![]() Which is to say, you can take the code, you can change the code, you can compile the code, you can publish the code, you can sell the code, no permission required. We'll use a business/legal approach, rather than a technical approach. Which presents the problem of how we keep the Java promise of compatibility. GPL is well suited because it will minimze any likelihood of proprietary forks in the drives innovation into the open, any modifications to the codebase have to be published.Expanding on the issue of GPL and forking, Tim Bray told InfoQ: It doesn't, it totally allows forking, and there will be forking. ![]() On the compatibility promise, Sun officials said: Companies can now freely port Java to new hardware platforms & operating systems, and customized app-specific JVMs can also be created where needed - however due to the viral policies of GPL - all such ports must also be released as GPL which may limit such activities for commercial purposes since the ports could not be made proprietary. Even in the US, some projects won't accept bids not built on open source software.Sun officials specifically named China and Brasil as examples of countries that have been lobbying Sun for open source Java. Foreign governments can now bet their infrastructures on Java without worrying about being dependent on proprietary, or US-owned intellectual propery (which could one day be embargoed), since Java's license makes it completely free. Java becomes Linux friendly, and can now be shipped by default on GNU/Linux distro's since it's free.On volume and adoption, open source Java under GPL can allow: ![]() According to Sun, a GPL license accomplishes two major objectives: driving more volume and adoption for Java and maintaining the "write once run anywhere compatibility promise." Why GPL? As reported on InfoQ in the past, there were a number of tangible needs for an open source java. Tim Bray explained the reason for patent assignment: we have to ensure that users of Java don't have to worry about getting claims that by using Java they're infringing a patent held by any of the contributors to Java (including Sun) so we have to prevent anyone, whether by accident or on purpose, from contributing code to Java and then being able to launch claims against people who use it. The only thing said related to governance was that committers will need to sign a contributor agreement that provides for joint copyright assignment and also assigns patent licenses to Sun. And we do anticipate having committers from outside Sun." On the other extreme, some in the community have been pushing for a governance model where Sun gives up its absolute control (see an Eclipse governance model for open source Java). Tim Bray told InfoQ that " It should end up as something unsurprising and true to open- source values which is to say, committer-centric. On governance, nothing is being announced at this point, it is still to be determined. The two most important aspects of open sourcing Java are the license and the governance model. When we do the full release in the Spring, we will release both 6 and 7." "We needed to make changes to the HotSpot JVM and the compiler in order to build them outside of Sun, and those changes were integrated into the early build of JDK 7. According to Sun's Mark Reinhold, it would have been too agressive to release Java SE 6 right now as it would affect its release timeline - the first release candidate just went out last week, and JSR 270 (Java SE 6 release contents) was just approved by the JCP on Oct 24th. Java SE 6 wil be open sourced in the Spring once the final version comes out. Later this year, Sun will release additional source code including its advanced operating system phone implementation and the framework for the Java Device Test Suite. A buildable version of Sun's feature phone Java ME implementation and testing/TCK's will also be available on. Glassfish, Sun's open source Java EE appserver (and Java EE RI) is now available under GPLv2 license as well as CDDL. The fully buildable Java SE 7 JDK classlibraries will be available in Q1 2007. Sun today announced that Java SE, Java ME, and Glassfish are being open sourced under the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2) with Sun today releasing an early build of the Java SE 7 HotSpot JVM, the javac compiler, and JavaHelp in the new OpenJDK project at Java.NET which will be the project site for future JDK development, releases, bug fixes, etc.
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