A licensing change for the JRE and JDK

First, a disappointment for anyone who expected Sun to announce at this year’s JavaOne that it was open-sourcing Java. That hasn’t happened yet, though Rich Green did say, “then why not?” One important licensing change did happen at this year’s JavaOne.

After years of difficulty redistributing the JRE and JDK on GNU/Linux and OpenSolaris, Sun has decided to change the license. This will allow the Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit (JDK) and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to be redistributed as installation packages for those operating systems. See the press release.

Meanwhile, the java.net community site has launched the JDK Distros Project — Packaging for Java on Linux and OpenSolaris under the DLJ. It’s a collaborative effort to build, test and refine JDK and JRE installation packages for those open-source operating systems.

Related articles

• Calvin Austin’s Blog Javaone news: Java on Linux the real story
• TheServerSide.com Java Licensing available for GNU/Linux