FOSS Java - One Year Later

Today marks the one-year anniversary of open source Java technology as well as the formation of the OpenJDK community for Java SE and the Mobile & Embedded community for Java ME.

A lot has happened since Sun set Java "free" under the GPL v2 license and released the initial source code. Take a look at this time-line (compiled from the bogs of Rich Sand, Terrance Barr, and Roger Brinkley):

November 13 2006:

• Sun open sourced several components of Java SE (javac, HotSpot) and the entire Java ME code base, both CLDC and CDC, under GPLv2 licensing.

December 20, 2006:

• Five weeks later, the MIDPath Project releases a MIDP 2 implementation for desktops, based on the phoneME project. This allows you to run Java ME applications on your desktop development computer.

May 8, 2007:

• The entire Java SE JDK source code base is released on the openjdk.java.net site, and is announced in the keynote at JavaOne.

• Later that same day, a Gentoo Linux ebuild of the OpenJDK code base is published, proving that the Open JDK project is workable.

• Yet later that same day, a source RPM is published by the Fedora project by Fedora engineers who were sitting in the audience at JavaOne.

May 9, 2007:

• phoneME Feature Milestone Release 2 is released in the Mobile and Embedded Community.

May 16, 2007:

• phoneME Advanced Milestone Release 2 completes the update to the Java ME FOSS code bases. Now both Feature and Advanced implementations are under live development in the project's Subversion repository on java.net.

June 7, 2007:

• The IcedTea project forms to deliver a patch-set for the OpenJDK code base that allows it to be built from 100% free source code, using free software build tools.

"We intend this build repository, based on OpenJDK, to provide a basis on which to experiment. It’s not a fork from OpenJDK, and doesn’t contain the OpenJDK source code.” - Andrew Haley, Red Hat.

August 9, 2007:

• Sun announces the OpenJDK Community TCK License Agreement.

Fall 2007:

• The Mobile and Embedded Community begins porting phoneME advanced to the Nokia N770/N800 Internet tablet device. And Italian consortium Cineca is using phoneME in an open source set-top box for interactive digital TV.

November 5, 2007:

• Red Hat announces that they have signed the Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) and the OpenJCK Community TCK License Agreement. A significant player in the Linux world agrees to join and contribute, and to work towards shipping a 100% Free and compatible implementation as part of their distributions. This also paves the way for most of the IcedTea developers, who work within the Fedora project at Red Hat, to align IcedTea even more closely with OpenJDK.

November 13, 2007:

• One year later, the OpenJDK project has been downloaded nearly 12,700 times by developers in the six months since the JavaOne announcement of a fully buildable JDK. And that tracks only full bundle downloads of the 6.5+ million line code base, and not checkouts through the read-only Subversion repository.

• The OpenJDK Interim Governance Board is actively working toward creating a Constitution.

• The Mobile and Embedded Community has over 80 projects active, over 500 passionate members, and has seen over 20,000 downloads of all projects in the community.

• The Java Mobile and Embedded Developer Days Conference, scheduled for January 23-24 2008 with James Gosling as keynote speaker, is open for registration.

If you're interested in hearing all about this right from the horse's mouth, watch these videos from key people within Sun:

• Mark Reinhold video
• Ray Gans video
• John Muhlner video

Happy coding!
EJB

Posted by Eric Bruno at 10:21 PM  Permalink