farbot.com

Open Source advocates have been pushing for Sun to open-source Java for a very, very long time. Sun executives have said today at this year's JavaOne conference in San Francisco that it's no longer a matter of whether or not it will be open-sourced, but how it should be done.

This is a big deal for the open source community, but the license Sun uses will be crucial. With so many licenses in use out in the world, including some very specific ones on some very popular software as choices (e.g. the Apache License, the GPL, and the business-friendly Berkeley License), the community will be watching closely.