Sun details open-source plan for J2ME

The first batch of code may be released under an open-source licence this year

Sun has announced the start of a process to release its Java Micro Edition (J2ME) under an open-source licence.

Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, said the move will make it easier for the people who report bugs to fix them, resulting in software with fewer defects.

Developers will also benefit because they will no longer need to be focused on source code and binary software, freeing them to think about collaborations with other developers and consultants, Phipps added.

In common with other open-source projects, developers that commit code to the Java ME project are also likely to be able to find new income from selling their consultancy services.

Phipps said he hoped to see the first batch of code released under an Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved license by the end of the year, and to see the process completed by this time next year.

The code could not be released sooner because Sun needs to audit the code to ensure it owns the right to create derivative code works. Phipps said some of the code in Java ME was acquired by Sun, but Sun did not necessarily acquire this particular right at the time it acquired the code. This means there could be gaps in the Java ME stack that would need to be filled, perhaps by contributions of relevant code from other open-source projects such as Apache Software Foundation's Harmony Java SE project, and Gnu Classpath project.

Phipps said it would also take some time for Sun to build an open-source community around Java ME. "I don't think there is anyone in Sun that knows how to create an open-source community [so we are looking to other open-source projects for help in this area]."

Looking to the future, Phipps said Sun is not done has not finished its open-source transformation. "Sun makes a lot of middleware, and you can expect a steady stream of open-source announcements around our middleware," he added.

Although Sun has yet to name the open-source licence it will use, Phipps said he prefers the CDDL. Phipps is also one of a small group of experts drafting the forthcoming Gnu Public License version 3.