O'Reilly OnJava: Will You See Open Source J2EE Implementations?

"Another problem -- and this leads us to the Lutris case -- is that Sun has taken the position that any licensee of the J2EE specification is privy to Sun's intellectual property, and can't legally release an open source implementation. (In particular, they have told Lutris that they may not apply an open source license to their Enhydra J2EE platform.)

I'm at a loss for what to say here. Sun certainly has the right to interpret their licenses any way they want or to make up any licenses they want. This move, however, strikes me as extraordinary bad faith -- and just plain stupid. Sun desperately needs the cooperation of the open source community. Telling developers that they cannot release open source implementations if they have seen the J2EE spec is certainly not going to earn Sun any friends. I can't think of any better way for Sun to destroy what it has accomplished with Java over the past few years.

When Sun first announced its Community Source License (SCSL), I thought it was an interesting approach to bridging the gap between open source and commercial software developers. It appears, however, that Sun wants the appearance of openness without the substance. They have the right to take that posture, but it's ultimately destructive."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• InternetNews.com: Linux Developers Embrace Web Services (Sep 18, 2001)
• NewsForge: Lutris backs off support of Open Source Enhydra, citing problems with Sun license(Sep 14, 2001)
• eWEEK: Study: Java to overtake C/C++ in 2002(Aug 20, 2001)
• LinuxDevices.com: Pondering our Linux/Java future(Jul 21, 2001)
• Three on Java and Microsoft: From Open Letters to an Unpleasant Tonya Harding Analogy(Jul 20, 2001)
• freshmeat: Linux Needs Java, and Vice Versa(Jul 14, 2001)
• LinuxProgramming.com: Whither Java for Linux?(Feb 09, 2001)
• EarthWeb: Thoughts on Java and Open Source Security(Feb 04, 2001)
• O'Reilly: Java as a Teaching Language(Jan 28, 2001)