DZone: With Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, are you concerned at all about some of the potential changes that will come as a result, to the governance and licensing options to the OpenJDK?

Rich: I’m really not that concerned. There are all sorts of scenarios that people are suggesting. I still believe Oracle will do the right thing. They have far too much to lose, by either accidently or purposely sabotaging OpenJDK. They have a very healthy business based around Java. Creating unrest, creating any kind of distrust or fragmentation of the Java community really isn’t going to help Oracle. So I think they’ll do the right thing. I also think they probably have the ability to invest in Java more than Sun had over the last five years at least. Sun kind of had some fairly pressing financial issues. I think that, above all else, probably hindered some of the progress of Java over the last five years.

So overall, I’m coming in neutral to slightly optimistic. If things do go awry, I’m sure Red Hat the rest of the Java community will step up and help Oracle to get back on track. So, yeah, I’m pretty comfortable with it.

My only real concerns is that Oracle understands products and monetization much better than they understand community and collaboration so I think a misstep or two are more likely to occur than Oracle purposefully sabotaging Java. Harming Java will devalue their investment and their chances of getting a decent return.

On the positive side – I think there’s still huge growth potential for the Java platform – I see no reason why it can’t become the dominant standard for the enterprise – I personally think we’re at the start of the decline of Microsoft and Java is the only viable alternative to Microsoft’s enterprise foothold. Microsoft’s enterprise presence is not insignificant but neither is it guaranteed – it’s largely based on an historically well adopted OS and Microsoft’s missteps in that area are pretty well known by now .

Java needs some strong leadership, investment and a open, vibrant and growing community.

I raising my mug of tea to The Next Decade of Java !

Some additional useful links :

OpenJDK project
IcedTea project
IcedTea history
Gary Benson’s Blog
Andrew Hughes’ Blog
Andrew Haley’s Blog
Lillian Angel’s Blog
Mark Wielaard’s Blog

Inclusion of OpenJDK : OpenJDK is a high-performance, fully open source implementation of Java SE 6. OpenJDK is based on the same code base as Sun’s JDK, the most widely adopted Java implementation. OpenJDK in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 has passed the full Java SE 6 TCK and is compatible with all applications written for Java SE 6 and previous versions. OpenJDK is fully supported directly by Red Hat. With the integration of OpenJDK, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 is the the first enterprise-ready solution with a fully open source Java stack when combined with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform”

This is good for OpenJDK, good for RHEL customers and good for JBoss (we’ll be announcing support for OpenJDK on RHEL 5.3 for the JBoss platforms real soon) – congratulations to everyone who made it happen.

“I wouldn’t be the first to argue that Sun missed the boat by not releasing Java under an open source license sooner. As Apache Project co-founder Brian Behlendorf said in 2006, “I think had they done it, they would have established Java further as the language of choice by so many more people.”

From my very, very minor involvement with the IcedTea project and since joining Red Hat just a few months ago I’ve seen a very different attitude towards Java. I was previously of the opinion (bear in mind I worked for Sun for almost 9 years) that Java was already essentially free and open enough – and that actually making it Open Source wouldn’t really change anything. Java had already become incredibly popular without the advantages of Open Source. But I now think Java did miss a huge opportunity by not being part of the major upstream Linux ecosystems – such Fedora and Debian.

So it almost certainly would have made a big difference 3 or 4 years ago; the question is – will it make a difference now. I’m optimistic – but admittedly slightly biased having invested a large part of the last decade in promoting Java in one way or another. Here’s why I’m optimistic.

1. Java is still young – I still talk to customers who are only just contemplating moving to Java; and I’m still pretty confident that the majority of Java developers are only now working their way through school and college.
2. The only real, mainstream alternative to Java is Microsoft’s .NET platform. And the future of that is somewhat predicated on the success of Vista and Vista isn’t looking too hot right now. OK, Ruby, PHP, Scala, Python all have their place – but  they are just languages and don’t really complete with the Java platform.
3. There’s a real opportunity for one of the Linux distros. to become *the* Java developer OS – right now I would guesss that Windows XP and OS/X account for most Java developers desktops – that just seems completely wrong to me given Microsoft’s and Apple’s disdain of Java.

I feel pretty encouraged by the reaction to our announcement last week and I wouldn’t be surprised if the next wave of innovation in Java came from the new communities who can now adopt it. I for one would love to see one of the major Linux distros like Fedora step up and become the developer OS for Java – and when I say Java; I don’t just mean the language – I mean the entire Java ecosystem.

But first – I’d like to make a point about Sun’s reaction. Opening Java was a big bold move – likely one of the biggest, boldest moves in our industry’s history. Sun has given Java the chance to truly flourish but in doing so has given up a little bit of control and a little bit of the ownership. From time to time others will play a role in advancing Java as the Fedora team and Red Hat did over the last year; and they’ll rightfully take the credit for doing so. That’s a consequence of opening Java. On the whole I was pleased with Sun’s reaction – many Sun people involved in Java actively promoted the IcedTea milestone, recognizing it as progress for the Java platform as well. It could have been different – after all Sun and Red Hat are also competitors. I think if Sun continues to encourage others to promote and advance Java – all will be good.

OK, let me address some of the questions and misconceptions :

Wow – a second Java implementation – this one is free and open source – way to go.

Actually there have always been many Java implementations – eg. Sun, BEA, IBM, Azul, HP even Microsoft had one at one point (but that’s another story). And they were always free ($0) and as of a year ago Sun’s was also Open Source. Java is a pretty open specification – you have always been able to become a licensee and implement your own Java. But that is a huge amount of work.

Who cares – Java is slow.

Too funny. But much funnier back in 1999 when it was also partially true.

OK, but this one’s going to be slow

The OpenJDK in Fedora 9 is largely (ie. 96%-99%) based on Sun’s JDK 1.6 – so it’s likely to perform about the same.

I’m worried about fragmentation – now anyone can have their own Java-like distro.

Firstly, Given the momentum behind Java – producing something that is partially Java isn’t going to be particularly interesting. Sun still protects the Java brand – if it’s called Java, it must behave like Java (ie. minimally pass the Java TCK). I still can’t imagine why anyone (ie. other Linux distros) wouldn’t just take openJDK and IceTea as their imlementation of Java.

Sun Open Sourced Java a year ago – there’s no news here

The initial OpenJDK had encumberences which meant it could not be distrubted fully in some of the more important Linux distributions like Fedora. Now it can. That is significant – we have not seen the true potetnial of Java on Linux. Now we have an implementation everyone can feel good about -  we will.

OpenJDK has been distributed with <your favourite linux> since April.

Sure – but it likely had the ‘encumberances’ – while that may be an OK situation for many – it wasn’t an OK situation for everyone.

But my XYZ app doesn’t run on this jdk

Sun’s TCK can’t guarantee that every possible current and future app. will work – as I mentioned – passing the TCK is a milestone; not the end goal. If your app doesn’t run or behave as it should then help by filling a bug.

This was only possible because a bunch of people (like Simon Phipps), inside and outside of Sun had the clarity of vision, passion and determination to actually make it happen; and in doing so increase the opportunity that Java represents for Sun and everyone else.

Don’t underestimate what courage this took. If you’re in any doubt – go tell your CxO that you want to take one of your most valuable applications; open source it and let everyone in the world benefit from your investment and hard work. Best case – you’ll get put on a medical leave of absence.

Now we just need to work on the JCP

At JavaOne in May, 2006, Sun Microsystems announced they were going to release Java as free software under the terms of the GPL. The size of the task (6.5 million lines of code) was only eclipsed by the size of the opportunity for Java as a free and open technology.

At JavaOne in May 2007, Sun announced that the work was largely completed and so OpenJDK was launched. What was less newsworthy was the fact that on release – OpenJDK still relied on code that was encumbered – between 4 and 5 percent of the code was closed, non free source that Sun didn’t own.

Richard Stallman described the encumbered code as :

“The one last obstacle [which] remains in liberating JDK and disarming the Java Trap completely”

and rallied the FOSS and Java communities to

“… work together to replace that code with free software”

So, who would step up to the challenge of making Java truly free and open ?

In June, 2007 – Red Hat launched the IcedTea project with the goal of making OpenJDK usable without requiring any other software that is not free. That in turn would allow OpenJDK to be included in Fedora and other Linux distributions without restrictions. The IcedTea Project made use of previous work developed under the GNU Classpath Project which had been independently driving towards a free and open implementation of the Java class libraries.

This week the IcedTea Project reached an important milestone – The latest OpenJDK binary included in Fedora 9 (x86 and x86_64) passes the rigorous Java Test Compatibility Kit (TCK). This means that it provides all the required Java APIs and behaves like any other Java SE 6 implementation – in keeping with the portability goal of the Java platform. As of writing, Fedora 9 is the only operating system to include a free and open Java SE 6 implementation that has passed the Java TCK. All of the code that makes this possible has been made available to the IcedTea project so everyone can benefit from the work.

The Java TCK is a complex suite of tools and documentation that verifies that Java implementations conform to the Java specification. It consists of more than 80,000 tests and over 1 million lines of code.

From here the initial plans are to make OpenJDK part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions starting with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 and to expand the platform support. Beyond that our plans are still evolving, but clearly this creates some great opportunities for both Red Hat and Java. For example :

• Improving Java for virtualized, hosted environments – an area where Red Hat Linux has excelled but Java has struggled.
• Optimizing the performance and scalability of the full stack of Java-based JBoss Enterprise Middleware for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Linux in general
• Being able to better manage the lifecycle of JBoss Enterprise Middleware platforms and the Java Virtual machine on which it depends
• A more fundamental opportunity is for Red Hat to be able to increase the depth of support for the JBoss Enterprise Middleware platforms running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Over the coming months, we’ll continue working with our communities of users, customers and partners to better understand the opportunities that OpenJDK and IcedTea present to us.

Working with Sun Microsystems and the broader Open Source Java community; Red Hat’s OpenJDK team included Tom Fitzsimmons, Lillian Angel, Gary Benson, Keith Seitz, Mark Wielaard and Andrew Haley.

Tom Fitzsimmons will be at the Red Hat Summit in Boston between June 18th and 20th, so if you want to chat about the project – swing by the Exhibit Hall, grab a beer, and ask him how much fun the Java TCK testing was.

Java, Java SE, OpenJDK and Java TCK are all Trademarks of Sun Microsystems Inc.

A couple of things stand out. First – the Fedora peeps took a little bit of a risk by including Firefox 3 (beta 5) but I think it paid off – Beta 5 seems pretty solid and Firefox just keeps getting better and better. There’s no specific feature of Firefox 3 I’m excited about but there a quite a few nice little touches that make a difference – eg. the ability to open all the bookmarks in a folder  – I can now open all my work related apps with one key click – nice.

The second thing of interest is the inclusion of IcedTea – this is a completely free and open version of Sun’s OpenJDK and was developed by Red Hat. I’m personally pretty excited about Red Hat’s involvement in OpenJDK – I think we’ll see Linux in general become a much more important place for the Java platform now that it’s part of the ecosystem.