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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RE: Comment by hyriand
by binarycrusader on Fri 20th Jun 2008 20:54
in reply to "Comment by hyriand"
Member since:2005-07-06
A very important thing I haven't seen mentioned is that apart from it being free now, it will remain so forever. Sun will probably be around longer than .. the sun (har har har), but you never know. Or what if Sun suddenly decided to turn its back on the Java community? That's not really an issue anymore, the community could fork the last GPL version and maintain / improve it themselves.
I think it should be obvious by now that Sun has had a very consistent message on open source for the last couple of years. There has been no going back despite the enormous cost of open sourcing most of their crown jewels (Java, Solaris, etc.).
Their current CEO promised that everything Sun does would be open source, and it looks like they're making good on those promises as they can do so.
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Member since:
2006-04-03
A very important thing I haven't seen mentioned is that apart from it being free now, it will remain so forever. Sun will probably be around longer than .. the sun (har har har), but you never know. Or what if Sun suddenly decided to turn its back on the Java community? That's not really an issue anymore, the community could fork the last GPL version and maintain / improve it themselves.