jonathan Schwartz's blog -
"we're now making serious progress on open sourcing Java (and despite the cynics, using a GPL license is very much *on* the table)"
Member since:2005-07-06
I'm somewhat skeptical that they will go with a straight GNU license. Even though the sources will be open, Sun will probably play it close to the vest and retain some ongoing rights (including the ability to revoke the license at any time).
No OSS license on the planet can be "revoked". Once the code is licensed, it's licensed. They can pull their own distribution of the code under that license, but can't revoke the license and can't prevent anyone from doing their own distribution. That's essentially what happened to Interbase/Firebird.
I can very well see Sun using the GPL for Java, with some kind of exception to ensure folks that using the Java Classlibs doesn't put your actual application under the GPL, but anything within the JDK/JVM itself (and the java.* and javax.* namespace) would be GPL.
In any case, I have no doubt that if/when Sun releases Java, they will release in a similar manner as OpenSolaris and Glassfish. They will host and sponsor the community, and they will reuqire copyright sharing from all contributors to the JDK and JRE. This gives them the flexibility to dual license the distribution as they see fit, since they will be the sole holder of copyright across the entire source base, even though copyright is shared with indvidiaul contributors.
This decision really boils down to how they're making money off of the embedded market.
The potential motivation for using the GPL is basically to continue to leverage revenue generated via the embedded market. The server and client side of Java for mainstream computers is essentially free and has been free for some time. Obviously, Apple, IBM, and BEA no doubt kick back something for each JDK they distribute, or through the process of validating and acquiring the Java logo on their software.
But the secret weapon today in the embedded and handset market. By licensing the OSS Java under GPL, this will prevent the Handset world from being able to use Java with either a license from Sun, or the willingness to open up the JVM and JDK for the handset.
Odds are most handset companies are not willing to do that, and I think that Sun would really like to get a $1 per cell phone sold on the planet (or whatever royalty they can negotiate).
With a CDDL version, someone could create a free, yet closed, version for handsets. While the company make such a JVM would have to release altered files under the CDDL, they're under no obligation to supply any new files, and it's fairly trivial to add the proprietary changed that a company would want to protect in to CDDL free copyrighted files rather than within the JDK/JRE source tree itself -- simply placing the glue logic that links out to the new code in the CDDL files instead.
That would cut a potential revenue stream from Sun.
With the GPL they can dual license and get their cake and eat it too.
We'll know more when Sun releases their income numbers from Java. They've mentioned that they intend to break those numbers out and release them sometime.
Member since:
2006-01-06
... doesn't matter all that much. The JCP has pretty much actively guided the development of Java, so it's not as if customer feature requests have been ignored. The real question is what kind of open source license Sun will actually release the Java sources under. I'm somewhat skeptical that they will go with a straight GNU license. Even though the sources will be open, Sun will probably play it close to the vest and retain some ongoing rights (including the ability to revoke the license at any time). Time will tell.