Sun Relaxes Hold On Future Java Licensing

In July, the JCP, which defines Java standards, took steps to finalize the new Java Specification Participation Agreement (JSPA), which gives Java spec lead companies the freedom to decide how to license Java specs, as well as requires the companies to make compatibility test suites available separately from Java reference implementations.

At that time, Sun was also finalizing JCP 2.5, the next version of the JCP's charter, which also is being made public Tuesday.

Onno Kluyt, director of the JCP program office for Sun, said the new legal agreement enables companies to create their own Java implementations without licensing the spec, allowing for open-source Java implementations that are compatible with JCP reference implementations.

"If someone wants to do their own implementation, they must be able to get the test suite," Kluyt said.

At the same time, the companies leading Java specs--not Sun--will decide in the future what kind of licensing to apply to a finalized spec, Kluyt said.

"The idea is that you as a company are leading the effort--if you put in the effort to build the reference implementation and the compatibility kit, those are your efforts and you should be able to decide how you license that," Kluyt said. "It's not Sun's business to prescribe a specific model."

Java licensing has been at the heart of controversy almost since Java's inception. Java implementers have long felt that Sun had too much control over dictating Java licensing, a controversy that came to a head when companies began licensing the J2EE spec in 2000 and were forced to pay steep fees to Sun to obtain the test compatibility suite.

At JavaOne 2002 in March, Sun committed to separating the test compatibility suite from the reference implementation for all of the specs it currently leads in the JCP. Going forward, all Java spec leads from other vendors also will follow these rules.

In addition, test compatibility suites for all Java specs will be available free of charge to open-source groups such as Apache, as well as other not-for-profits such as academic institutions, another commitment Sun made at JavaOne.

Sun also has made changes to the JCP process document with JCP 2.5, Kluyt said.

As expected, the JCP now specifies what happens to JSRs (Java Specification Requests) that, although introduced as singular technologies, eventually become part of larger Java standards, such as technologies that end up in the J2EE standard, Kluyt said.

"What [a spec lead needs to do now is to outline that and state up front when you start the effort that version 1 will be available stand-alone, version 2 will be part of [a larger platform," Kluyt said. This is so that someone using an earlier version of a spec will be prepared to implement an entire Java platform if that spec becomes part of a larger technology, he added.

Previously, there were no rules governing what happens to an individual spec that ends up as part of a larger Java standard. This led to confusion as to which technology a Java implementer must support to be compatible with a spec, Kluyt said.