Yesterday Sun released Java under the GPLv2 license. Cinics will probable say ‘they only released a small part’, but hey, they released Java under the GPLv2 license!
Included in the relicensing are Javac, the Hotspot Virtual Machine and a ‘classpath exception’ which makes shure code written depending on the classpath doesn’t need to be GPL’ed itself.
And, also included in all this open sourcing madness… the Duke! I can now, finally, use his image on my website:
This is a complex puzzle that scares people off.
Must be big times for service providers who are prepared to take the complete license issue out of the hands of their customers.
Of course this comes at a cost, somewhat destroying the business case for open source.