Sun Microsystems Inc.

Sun Microsystems Inc. announced today that it has finished the process of making the bulk of its core Java technology available as open-source software under the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). The vendor made the announcement at its JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

However, Sun hopes the open-source community will help it resolve the issue of Java source code that remains "encumbered," where the company doesn't hold enough rights to release the code under GPLv2, according to Rich Sands, community marketing manager for OpenJDK community at Sun.

Sun Microsystems Inc. is expanding its Network.com utility computing service from the U.S. to 23 countries in Europe and Asia, the company said Thursday.

The utility computing service, in which customers pay an hourly rate for access to a Sun data center, began as a U.S.-only pilot in March but is now ready for a large geographic expansion, said Rohit Valia, group product manager for the Sun Grid Compute Utility.