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Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 03:26 AM EDT |
The GPL OpenJDK was a late attempt to encourage use of Java and address the FOSS
communities problems with Java.
Before that, I think the API was libre although the implementation of the API
and the JVM was free as in beer. It was that which prompted Apache to produce
(with Sun's tacit agreement) the Harmony implementation of the API as used, in
part, by Android.
The free as in beer aspect of Java was Sun's attempt to get wide-scale adoption
of Java. It was only after IBM picked it up and made it scalable and donated the
technology back under a perpetual free licence to IBM for the Java system, that
Sun got any traction with it.
As you say, the OpenJDK should have answered both Sun's and Oracle's issues.
However, both Sun and Oracle maintain that the copyright licence on the API
legally restricts the field of use of even the OpenJDK.
They have a legal lever in that the official test tools required to call
something 'Java' are not open and free and can only be used on a complete
implementation of the Java API.
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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