New license for Sun Java – or just an easier way to distribute some “free beer”
Sun Microsystems announced a more GNU/Linux distribution friendly license during the annual JavaOne conference May 16-19. (reported by desktoplinux.com)
Now it’s possible for GNU/Linux distribution to distribute Suns JDK (Java Development Kit). Debian has already add it to their non-free repository and Ubuntu to mutiverse, a repository mixed with additional Free and non-Free Software.
So everyone who have hoped that Sun will go some steps toward a Free Software Java is probably disappointed, nothing happens. Sun Java is still as non-free as it was before, they just made it easier to distribute this non-Free Software.
The only positive thing i can see is now that Sun Java is in Debians non-free repository maybe some Debian Developers will have a better contact to Sun and maybe they can convince Sun in the long term to get Sun Java into the main repository which would cause a Free Software license for Sun Java. As you can read in the Towards Java Libre thread on the debian-java mailing list it seems like there are already first discussions torward a free Sun Java.
It seems like Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu) was really happy about this step, "This is the most substantial step we’ve seen yet towards building a stronger relationship between the Java world and the free software world". I can’t see a stronger relationship between Java and Free Software, caused by the new license of Sun Java. Sun Java is still useless for the Free Software world. It’s GNU Classpath together with the free Java VMs and compilers like gcj, kaffe, SableVM and others which builds a stronger relationship between the Java world and the Free Software world.
Mark continues, "It’s clearly a move in recognition of the importance to Sun of the work of the free software community, and will go some way towards increasing the adoption of Java by free software projects". I just hope that this doesn’t mean that more Free Software will fall into the Java Trap.