"The fact that there is so much discussion going on is of interest," wrote Sun's John Clingan in his blog yesterday. "Some like the idea of Open Source Java," Clingan noted. "Some think that will negatively affect WORA. There doesn't seem to be any general consensus building. Perhaps that means there is a tremendous amount of pent-up innovation." In general, he concluded, the discussion is "all over the map."

And so it is.

Clingan's own view is as follows:

"I have one primary concern about Open Source Java: that the platform will be diluted, and not necessarily for nefarious reasons. For example, this comment about removing Swing from a server build of Java comment enough seems innocent enough, but would it be the start of a trend? Would we end up seeing specific builds of Java for specific problem sets? Would it stay together as a full Write Once Run Anywhere platform (WORA)? I supposed this could be addressed under a license."

"I think an open source Java would be forked immediately. People will get out their chainsaws and remove piles of unneeded garbage in their respective environments. Does a server version of Java need to drag along Swing and AWT? If Mozilla rewrites JavaScript to run on the JVM do they need to install anything except the JVM? Does a QT embedded platform with Java QT bindings need to install AWT and Swing? What about Python and Ruby using the JVM, do they need to drag along the Sun run-time?

None of these are incompatible forks, you can always install the missing pieces to build a complete environment if you want to. But these 'forks' will greatly broaden the use of Java technologies.

Best solution would be to break Java up in to a finer set of installable modules than currently exists. JVM only, core classes, AWT, Swing, 3D, etc each in their own module."

Jon Walker, CTO of Versora, had a good summary of the situation a few weeks ago, in a blog entry title "Sun Called To Open Source Java" he wrote"

"Sun, often through Jonathan Schwartz' blog, makes a lot of bold claims. Scott McNealy recently threw out an offer to HP to merge their Unix (HP-UX) with Sun's - an offer HP execs called laughable.

It seems only apropos then that Sun would be called out by ex-employees to open source the Java platform. Of course, it is not only ex-employees that are asking for the open sourcing of Java. The open source community has called for the same.

I like Java as a programming language but I believe it is already beginning to lose mindshare to other open source technologies like Ruby. With mindshare goes most of the new programmers. Microsoft is also chipping away at it with C#. Sun needs to make a radical move like this to help Java continue to thrive as it has. Otherwise I predict a significant decrease in the number of new projects that use Java as a core technology in the near future."

"We could just release Sun's JVM under GPL/CDDL duel license as 'reference implementation' without ever worrying about defragmentation, or having negative effect with WORA ideal.

Nothing prevents putting GPL'ed Java under JCP's control as long as Sun doesn't abandon the "Java" trademark. In this way, no one could call their forked version "Java" unless they also pass TCK, or extend and modify core libraries except by way of JSR/JCP.

Currently, Mono has already gained sufficient momentum to be recognized as a preferred platform for writing Linux (mostly GNOME desktop though) applications, while Java's presence in desktop Linux is almost negligible. the only reason that such a dangerous attempt to copycat everything MS does gained such momentum is the fact it is covered under GPL. Once Sun's JVM is released under GPL, we can fight back in the rapidly growing Linux desktop world again, since we have both JCP/GPL while Mono people doesn't have anything to say where MS's leading them to."