Sun Microsystems, Canonical and Red Hat announced the inclusion of OpenJDK-based implementations in Fedora 9 and Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Server and Desktop editions, furthering the promise of Sun's open source Java technology initiative.

In addition, the NetBeans 6.0 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is being delivered as part of the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS release and Canonical has certified Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition on several Sun x86 systems.

With this announcement, developers using Fedora 9 or Ubuntu 8.04 LTS can now count on free software implementations based on Java technology as a standard element of an open source developer stack that they can leverage to build the next generation of web-based applications for both consumers and enterprises. In addition this announcement opens the door for numerous Java technology-based offerings to be included in the core of these GNU/Linux distributions.

"Open sourcing Java under GPL v2 has always been about bringing the power of Java technology to new markets, and enabling new innovations. With an OpenJDK-based implementation included in both Fedora and Ubuntu, developers can now rely on a stable, open source Java as an integral part of these GNU/Linux distributions," said Jeet Kaul, vice president of the Client Software Group at Sun.

"Sun and Canonical have been working closely together since 2006, when the first Sun systems were certified for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Now Ubuntu makes an OpenJDK based implementation available in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, targeted at enterprises," said Mark Murphy, global alliances manager at Canonical LTD. "We look forward to Java technology helping to expand the growing ecosystem of Ubuntu-based applications that serve businesses of all sizes."

"Thanks to Red Hat's expertise on the Classpath and GCJ projects, Red Hat has been contributing significant engineering effort to the OpenJDK and IcedTea projects. Red Hat was one of the first Linux providers to join the OpenJDK community, sign the OpenJDK Community TCK License and bring a stable, free software implementation based on OpenJDK," said Sacha Labourey, CTO of Middleware, Red Hat. "Having an OpenJDK implementation as part of Fedora 9 is a major milestone. It is great news for Red Hat's customers, who can look forward to a superior Java technology implementation on which to deploy their mission-critical applications."

• Walking the Java Heap with NetBeans 6.0 Profiler
• Sun Microsystems and NetBeans Community Extend Reach to Scripting Community with NetBeans IDE Early Access for PHP