So its finally happened - after many years of resisting, Sun has started the process of putting Java under an open source license. And it's not just any open source license, it's the grand-daddy of them all, the GPL. The choice of the GPL license is significant in that it is the advocated license of the Free Software Foundation, which is generally considered at the center of the open source world. As Tim O'Reilly said at the webcast yesterday, it's a bold move likely to win converts to the language.

So what does this mean for Quirk? We write all our code on the Java platform, from the websites like this one to the tools that we use internally every day. Firstly, it makes distribution easier - Java will now be a natural part of the Gentoo Linux operating system that we run on our servers, with source that can be downloaded and compiled just like any other package in the ebuild system.

Secondly, the community will increase - Java is now aligned with the largest group of open source developers in the world, and naysayers who for many years have griped against its closed nature will need to evaluate alternatives on their technical merits alone. A greater community means greater quality and availability of libraries, support and education, all of which are critical for a language to exist. I am particularly looking forward to the contribution academic institutions can make to the source.

There will be few immediate effects - as of the today the Hotspot JVM and javac compiler are licensed under GPLv2, with the rest of the Java class libraries following next year with a license similar to LGPL, meaning applications shipped can have their own licenses, proprietary or otherwise. The licenses that previously applied are still in effect, making Java dual-licensed similar to MySQL. The benefit of these existing commercial licenses resides in support and protection from litigation, which are by nature not part of an open source license.

All in all, I think it's a really positive move in an industry where the trend is clearly towards open source. Tim Bray, Director of Web Technologies at Sun, says it well:

"The way to make money on the Internet is not through lock-ins or a proprietary hold on the market, it's by opening up everything as much as possible and then competing for the additional business this open-ness produces."