JBoss, Apache Software Sign First Open-Source J2EE Licenses

Sun Microsystems Tuesday will formally unveil J2EE 1.4, as well as the software development kit (SDK) and reference implementation of the standard specification for developing enterprise-scale Java applications, said Joe Keller, vice president of marketing Java Web services and tools at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company. J2EE 1.4 and its related technologies will be available Nov. 24.

The JBoss Group and Apache are the first open-source groups to license J2EE so their application servers can be branded fully compatible with the specification.

"For the first time ever, open-source implementations are becoming part of the Java community," Keller said. "[Open-source groups] are signing up [for] compatibility because they've found that compatibility matters."

The strategy for such licenses was set in motion in March 2002, when Sun first unveiled it would consider open-source J2EE licenses at that year's JavaOne conference.

J2EE compatibility for an open-source implementation does not come without a price, at least not in JBoss' case. The group paid handsomely for its license, a deal the group has been negotiating with Sun for some time, CRN has reported.

JBoss Group executives said previously that key partners helped to defray licensing costs for the group, but did not name those partners. Tuesday, the open-source group unveiled the JBoss J2EE Founders Program, naming Borland Software, IONA Technologies, SchlumbergerSema, Sonic Software, Unisys and webMethods as program members and partners that supported them in acquiring the license.

These vendors also will help the JBoss Group put the JBoss application server through the rigorous compatibility tests over the next six to nine months as part of the founders program, a company spokeswoman said.

Keller said because the JBoss Group uses the JBoss application server to turn a profit, the company had to pay for the J2EE license like other commercial vendors such as BEA Systems, IBM and Oracle. The Apache Group, however, did not have to pay for the license because it is a nonprofit organization, he said.

Under the terms of open-source licensing for J2EE, final "builds" of open-source implementation application servers must pass the compatibility tests for J2EE, which Sun administers to licensees, before they can be branded J2EE-compatible, Keller said. Any developer is then free to modify the source code for that app server, but the modified build is not considered J2EE-compatible and cannot be branded as such, he said.

J2EE 1.4 has been called the Web services version of J2EE because it supports various Java APIs to support XML-based Web services, providing a missing link to tie XML-based standards with Java.

The new spec also supports the Basic Profile 1.0 from the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), which provides interoperability guidelines for using SOAP, WSDL and other Web services standards so competing vendors' technology will work together.

As reported by CRN last week, Sun Microsystems is offering a free version of its basic application server--what the company calls Platform Edition--as the reference architecture for J2EE 1.4. Sun executives say this is to give developers a head start in building applications on the platform, not to undermine the thriving J2EE software businesses of rivals such as BEA and IBM.

"This is the first time a deployment-level app server has been available the day J2EE ships," Keller said. When previous versions of the spec were out, it used to be "months and months" until a deployable app server was available, he said.