Sun to open-source Java

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 17 May 2006 at 12:36

Newly minted as CEO, Sun's Jonathan Schwartz took to the floor for his first appearance at his company's JavaOne Developer Conference in San Francisco to detail a new strategy to open-source Java and point it at SOA (Service Oriented Architectures).

To date, Java has been popular for applications on mobile phones and websites, and is just a part of the systems giant's mammoth portfolio. But by open-sourcing Java, Schwartz seems to be painting it as the glue to unite its wide-ranging offerings as business adopts open-source technologies and moves to an SOA environment.

The plan is to deliver a 'completely open SOA platform with the release of key Java technologies', including development tools, the Sun Java System Portal Server, the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Engine from the Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS), an enterprise-class Java Message System (JMS)-based message queue and Web Services Interoperability Technology (WSIT) - a series of web service standards-based technologies for security, messaging, quality of service and metadata support, to help drive web services interoperability between Java technology and Microsoft's .Net framework.

Sun has been a long-time champion of standards, and it suits SOA: a platform towards which enterprise computing seems inevitably drawn. It allows businesses to pick and choose between 'components' needed to create the network of data functions, applications and services they need, essentially out of the box. And because it all conforms to standards, each component should be compatible with others.

Sun is also making concessions to open-source licensing to give developers of software licensed under the GNU GPL more freedom with Java, in the form of a new Java SE license. This allows these developer communities to ship Sun's Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit (JDK) and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) as installable packages with their products and has already been adopted by Linux distributors such as the popular Ubuntu, Gentoo and Debian.

For computer makers, Sun is updating and simplifying its licensing for the Java Platform, Standard Edition to make it more straightforward to ship with systems running Microsoft's Windows.

However, Sun remains with its hand on the tiller of Java, despite calls for a wholesale open-sourcing of the platform. It's a role Sun accords as stewardship - a safety net to ensure the programming language doesn't develop in multiple incompatible directions.

'Sun takes seriously its role as the steward of the Java community - a community that continues to evolve, bringing together now more than 1,000 companies and individuals, from open source advocates to automobile manufacturers,' said Schwartz. 'The Java platform's legendary compatibility and innovation are once again at the forefront of innovation, proof that the Java Community Process is a beacon for open standards and consumer choice.'

For more information, visit Sun.com. This announcement represents the next phase of open sourcing Sun's Java software portfolio," said Rich Green, executive vice president, Software at Sun. "What was started last year with the enterprise Java platform, has now become a complete solution for SOA development through this release of technologies like portal server, the BPEL engine and our development tools.