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20061113 Monday November 13, 2006

Free At Last

Get the Source

Yes, it's true. The thing I joined Sun to see happen in 2000 is actually announced today. The whole Java platform - SE, ME, EE - will be Free software under the GPL, with the process starting today and continuing for the next six months. We're using GPL v2 plus the Classpath exception for most of it - more in the FAQ.

Making this happen has been a hugely consuming task, both for my (wonderful and hard-working) team, for the actual Java platform teams at Sun today and for many, many people around the world in the Free software community. The contributions of those before us is also huge - this has, after all, been on ongoing topic for many years. As the saying goes, it takes a village. Thank-you, everyone.

Much more to come.

Posted by webmink ( Nov 13 2006, 07:41:08 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [7]
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Comments:

Well done Simon ! Great news and congratulations for doing something of immense benefit to the Free Software community.
Thanks,
Jeremy.

Posted by Jeremy Allison on November 13, 2006 at 09:14 AM PST #

Congratulations to Simon and Sun and everyone else who's worked on this for the past several years!

Posted by chromatic on November 13, 2006 at 10:52 AM PST #

today will be a day to remember, sun has just completed the opensource stack, run openrsouce framework in an opensource OS using an opensource processor. Hell youre even able to edit your ms word documents using an opensource office suit that can save documents in an open format. to tell the truth i feel like i will never need the source code of these all but, would you ever consider buying a house without getting the blueprints with it? well the same thing should happen with software. Congratiations people, you've just shown the world of software that there is another path, a brighter one

Posted by nacho on November 13, 2006 at 12:47 PM PST #

Congratulations Simon.

Posted by Mike Milinkovich on November 13, 2006 at 12:50 PM PST #

hi simon,

congrats!!

do you think that apache's harmony has any wind left ?

Pls. make the open source JDK's easily buildable on windows and linux. better still, it will be nice if you can make a custom LIVE linux/solaris distro which will make it easier for someone to explore JDK source and play with it.

Thank you,

BR,
~A

Posted by anjan bacchu on November 13, 2006 at 02:16 PM PST #

Thank you so much Simon (and team!) as you can see on Planet Classpath people are really excited and are already hacking and integrating the various pieces.

Wonderful things will come from this. Thank you Sun!

Posted by Mark Wielaard on November 13, 2006 at 04:16 PM PST #

Simon, hope you remember me. Avi, from IBM Brazil Linux team. This is the greatest IT announcement of the year, maybe the decade. I can't wait for how the Open IT history of the 21st century will unfold from now on. Thank you and all your team from this !

Posted by Avi Alkalay on November 14, 2006 at 01:33 PM PST #

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