Stratocaster

Monday November 12, 2007

November 13 is Java Liberation Day

Remember a year ago, when we turned the world upside down with one of the largest contributions to the Participation Age in history?

I thought you did!

Its been quite an exciting year... and believe me, from inside of Sun, its been exciting and intense. What makes the open source Java special? Well, for starters, there are more JVMs installed on servers, PCs, phones, and other devices than all instances of Windows, Solaris, and Linux combined. There's no way to prove this, but I suspect that Java technology is the most widely used software on earth. Heck.... Java is even used by NASA to help control planetary probes... so make that off-earth too! The sheer magnitude of use, and importance of the Java platform in enablng billions of people to interact with information technology around the world make open sourcing this stuff a one-of-a-kind experiment.

We hear a lot of this from the FOSS developer communities:

"Why is it taking so long?!"

"Why not open your processes up to outside committers?"

"What's wrong with using the FOSS replacements for your encumbered bits? Get it over with!"

Its not so easy, folks! What happens if we break it? Inadvertently make it unstable, or introduce security problems? Make it incompatible with the specification or with other implementations? What do we tell those billions of people, and the ecosystem of vendors and developers that drive over $100B of economic value a year based on this platform, if we mess it up? "Its open source now! You can fix it yourself!" Right.

Nobody's ever tried to do this before. Nobody's tried to open source many millions of lines of industrial-strength code used not just by one company, but by the entire planet, while doing right by all those users depending on this technology. We're excited by the potential for innovation and the opportunities for the Java platform to become even more valuable as it can go places it couldn't go as closed-source technology. But Sun also is committed to protecting customers' and the ecosystem's investment in this stuff. So if it seems like we're control freaks sometimes, there's some good reasons for that.

We're not done yet.... we know that. But on November 13, I hope that Sun's engineering team, the FOSS developer world, and the entire Java ecosystem can look back at what happened last year at this time with pride and excitement for the future. Who knows what innovations we'll see in the next few years, once Java technology is everywhere around the world that red-shift developers are working to create the future of IT? Sun sure doesn't! Thats what makes this so much fun!

Some highlights from the past year:

November 13 2006:

• We open sourced several components of Java SE (javac, HotSpot), and the ENTIRE Java ME code base, both CLDC and CDC, under the surprising and couragous choice of GPLv2. Richard Stallman (Flash | Ogg) said: "It shows leadership. It’s an example I hope others will follow.” The "Java Trap" finished!

December 20, 2006:

• Just five weeks after first code availability, the MIDPath Project releases a MIDP 2 implementation for desktops, based on the phoneME project. Now you can play those fun mobile Java-based games on your PC too! A compelling demonstration of how opening up code leads to new and unanticipated innovations.

Spring 2007:

• After attending several worldwide open source and developer conferences including TechDays in Hyderabad, India, FOSDEM in Belgium, and FISL in Brazil, we realize that the developer world is giving us a standing ovation for our choice, and for the transparency we are striving to achieve in how we move through the process.

• Meanwhile the OpenJDK team is feverishly doing legal due-diligence, switching license headers, repackaging and preparing for a big JavaOne.

• The Mobile and Embedded Community starts porting phoneME Advanced to Windows CE. And BugLabs starts work on an innovative modular hardware platform based on phoneME Advanced.

May 7, 2007:

• Vodaphone Betavine expresses interest in collaborating with the Mobile and Embedded Community at CommunityOne. Now larger players in the Java ME ecosystem start to recognize the value of FOSS innovation!

May 8, 2007:

• 9:29am PT - a fully buildable implementation of the JDK is released on the openjdk.java.net site. Rich Green announces this at JavaOne during the opening keynote, along with the formation of the OpenJDK Interim Governance Board, and a promise to provide TCK access to OpenJDK-based free software implementations of Java SE.

• 2:46pm PT - a little over 5 hours later, a Gentoo Linux ebuild of the OpenJDK code base is published. So in just 5 hours, the Gentoo folks downloaded, unpacked, repackaged, rebuilt, and published an OpenJDK-based Java SE implementation for use by the Gentoo Linux community! We said we did it to gain Linux adoption.... guess its working!

• May 9, 3:06am PT - not quite 18 hours later, a source RPM is published by the Fedora project. By Fedora engineers who were sitting in the audience at JavaOne and who were so enthusiastic they worked all day and night to deliver it from the conference!

May 9, 2007:

• phoneME Feature Milestone Release 2 is released in the Mobile and Embedded Community.

May 16, 2007:

• phoneME Advanced Milestone Release 2 completes the update to the Java ME FOSS code bases. Now both Feature and Advanced implementations are under live development in the project's Subversion repository on java.net. The sausage factory is open for tours!

June 7, 2007:

• The IcedTea project forms, to deliver a patchset for the OpenJDK code base that allows it to be built from 100% free source code, using free software build tools. "We intend this build repository, based on OpenJDK, to provide a basis on which to experiment. It’s not a fork from OpenJDK, and doesn’t contain the OpenJDK source code.” - Andrew Haley, Red Hat. IcedTea is both a testament to the eagerness of FOSS developers to dive into the code and get a completely unencumbered implementation out there, and a sober reminder to Sun that we're entering into a new world where things move FAST, and if we don't keep up, we'll be left behind.

August 9, 2007:

• Sun announces the OpenJDK Community TCK License Agreement - quite a mouthful. But the idea is simple: if you have an implementation based on OpenJDK and distributed under GPL, and you want to make sure it is compatible, you can gain access to both the TCK for certifying compatibility, and once certified, you can use the "Java Compatible" brand. All under terms that make sense to the FOSS community, and respect both the requirements of the GPL and the spirit of Free software.

Fall 2007:

• The Java SE engineering team dives into the hard work of building out infrastructure and clearing encumbrances. Progress is made and code checked in to resolve the Font Rasterizer, Graphics Rasterizer, and Crypto encumbrances. The team works to publish Mercurial-based source code management repositories - a key enabler of community participation.

• IcedTea makes fast progress too - the 1.4 release on October 12 is based on OpenJDK b21, and has replacement code or stubs for all the encumbered bits, and is able to run many Java applications with the key functionality problems mostly in javascript, sound, and SNMP support, and in details of graphics support.

• The Mobile and Embedded Community begins porting phoneME advanced to the Nokia N770/N800 Internet tablet device. And Italian consortium Cineca is using phoneME in an open source set-top box for interactive digital TV.

November 5, 2007:

• Red Hat announces that they have signed the Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) and the OpenJCK Community TCK License Agreement (OCTLA - pdf). A significant player in the Linux world agrees to join and contribute, and to work towards shipping a 100% Free and compatible implemenetation as part of their distributions. This also paves the way for most of the IcedTea developers, who work within the Fedora project at Red Hat, to align IcedTea even more closely with OpenJDK.

November 13, 2007:

• One year later, the OpenJDK project has been downloaded nearly 12,700 times by developers in the six months since the JavaOne announcement of a fully buildable JDK. And that tracks only full bundle downloads of the 6.5+ million line code base, and not checkouts through the read-only Subversion repository. The OpenJDK Interim Governance Board is actively working toward creating a Constitution.The mailing lists are active, with a lot of passionate developers both inside and outside of Sun discussing the code, the new Mercurial SCM, and how best to work together.There's been good progress clearing the encumbrances but there's plenty left to be done!The Mobile and Embedded Community has over 80 projects active, over 500 passionate members, and has seen over 20,000 downloads of all projects in the community. The Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days Conference, scheduled for January 23-24 2008 featuring James Gosling as keynote speaker is open for registration, and will be the event in 2008 for mobile Java developers to dig in and experience one-of-a-kind technical content and connect with peers and industry experts.