David Herron's Blog

ANNOUNCING: Sun has open sourced its Java implementation, named OpenJDK

SANTA CLARA, CA (Nov 13, 2006) - (Somewhat tongue in cheek...) Today is a day which will be henceforth known as Java Freedom Day. Today Sun announces the immediate availability of portions of the source of its Java SE and ME implementations. It is available under the GPLv2. You can find out more at openjdk.java.net and at mobileandembedded.org.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (JavaOne 2007) - Today is the second day which shall henceforth be known as Java Freedom Day. On this, the Second Java Freedom Day, Sun announces the immediate availability of even more of the source of its Java SE implementation, still available under the GPLv2. Sun also announces an interim governance board, interim contribution policies, etc. You can find out more at openjdk.java.net.

Okay, so if this seems like it's coming from the wayback machine ... I have been attending OSCON this week, and am somewhat surprised at the number of people who did not know that we, Sun, have open sourced our Java implementation. Given this I thought it would be nice to make the announcements all over again.

Information about the OpenJDK project is on the project web site, and sun.com/software/opensource/java/ contains another view to describing the open sourcing of Java.

Our current status is that we managed to open source 95% of the JDK source. The code is the train of software leading toward the eventual JDK7 release, however the Java7 project has not officially spun up (no platform JSR for Java7 has been started, for example). We have been rather busy with creating the OpenJDK project, please have patience. The policies and governance, as said above, is in an interim status. We are heading toward having a fully open and collaborative project worthy of the significant role Java plays in the computer industry. To the extent we are not there yet, please have patience, and if you have any advice please come to our mailing lists and discuss with us.

The 5% which we were unable to open source interferes with our goals for the OpenJDK. Namely, it blocks integration of the OpenJDK with operating system distributions such as Linux, it blocks ports of the OpenJDK to other operating systems such as xyzzyBSD, and it blocks the ubiquity which Java deserves. Clearly we all want these encumbrances to be cleared. As I told members of the Cairo team who came by to extoll the virtues of their software, now is the time and the window of opportunity to work with us to clear the encumbrances. There is work under way in experimental collaboration with the Classpath project (under a project named Iced Tea) to explore one way to clear the encumbrances.

I hope this will educate a few more people that the OpenJDK exists and is cool stuff.

Comments

• It's unbelievable that in the age of the web people still miss this kind of information - but, yes, it still happens...

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on July 27, 2007 at 01:41 AM

• Why should it be cool? "its open source, so it must be cool" ?
  Whats blocking the stuff are linux and bsd users.

  Come on, go to work and make something good instead of trying to make linux kiddies happy.

  Posted by: carmello on July 28, 2007 at 03:53 PM

• linux kiddies .... hurm, I ran into a bunch of old folk at OSCON. I think "linux kiddies" is one of those falsetto stereotypes.

  Posted by: robogeek on July 28, 2007 at 06:15 PM

• Your surprise is based on the false assumption that the events you attend and web sites you read really matter much to the majority of Java programmers.

  java.net and JavaOne are not the center of "the Java community". In fact, the Java community is largely fragmented, not the least because Sun has long ago lost contact with Joe Average Programmer. Sun does not go where the programmers are (existing fora, boards, newsgroups, web sites, etc.) Instead Sun insists that programmers come to Sun's universe and live in Sun's lala land. But the majority of programmers doesn't want to. The majority of Java programmers don't know and don't care about the BugParade (not a loss), java.net, sun.java.com, the Java tutorials. A large bunch doesn't even know about the the online API doc (which, by the way is not searchable since ten years ...). Why should they have heard about OpenJDK and why should they care?

  Open Source Java also doesn't matter much for Joe A. Programmer from a practical point of view. There is no release out there with production quality which is based on OpenJDK. Contributing to OpenJDK is as difficult as it was before Java was open sourced, and getting something changed in OpenJDK is as painfull and pointless as previously trying to make an impact via submitting a bug report to the BugParade, or even worse, trying to work in the JCP as an individual not financed by a big corporation.

  
  You say now is the time and the window of opportunity to work with us? For month Red Hat and the Classpath people are left in the cold and are scratching their head how to get their stuff into OpenJDK. OpenJDK has already managed to scare of at least two top Classpath developer. Not that Sun cared in any way. And Red Hat is therefore doing their own thing now. IcedTea exists because people could not work on OpenJDK, and not because someone wanted an "experimental collaboration". IcedTea is effectively a fork, although the people doing it are very careful not calling it one to not upset Sun, while Sun is upsetting them like hell.

  OpenJDK is not cool. It is carefully guarded and protected by Sun. For example, Sun is not publicly telling which replacements for encumbered code they are currently working on. This already had the effect that people outside of Sun implemented replacements, tried to submit them to OpenJDK just to hear they should hold off because Sun is working on that part. Font rendering is such an area. A window of opportunity is something else.

  An open source programmer must be mad to work on the OpenJDK, because he is just wasting his time. Sun has made dammed sure that no one from outside Sun can make a difference. Contributing to a fork like IcedTea makes more sense, wouldn't it be for Sun holding off the compatibility test tools. So IcedTea has no chance of becoming an approved Java version. Contributing to Classpath then? Classpath came to a hold because of the developers waiting for what happens in OpenJDK. So if OpenJDK is successful in one area then it's killing the competition without delivering anything of value for Joe A. Programmer.

  
  

  Posted by: ewin on July 29, 2007 at 05:20 AM

• Sun does not go where the programmers are (existing fora, boards, newsgroups, web sites, etc.) Instead Sun insists that programmers come to Sun's universe and live in Sun's lala land.

  They can't be everywhere, but I have seen Sun employees answer questions at quite a lot of forums. For instance, I heard this guy called David Herron went to OSCON....

  The majority of Java programmers don't know and don't care about the BugParade (not a loss), java.net, sun.java.com, the Java tutorials.

  I seriously doubt that, and if so, how is this Suns fault?

  A large bunch doesn't even know about the the online API doc (which, by the way is not searchable since ten years ...).

  Heard about this thing called Google?

  Why should they have heard about OpenJDK and why should they care?

  Because Stallman called it one of the most significant contributions to Open Source ever? Because it removes the ideological objections to including it in Linux distributions? Because they can now learn by reading and playing with the source?

  Contributing to OpenJDK is as difficult as it was before Java was open sourced, and getting something changed in OpenJDK is as painfull and pointless as previously trying to make an impact via submitting a bug report to the BugParade, or even worse, trying to work in the JCP as an individual not financed by a big corporation.

  If you have been following the blogs, you will see that they are working very hard on putting an infrastructure in place to make stuff easier.

  Not that Sun cared in any way. [...]while Sun is upsetting them like hell.

  I've noticed in previous posts that you love to claim how other people thing and feel, rather than asking them...

  There is no release out there with production quality which is based on OpenJDK.

  It hasn't been around very long.

  An open source programmer must be mad to work on the OpenJDK, because he is just wasting his time.

  I've had a couple of patches accepted with no problem. For those that weren't I have always been told why, usually because the issue was more complicated than I thought.

  wouldn't it be for Sun holding off the compatibility test tools.

  Sun have already said they are going to release them, they just have to put the infrastructure in place first, and go through the code first and see who has the copyrights so it is ok to open source it.

  For example, Sun is not publicly telling which replacements for encumbered code they are currently working on.

  Perhaps not in detail, but rather than a conspiracy I think this is for the usual reason - programmers like to code, not to spend the day doing reports. But this is getting better, you can ask on the relevant mailing lists at openjdk.java.net if there is any point in starting on working on a bug.
  

  Posted by: larswestergren on July 30, 2007 at 12:15 AM

• "Whats blocking the stuff are linux and bsd users. Come on, go to work and make something good instead of trying to make linux kiddies happy. "Well said. The Linux crowd screamed so loudly that Java MUST be open sourced under their definition of what that means. Sun obliges and they don't even take notice?
  Ungrateful little buggers. Or maybe they still think it's "not enough" because Sun hasn't relinquished control over the language specification to them. That attitude is clearly visible in the way Apache is behaving at the moment.

  Posted by: jwenting on July 30, 2007 at 12:28 AM

• "linux kiddies .... hurm, I ran into a bunch of old folk at OSCON. I think "linux kiddies" is one of those falsetto stereotypes. "
  It's not. They may be 40 year old hippies with grey wool socks in their Teva sandals, but they're kiddies at heart (in fact they never grew up past their pot induced 60s.

  Posted by: jwenting on July 30, 2007 at 12:29 AM

• @ewin; the announcement made it into all sorts of news media and was not run just on Sun's web sites. As larswestergren mentioned, Richard Stallman gave all sorts of positive praise.

  Maybe you've never tried to open source a huge project which has 12 years of history as a commercial product. There are a zillion picky details to go through to make sure you have all the intellectual property rights lined up. There is plenty of infrastructure details to get right. etc. It was simply impossible to have it be perfect on day 1, and believe me we are working on getting the infrastructure lined up so we can more easily accommodate direct collaboration. You may have also noticed the governance board is interim, and working on defining the long term governance structure. You may have also noticed the contribution policy is interim, partly due to the interim governance board, and partly due to the interim nature of the infrastructure.

  Posted by: robogeek on July 30, 2007 at 07:07 AM

• I found this blog posting by a PlanetClasspath member to be enlightening. It appears whatever friction may be happening with certain individuals, is not a universally held condition. As always, any time someone takes a leadership position there are a range of opinions on the direction taken by that leader. "You can't please everybody", right?

  Posted by: robogeek on July 30, 2007 at 10:15 AM

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