As one of the (many) datapoints flowing round the intense and upbeat JavaOne Conference that opens today in San Francisco, Sun is circulating a "timeline" of its major open source initiatives since 1999, from JSP & Servlets (part of Tomcat) and Jini back then to DReaM-CAS and Sun Java Studio Enterprise UML in 2006.

Firstly, Sun notes, it has spawned no fewer than 6 different, current, and very well-known initiatives, which it lists as follows:

"GlassFish
GlassFish is a free, open source application server that implements the newest Java EE 5 platform features. Designed to encourage communication between Sun engineers and the community, this project enables all developers to participate in Sun's application server development process.

OpenSolaris
Sun open sourced over 5 million lines of code in 2005 with the OpenSolaris project. Sun continues to sponsor the project by employing hundreds of software engineers who work on OpenSolaris, and by hosting the community site, opensolaris.org.

NetBeans Project
Founded by Sun in 2000 and hosted by CollabNet on Sun's dime, NetBeans.org is a democratic, independent community with thousands of subscribers and several full commercial offerings built on the reference implementation. Two base products—the NetBeans IDE and NetBeans platform—address the needs of developers, users and businesses which rely on NetBeans as a basis for products.

OpenSPARC
The OpenSPARC project is making the hardware source code of the recently announced UltraSPARC T1 processor available under an Open Source license. This technology offers a wide range of innovative opportunities. The project lowers entry costs through access to existing hardware designs, allowing more
developers to engage, and increasing opportunity to pursue specialized implementations.

OpenOffice.org
An open source software release that makes the OpenDocument format a viable alternative for millions of people worldwide. Originating in Europe, OpenOffice.org software offers a multiplatform office productivity suite. While Sun is the main sponsor and primary contributor, OpenOffice.org is developed, supported, and promoted by an international community of volunteers.

java.net
Formed by a diverse group of Sun engineers, researchers, technologists, and evangelists to provide a common site for Java technology conversations and development projects. The community continues to attract industry associations, software vendors, universities, and individual developers and hobbyists. Meeting, sharing ideas, and using java.net collaboration tools, these new communities uncover synergies and create new solutions that expand the value of Java technology."

Next, the company has drawn up a comprehensive "timeline" of Open-Source Initiatives. The list is as follows:

April 12, 2006—Sun Java Studio Enterprise UML (unified modeling language), XML and SOA (service oriented architecture) functions
March 23, 2006—DReaM-CAS (Digital Rights Management Conditional Access System)
December 6, 2005—OpenSPARC (UltraSPARC T1)
October 05, 2005—Atheros AR52xx Chipset
October 05, 2005—Wifi config (solaris consolidations)
September 05, 2005—FreeDiameter
August 09, 2005—filebench
August 01, 2005—ACR (application Characteristics Repository)
June 25, 2005—Access Manager
June 17, 2005—graphlibrary
June 09, 2005—Annotation processing tool
June 03, 2005—IM Client
May 20, 2005—freebXML Project Toolkit
May 10, 2005—Docklet tools (papers and tools); 7 separate releases and approvals
May 02, 2005—JINI
March 20, 2005—WS Management
February 05, 2005—GlassFish (J2EE)
December 15, 2004—Translation Tools
October 20, 2004—QFS Linux (no name 2)
October 20, 2004—QFS Linux (no name 1)
October 01, 2004—Advanced Java Imaging (JAI)
September 15, 2004—RFID
September 07, 2004—JDO RI and TCK
June 16, 2004—JAXP
June 01, 2004—Looking Glass
June 01, 2004—3D project
May 27, 2004—libpkix library
May 27, 2004—Mobile Audio Platform
April 25, 2004—Librmr
April 01, 2004—Petstore (3rd release)
March 20, 2004—JDIC
March 20, 2004—Java Desktop Network Connectors (JDNC)
February 19, 2004—SLAMD (load generation engine)
February 17, 2004—Sun Storage Traffic Manager (SSTM)
February 04, 2004—Tonic (Solaris operating system (parts & kernel)
March 2003-April 2004—Adventure Builder (2nd release)
December 19, 2003—Java Instant Messenging
December 10, 2003—Streaming Proxy
October 03, 2003—JDST (Java Shared Data Toolkit)
September 19, 2003—TLDOC (Library doc generator)
September 15, 2003—IMPtool cmd line interfact Linus//Unix
September 12, 2003—JavaHelp (SWING)
August 12, 2003—JAXB (XML related)
August 12, 2003—JAX-RPC (XML) (remote protocol connector)
August 12, 2003—SAAJ
July 19, 2003—Java 2 Platform, Enteprise Edition (J2EE) Blueprints - Petstore - Adventure Builder
July 19, 2003—J2EE Adventure Builder (second release)
July 19, 2003—Makefile Wizard
July 15, 2003—Scimitar drivers files/1-released on the B1600 platform doc.install CD 2 - Ent.Serv.customers
July 10, 2003—GNOME Speech API (GSAPI)
July 03, 2003—Evolution Connector (Hydrogen calendar connector for SunONE)
June 03, 2003—Akido
June 03, 2003—DIDUCE
June 2003—java.net
April 28, 2003—Logindevperm Logic
April 03, 2003—Qube3 (Sun Cobalt RaQ 550 server appliance)
April 03, 2003—Chorus
March 15, 2003—Screen Saver Licensing
2002—OpenSSL
July 2001—GridEngine
April 2001—JXTA
October 2000—OpenOffice.org
June 2000—NetBeans
February 2000—NFS
January 1999—Jini
1999—Tomcat (JSP & Servlets)

Much of this will be discussed at JavaOne on SYS-CON.TV, when Sun's Chief Open Source Officer, Simon Phipps (pictured above), is interviewed live from the show floor by Jeremy Geelan on Thursday, May 18, at 11:20AM. The interview will be streamed live at SYS-CON.com and then made available after the Conference as an on-demand video at SYS-CON.TV.