When Sun Microsystems introduced the new version of Java on Tuesday, the company said it was following an increasingly popular industry trend and moving its programming language to an open source licensing model.
But Sun is taking a different tack in opening up its developer-beloved Java 2. As part of the new license, called Community Source License, the company will charge fees for any commercial use of the open Java code.
"This is clearly not a true open source license," said Stig Hackvan, an open source software developer. "One important feature of the open source definition is that users of open source software are free to change it in any way deemed necessary."
"Sun's license is directed at maintaining control of the Java technology standard, however, and so the [Sun license] compels licensees to keep in step with Sun's standard, both now and in the future."
One of the primary motivations for granting free access to once-locked, proprietary code is accelerated improvement of the software, and Sun said on Tuesday that newfound access to its source code by developers will speed innovations and development of Java.
But according to leaders of the open source movement -- most notably Eric Raymond's site, Opensource.org -- there's more to open source than just access to a particular source code.
Opensource.org's definition of open source reads "... The license may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale ... [it] must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."
Sun's new Java license is in direct opposition to this provision.
If companies modify the source code and create derivative products for internal or commercial use, Sun will continue to charge fees for the use of Java, the company said.
