November 13th, 2006
Q&A with Tim Bray
In the months and weeks leading up to today's announcement there was considerable speculation about which open source license Sun would choose for Java.
When I learned it would be GPL, I had a number of concerns and questions about what this would mean for developers of both free and proprietary software. Tim Bray, Director of Web Technologies at Sun, was kind enough to answer 24 of my questions over the weekend.
Q: [Ed] What is being announced today?
A: [Tim] The details will be coming out, but the essentials are: JVM and javac and JavaHelp and Java ME are pure GPL 2.0. The SE APIs/libraries are GPL 2.0 plus Classpath exception. Plus, we will continue to honor & make available the existing commercial licenses.
Q: What license will be used for the Java ME APIs and libraries?
A: GPL v2. The Classpath exception is not needed for Java ME, because it is impractical to distribute a Java ME implementation with applications. There would be no way to install and integrate such an implementation on a device. Java ME implementations must be integrated with hardware much more tightly than is true for Java SE implementations. Because the problem that the Classpath exception is intended to eliminate - the requirement for all source code to be licensed under the GPL when distributed with applications - does not exist in the case of Java ME, there is no need for the exception.
Q: Will GlassFish be re-licensed under GPL as well?
A: Yes. This is part of the announcement; the GlassFish Community reference implementation (GlassFish Java EE 5 application server) will have the GPL added to the original CDDL.
Q: Will the test suites be open sourced?
A: Good question, but that's still TBD; we just haven't had time to figure this one out.
Q: Will NetBeans be changed to GPL?
A: I don't know of any current plans. I think that CDDL is appropriate, given NetBeans' status as a developer tool rather than a central piece of core infrastructure.
Ed Burnette is a professional developer and author of several articles and books about computing including Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform, 2nd Edition. For disclosure of Ed's industry affiliations, click here or to view his full profile click here.
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