Sun makes Java open-source

Looks like this open-source thing might actually work! Sun is making its Java technology an open-source software project available for free on the Internet.

From the release:

The announcement represents one of the largest additions of computer code to the open-source community — and it marks a major shift for a company that had once fiercely protected the source code used in 3.8 billion cell phones, supercomputers, medical devices and other gadgets.

Rich Green, Sun's executive vice president of software, said the company hopes to turn more developers into Java programmers, who may then create additional software to support Sun products.

"The open-sourcing of this really means more — more richness of offerings, more capability, more applications that consumers will get to use," Green said. "The platform itself will become a place for innovation."

All the Java source code is expected to be released by March 2007, Green said.