Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 19th Jun 2008 20:28 UTC, submitted by Rahul
Back in May 2006, Sun announced during the JavaOne conference it would release Java as open source, licensed as GPL software. While it was released as GPL, it still contained about 5 percent proprietary, non-free code - the Java trap, as the FSF calls it. The FSF called to dismantle this trap, and now the IcedTea project has reached an important milestone.
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Member since:2005-07-07
The JDK source was not always available and developer wher enot always able to debug all the problems.
That would explain why I got to view the source to Java 1.1 that I downloaded off Sun's site sometime in '97.
The Java source code was always available. It was a separate download, and you had to click through another set of agreements, but you were always able to download it. Granted, you were not able to distribute the changes you made to the JDK though you could send the patches upstream to Sun.
Member since:2005-07-06
That would explain why I got to view the source to Java 1.1 that I downloaded off Sun's site sometime in '97.
You surely had acess to 100% of it ( the answer to that is no ) ... Java 1.1 is also the only JAVA that exist ( again the answer is also no ... ) Java is also circa 1991 but released in 1995 ...
The Java source code was always available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)
"Sun distinguishes between its Software Development Kit (SDK) and Runtime Environment (JRE) that is a subset of the SDK, the primary distinction being that in the JRE, the compiler, utility programs, and many necessary header files are not present."
"Sun's trademark license for usage of the Java brand insists that all implementations be "compatible". This resulted in a legal dispute with Microsoft after Sun claimed that the Microsoft implementation did not support the RMI and JNI interfaces and had added platform-specific features of their own. Sun sued and won both damages in 1997 (some $20 million) and a court order enforcing the terms of the license from Sun. As a result, Microsoft no longer ships Java with Windows, and in recent versions of Windows, Internet Explorer cannot support Java applets without a third-party plugin. However, Sun and others have made available Java run-time systems at no cost for those and other versions of Windows."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
The GPL is not liberal , it's Free Software.
The JDK source was not always available and developer wher enot always able to debug all the problems.
What you conveniently forget is that it means that JAVA from now on , will not be a plug-in or an extension from now on , but will be inlcuded natively.