Open Source Java Months Away Says Sun Executive

Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, said the Sun is “months” away from releasing its trademark Java programming language under an open-source license.

He said Sun is ruminating over two major issues: how to keep Java compatible and ensure no particular company uses market forces as muscle for its own implementation, a move that would threaten Java’s “write once, run anywhere” mantra.

“Maintaining both of those dimensions of compatibility is imperative because the Java market is a huge successful open market in which many companies are serving many other companies,” Phipps said. “You wouldn’t want to introduce a change that made Java less compatible in any way.”

The move won’t be easy, said a former Sun employee. The company has a rigid old guard of middle managers who have opposed open sourcing Java, said Denese Cooper, who worked on open-source projects at Sun for six years and is on the board of the Open Source Initiative. via InfoWorld