The majority of Java developers that Builder UK spoke to at the JavaOne conference on Tuesday were not concerned whether or not Sun made its implementation of Java available under an open source licence.
Irakli Nadareishvili, the chief software architect of Development Gateway Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works on technology projects with developing countries, said of open source Java: "I'm not bothered about it. What I think is important is open standards."
Marcel Heijmans, a freelance Java developer from Netherlands and Jens Bjornfot, a systems developer for a Norwegian insurance company Gjensidige, were of a similar opinion. "I don't mind if it's open source or not. I don't know if there's any value in open sourcing Java," said Heijmans.
It's enough that Sun provides its Java implementation for free, according to Dave Kallstrom, a software developer for US graphics design company Widen Enterprises. He said that Sun has "a lot of good people" working on Java, so there is little need to get additional developers involved.
If Sun were to open source Java it could impact its revenue, according to Gary Ault, a software developer at the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. "Companies have got to make a profit on stuff. You can see from Sun's business interests that they won't want to open source everything," said Ault.
A few conference attendees thought it could be useful for Sun to open source Java. A developer from Washington DC said that releasing the source code would be useful for both Sun and developers as people outside Sun could more easily contribute code fixes or develop additional features.
Sun allows developers to contribute code to the Java platform, but developers must sign a licence agreement before being allowed to see the code, and cannot use the code in any commercial product. Sun also allows academic institutions to view the Java code through the Java Research License, but the code cannot be used "for a productive use" and cannot be distributed.
John Newton, the chief technical officer of Alfresco, a UK company which provides services around the open source content management product of the same name, said that Java not being open source is an important issue, as some in the industry question whether his product is really open source.
"They're holding onto their crown jewels — the Java platform. They have taken steps to opening it up through the Java Research License, but it's very restrictive. I keep getting asked the question — is this [Alfresco] really open source if you're built on top of Java?" said Newton.
The lack of interest among many Java developers at JavaOne in having access to the source code of Java, is in contradiction to the views of both the open source community and some businesses.
Open source advocates have frequently called on Sun to release the source code of Java. Last year, Eric Raymond, the president of the Open Source Initiative, said that Sun needs to choose between controlling Java and seeing it spread as widely as possible. He said that by making Java open source, Sun would get the participation of open source developers and help fuel usage of Java, particularly in conjunction with other open source software.
Many free software developers refuse to use Java to develop applications, as it is not available under an open source licence, Debian developer Wookey told ZDNet UK sister site Builder UK in an interview earlier this year.
"As a result of Sun's licensing much of the free-software world ignores Java and uses other languages, which is a pity — there is nothing wrong with the language itself," said Wookey. "I know my use of Java has been delayed approximately three years as a direct result of Sun's licensing not being free."
Open source projects that do use Java risk being forked within the community. Earlier this year, the Free Software Foundation said that it is increasing work on its free version of the Java platform to ensure that OpenOffice users are not reliant on Sun's implementation of Java. At the time, some in the OpenOffice community were concerned that this could lead to a Java-free fork in OpenOffice
IBM has also called on Sun to open source Java. Rod Smith, IBM's vice-president of emerging technology, last year offered to work with Sun to create a project that would shepherd development of Java through an open source development model.
