Sunhas said it will give access to
its Java Technology Compatibility Kit to all customers, provided
they have an open-source Java project that is governed by Sun's
General Public License (GPL).
By getting access to the test kit provided, developers can prove
to Sun that their work complies with Sun Java specifications. Pass
the compatibility test and you can use the official Java logo on
your project.
Until now, open access to kit was restricted. Only Java
licensees were allowed in. These were usually giants such as
IBM and
Motorola, or nonprofit groups taking part Sun's scholarship
programme. Even the scholarship programme had terms and conditions
that precluded shipping software under the
GPL.
"The compatibility kit licence that has been out there in the
scholarship programme had a few terms in it that would not work
with GPL. So we changed the licence to allow developers to meet all
their obligations under GPL," Sands said.
The new move significantly broadens the horizons of open-source
programmers who want to participate in Sun's open-source Java
project, called OpenJDK, which was formally launched in May.
The Java platform is a portfolio of software components that let
programmes written in Java run on a variety of computers without
needing to be specifically translated for each type of computer.
The translation is done by a Java virtual machine, a component that
uses libraries of pre-written code.
The move follows years of lobbying by open-source advocates who
wanted Sun to make Java Standard Edition, the core Java technology,
a truly open-source project.
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