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Tuesday Nov 14, 2006

After the annoucement about the open sourcing of Sun's Java platform implementations, we're working on getting downloadable .ogg formats of the videos ready. When they are, they will be here:

sun.com/opensource/java

In the meantime, there's plenty to read about following the annoucement:

I work for a LARGE government contractor and have had a hard time getting management to realize Open Source in general and the GPL in particular aren't bad for business. Open source here has the same connotation as red communism. Can't get many of them to stop calling it freeware. With Sun making Java GPL they won't have the choice of sticking with that attitude anymore. Many of our existing projects use Java already!
The one reason we hadn't thought of for open sourcing Java technology at Slashdot

I felt a great disturbance in the slashdot, as if millions of "sun is the next redmond" trolls cried out in terror, and then vanished.
You can never fail to score with a Star Wars reference.

one of the strongest motivations to select the GPL was the announcement made last week by Novell and Microsoft, suggesting that free and open source software wasn't safe unless a royalty was being paid. As an executive from one of those companies said, "free has to have a price."

That's nonsense.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz with some topical comment

I'm glad it's been done. I guess this will cement Java as a language that can't die until it's userbase says so... I am, however, not sure how this will help Sun. Where I work, most of the systems are Windows and Java. We don't need Sun anywhere. With the license change, we still don't need Sun anywhere...
Missing the point, but we're happy your Java is Free, a comment left on Jonathan's blog

You traded the risk of losing control of Java over losing the community. This is great! Now I can stop feeling dirty and having nightmares.
Intruiging comment left on Jonathan's blog

Sun's strong commitment to open source Java would speed the development of a first class and compatible open source Java implementation to the benefit of our customers and the industry.
IBM's Super Bowl winning VP of Emerging Technolgy, Rod Smith, February, 2004

We have discussed with Sun our strong belief that Sun should contribute their Java technologies to Apache rather than starting another open-source Java project
Well, you can't please everybody. Rod Smith, yesterday.

The frigging GPL! Come on, you people, celebrate some more! This is extremely good news--it means I can use java. It means I can do my homework (yep, I'm a student and liking it) on my own computer. It means I can do my homework without ethical worries. It means I'll start writing java just because I like the language.
LugRadio forums excitement

But what really struck me watching the web conference was Sun's embrace of a permeable, transparent development process across their software engineering organization. I believe that is just as important as the licensing decision.
A very gracious Mike Milinkovich offers congratulations.

Frankly, I think Sun finally did this because it had no choice in the matter.
eWeek's in-no-way-dour Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols manages to remain calm.

They timed that so good that they could have took the balls off a gnat. LugRadio forums again.