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Phipps was speaking as he announced that Sun will release the first components of its Java SE desktop implementation under an open source license by the end of the year, along with its implementation of Java ME for mobile/embedded devices, continuing its plan to open source Java.

"There's a scale of benefit. At the one end it won't make the slightest bit of difference to some people," he admitted, noting that for the vast majority of Java users, the fact that the implementation ships with an open source license will be of little or no interest. "I actually think that the end user impact will actually be quite small."

"What I do think we'll see is it will become easier for bugs to get fixed by the people who find them," he added, before noting that even the group of developers who will benefit from this will be minimal.

"There are precious few people who really care," he added. "I don't think Java developers are going to be that affected by this." Putting that statement in context, Phipps noted that while the fact that the Linux code is open source has been instrumental to its success, the number of developers that actually contribute back to the code base is very small.

It remains to be seen how open sourcing Sun's Java implementation will impact the dynamic between Sun and the other major Java software vendors, and it could be that some will get more involved, but Phipps noted that they have always had the ability to do so through the Java Community Process, while Java has always shipped with full source code, which enabled his former employer, IBM, to port it to so many operating systems.

One benefit Phipps did foresee is that those Java vendors will have to be more innovative to distinguish themselves from the pack, now that the base implementation will be a freely available commodity.

"In the medium to long term I think the Java community will see an increase in innovation thanks to the move towards open sourcing the code," he said, although he also said he did not expect any knock-on effect on the JCP.

"What the JCP is doing is specifying standards, what the [open source Java software] communities are doing is implementing that standard. It doesn't mean a change in the JCP. There's not a direct link between the two."

Meanwhile, Phipps also presented an update on Sun's progress in open sourcing Java SE under two-year project formerly known as Mustang and now known as JDK 6.0, that already boasts 350 contributors.

"The only thing stopping that being an open source project is that it's not, at the moment, under an OSI-approved license," he said, adding that Sun was still working on the details of which license it will use (Sun chose CDDL for Glassfish, its open source Java EE implementation).

Part of the problem is ensuring that Sun has the rights to open source all the code - a job that took five years in the case of its OpenSolaris project. "For the Java platform it's a good deal easier as we wrote most of it," said Phipps, although he added that there is some third party code and some that Sun has acquired that it may not have the rights to.

"We're aware of a few places in the code where we don't have enough rights. We'll look at how we can fix it," he said, explaining that the fix might mean a re-write around specific problems, or looking towards contributions from existing open source Java SE projects such as Apache Harmony or GNU Classpath.

Phipps added that he had met with representatives from these groups at the recent OSCON event to see how they could work together on that and the future of open source Java in general.

Once the licensing issues have been solved, Phipps said the initial components (likely to be the JavaC compiler and Hotspot, although Phipps maintained a decision has not been taken on that) will be released by the end of the year, with a full implementation expected in 2007. "This time next year there'll be very little that is not open sourced," he said.

The open sourcing of Java ME will also happen over the same time frame.

In the meantime Sun has set up a new site where the community can contribute to the open source Java SE discussion. "I don't think that I or any of the people inside Sun *know* how to take Java and turn it into a successful open source project," Phipps added, noting that while the company had its ideas, it wanted interested parties to get involved.

"Open source isn't just about slapping a new license on something, it's about creating a community," he said.

More LinuxWorld-related headlines for 15 August 2006:

- Lenovo launches first Linux mobile workstation with Novell SUSE Linux Desktop 10.

- Trolltech has revealed a Linux mobile development device.

- Open source ESB start-up Mulesource has apparently raised $4m in VC capital.

- GroundWork launches Open Source Council for systems management.

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