I think he was talking about forks. As you see, when Sun opened it's language, people said at Sun said some interesting stuff:
"But I think there’ll be lots of forks, and I approve. I suspect that basement hackers and university CompSci departments and other unexpected parties will take the Java source, hack groovy improvements into it, compile it, and want to give it to the world. They’ll discover that getting their creation blessed as “Java” requires running the TCK/trademark gauntlet, which isn’t groovy at all. So they’ll think of a clever name for it and publish anyhow."
From what I understand, whatever license Java is released under allows for the possibility of another party creating a clean room implementation of the language and releasing it on their own, outside of any control, influence, or fees due to Sun.
felipeko|14 years ago
"But I think there’ll be lots of forks, and I approve. I suspect that basement hackers and university CompSci departments and other unexpected parties will take the Java source, hack groovy improvements into it, compile it, and want to give it to the world. They’ll discover that getting their creation blessed as “Java” requires running the TCK/trademark gauntlet, which isn’t groovy at all. So they’ll think of a clever name for it and publish anyhow."
Director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems, 12/11/2006 [ Source: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/11/12/OSS-Java ]
This sound exactly what Google did, so why are they suing now?
burgerbrain|14 years ago
jimmyvanhalen|14 years ago
under GPL (OpenJDK) not ASL (Harmony <-- groovy name).
Here's what the Apache Foundation said after it discontinued work on Harmony.
"Java specifications are proprietary technology that must be licensed directly from the spec lead under whatever terms the spec lead chooses."
ok_craig|14 years ago