Java Standard Edition to go open source

[fingal]

It won't affect me as I'm not a developer, but I thought this was quite interesting. Linky

Views welcome from you all - especially Java developers!

[techieMoe]

I read the article, along with these two followups:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/0...nsource_moves/
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/06/02/java_phipps/

While I'm glad Sun is going through the motions, I have my doubts as to whether they'll do what I personally want them to do, which is release all of Java under a completely-free license or something like the GPL so that it will be as free as C or C++. More likely they will release it under a pseudo-open license like their CDDL, which only benefits Sun.

Another point brought up by the two followup articles is that this isn't likely to cause any huge changes in the industry (since developers like myself work for companies that already have enterprise licenses from Sun for all the Java we use, and we could really care less where Java comes from). The only way this would really cause a stir is if, as I said before, Sun were to release their baby under a license that really opened it up for free modification (such as the GPL or a BSD derivative). I don't see that happening.