James Gosling blogs about making Java open source

“There’s been a lot of churn lately over open letters from IBM and others calling for Sun to open source Java. Rather than try to respond to everyone individually, I’ll try to respond to a pile of questions here,” writes Gosling.

The issues are being discussed on Slashdot. For background, you should also read Richard Stallman’s piece, Free but shackled: The Java trap.

Comments: seems to me that a lot of this controversy is storm-in-teacup stuff being stirred by the world’s biggest computer company, IBM. And like a lot of people, I wonder why, if IBM is so mad keen on open source, it does not open up DB2, CICS, whatever it calls MVS nowadays, SmartSuite and other proprietary products. The world’s worst desktop software, Lotus Notes, could certainly use some outside help….