Sun GPL Java.
Sun’s GPL’ing of Java SE, Java ME and Glassfish is definitely interesting - Tim Bray has some interesting commentary from the inside, no doubt slightly sanitized! Kudos to Sun for going GPL, thereby enabling it to be shipped with the GNU/Linux distributions. I am sure there are those in the OSS community who will remain suspicious.
Plenty of other questions yet to be answered, the governance model of the new OSS projects will be critical - it’ll be interesting to see that is set up (Eclipse.org style perhaps?). Interesting to note that Sun are retaining the TCK code (to retain control of Java brand compliance) and they are not changing the JCP. The latter decision is very interesting as if the specification process is still tightly controlled by Sun then that leaves limited latitude for the implementation project to go in other directions.
Once the dust settles, Java ISVs around the globe should be ready to re-validate their software platforms and distributions. Questions now exist about the viability of some GPL-licensed J2SE, ME and EE projects and their future viability. It is bound to impact Apache Harmony , a project largely driven by IBM (who predictably have reacted by suggesting that Sun should contribute their Java technologies to Apache.org - haha). And no doubt this will make GlassFish more competitive with JBoss. I’m sure this also impacts the ME space - interesting to note that the GPL nature of the license means any derivatives for other embedded platforms also have to be GPL’ed.
Interesting times…
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