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Java to follow Solaris' example

Brendon Chase ZDNet Australia

Published: 04 Jun 2004 10:30 BST

A day after confirming plans for an open-source flavour of its Solaris server operating system, a technology specialist from Sun Microsystems says the company will do the same for Java.

Speaking to ZDNet UK sister site ZDNET Australia, Sun's Java technology evangelist Raghavan Srinivas said an open-source version of Java "will happen," although the timeline and licensing details remain sketchy at this point.

"We haven't worked out how to open source Java, but at some point it will happen," he said.

"It might be today, tomorrow or two years down the road," Srinivas added.

It is believed to be the first time Sun has explicitly stated its intention to take this approach with Java. The company has dismissed previous appeals to make its Java source code available through an open-source model for fear of creating incompatible versions of the software.

The Java community is split over whether opening up Java would prove beneficial.

Earlier this year, open-source technology advocates Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman called on Sun to open up Java and IBM did likewise.

However, others, including Sun, fear this could lead to "forking" as the "write once, run anywhere" attraction to the technology would be lost, making use of the programming language and platform less attractive. Many see the current Java Community Process (JCP) that entails the evolution of Java by industry experts such as those from Sun, IBM, Nokia and BEA to name a few, as an imperfect but a necessary process.

For more coverage on ZDNet Australia, click here.