Java is officially Free Software, released under the GPL

[Patrick]

Great news:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2055770,00.asp

And SVN chimes in:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3337915997.html

Video clips with responses from RMS, Shuttleworth, Moglen and others:
http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/

[Jza]

Does that mean that Java is more Free software than other languages like Python or Perl? It will be interesting knowing that most languages are not GPL but they are open source release under several different open license. Python is basically GPL with some exceptions, this would be interesting knowing what was the Java answer to the same reasons why Python couldn;t be GPL.

[Vogateer]

That's pretty impressive. I just assumed they would use the CDDL or whatever license it is that they used for Open Solaris. It really didn't occur to me that they would use the GPL. A strong move on Sun's part.

[Tsuroerusu]

That's pretty impressive. I just assumed they would use the CDDL or whatever license it is that they used for Open Solaris. It really didn't occur to me that they would use the GPL. A strong move on Sun's part.

Speaking of OpenSolaris!
Today, Sun held a press conference, which was streamed live on the web, and I was in the web-audience by the way, where they presented the GPLing of Java and all that jazz. But in the end of the whole thing, Jonathan Schwartz lighted a candle onto Rich Green's ass with a cool question, let's see what it was about:

Jonathan Schwartz: So the last question, before anybody else pops up and asks one. So, we now have a fair degree of consistency across Sun, which is first and foremost, we will open source all the technology we have built, and I think we've really begun to open the curtains here, and we have said all of the software technologies, there's certainly an interesting question that Mr. Fowler and Mr. Yen are gonna have to answer about what do we do about hardware designs, stay tuned on that. But there is, potentially, an even more interesting one, which is, we chose a license that was, at the time, the right license for Solaris, it was called the CDDL, the Common Development and Distribution License, are you averse to changing the license?

Rich Green: Averse? Oh, oh well. Certainly not and in fact, I think today's event and the feedback that we've received today really casts a very very positive light on our chices going forward. We've been engaged in open source of our key technologies for some time, and you know, there's the active momentum and learning and fostering new markets and you know, despite some critisims of the past, I think we've chosen very wisely the paths that we've taken to date.

JS: Will you GPL Solaris Mr. Green?

RG: Ah.

JS: Is it your testimony that you will GPL Solaris?

JS: Sorry, you know, you get on stage with me, and you never know what's gonna happen.

RG: We, aoohhh, we, and I think that means not you!

(Crowd laughs)

RG: We will take a very very close look at it. Like I said earlier, I think the feedback has been positive, and the growth of Solaris has been incredibly impressive, and the familiarity and comfort level with the license that we've chosen for Java. ??? is gonna drive a lot of decision making going forward with the existing technology that we've open sourced. And THAT is the extent of my answer.

Transcribing is done by me!

[jsusanka]

I think this awesome and I will highly recommend it over any C# implementation.

good for sun!!

[CptnObvious999]

I still prefer Python
But this is awesome because there are a bunch of programs that need Java to work and distro's couldn't ship with it out-of-the-box. Maybe there will be a Swing style that doesn't look like ass soon.

[Vogateer]

Dude, Python is already amazing me after only a few weeks of playing with it. It's like Python works in spite of the horrible code I feed it, just brilliant.

[Bjerrk]

Does that mean that Java is more Free software than other languages like Python or Perl?.

That's pretty much a matter of personal taste, as the Python license is GPL compliant.

I don't know much about Perl, as i program in Python, and not Perl .

[Jza]

As a side note ESR quote Python as the alternative that would have took over Java if Sun didnt gpl Java and IBM support ESR a couple of years ago.

He said, that i Java wasn't free Python would grow and mature enough to compete and beat Java on he developer community.

[TankCatNinjaFish]

free or not, java sucks the joy out of programming.