From the IHT -

"Bloomberg News, The Associated Press - Published: November 13, 2006


SAN FRANCISCO: Sun Microsystems, the computer server and software maker, said Monday that it had begun to make its Java technology an open- source software project available free on the Internet.

The move represents one of the largest additions of computer code to the open- source users. It also marks a major shift for a company that had once fiercely protected the source code used in 3.8 billion cellphones, supercomputers, medical devices and other gadgets.

Sun created the Java programming language in 1995 to give developers a way to write software once and have it run on different devices and operating systems. Until now, Sun had kept a protective hold on Java to ensure compatibility. The company won $20 million from Microsoft in 2001 after challenging its modifications to the program.

"The current licensing had made it difficult to package and redistribute the Java platform by Linux and open-source developers," said Stephen O'Grady, an analyst with RedMonk in Denver. "Sun and the Java platform will be able to address a much wider audience."

Sun said it was making nearly all of Java's source code, excluding small pockets of code that are not owned by Sun, available under the GNU General Public License. The same type of license also covers the distribution of the core, or kernel, of the popular open- source operating system Linux, which competes against Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Making Java an open-source project allows programmers from around the world to fix bugs and contribute new features in Java's underlying code.

Sun has lost billions since the dot- com collapse of 2000. It has hitched its rebound strategy in part to the growing open source movement. Sun said last month that over six million licenses for its Solaris operating system software had been delivered since it made a version available free in January 2005...""

Rob