JavaOne: Sun says the bulk of Java now open sourced

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.

Although he declined to detail how much of Java's 6.5 million lines of code are encumbered, Sands said the issue is primarily with Java 2-D graphics technology, particularly around font and graphics rasterizing. Open-source alternatives are already available, but they don't currently support all the necessary features of the Java 2-D application programming interface.

To read more about the open-source plug-ins for the Java 2-D technology please click here.

Regards,
Kumar Thirumal.