Java to be free

Following the announcement of Sun's plans to make Java free and open under the General Public License (GPL) at JavaOne 2006, there have been a few struggles on the path to open source, says ZDNet Asia.

At the time of the OpenJDK release in May last year, around 5% of the code - the portion not owned by Sun - was still closed.

Simon Phipps, the chief open source officer at Sun Microsystems, says Java is expected to be completely free within the coming few months.

The RedHat-initiated IcedTea project, along with OpenJDK, has reached 100% compliance with the Java Test Compatibility Kit (TCK), officially becoming the first completely open source (GPL-licensed) Java implementation to pass the TCK, says InfoQ.

Passing the TCK is generally considered a significant effort: The Java TCK is a complex suite of tools and documentation that verifies that Java implementations conform to the Java specification. It consists of more than 80 000 tests and over 1 million lines of code.

The IcedTea project is able to be a 100% GPL-licensed Java implementation by utilising OpenJDK release snapshots, and replacing the remaining 5% of propriety components with replacements from the GNU Classpath project.

According to Evans Data, mobile versions of .NET and Java currently lead the way as preferred platforms for wireless application developers, but newcomers in this space, Mac OS and Android, are expected to pick up steam, says Infoworld.

Results of a survey being released Tuesday by Evans have 43% of developers targeting Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework and 42% opting for Java ME (Micro Edition). The survey gauged the views of 384 developers worldwide in May and June.

Also ranking in the survey were Windows Mobile 6.0, with 31%; and the following contenders: Linux, 25%; Nokia Series 80, 22%; Symbian, 20%; Windows Mobile 5.0; 19%; Java, 18%; Palm OS, 15%; RIM OS, 14%; Mac OS 10, 8%; and Android, 7%.