Richard Green, Sun's executive vice president of software, made it absolutely clear that Java would be open-sourced.
"It isn't a question of whether, it is a question of how," Green said to cheers from the developers on hand for JavaOne.
To give the announcement extra weight, Green described the plan in response to questions from Sun's new CEO, Jonathan Schwartz. The two men were on stage at the Moscone Center when the announcement was made.
The company did not set a schedule for when the open-source release would take place and said some problems first have to be resolved.
"There are two battling forces here: There is the desire to completely open this up, complete access -- and so many changes in the licenses have been made that it's virtually all there," said Green, referring to the licensing models now available to developers.
He also said compatibility is a major issue with the planned move. "I don't think anybody wants to see a diverging Java platform," Green said, arguing that one of the "great values" of Java is that the company has been able to avoid divergence and ensure consistency.
The challenge now, he said, is how to solve those issues. "I'm going to sign up big time to go figure that out."
