Rich Green, Executive Vice President of the Software Group at Sun Microsystems, said that Sun plans to launch the open-source Java initiative by the end of this year, with completion expected in 2007.
In August, Sun expressed its intention to make the Java programming language and related software components open source. On Friday (the 20th), Green further revealed that Sun is actively implementing this plan and is preparing to release a significant number of Java platform components during the fourth quarter of this year.
He said, "We've already done this for Java Enterprise Edition (server) through the GlassFish project, and now we're going to do the same for Java Standard Edition and Java Micro Edition—exciting!"
Sun hopes to attract more developers to build products written in the Java language, which is why they are releasing Java Standard Edition (required for running Java applications on desktop computers) and Java Micro Edition for handheld devices.
Sun also plans to eventually release the Java Enterprise System, making this suite of Java server software open source as well.