Simon Phipps, Sun’s Open Source Go-To- Guy, was kind enough to respond to my blog post about Sun’s lack of response to the Apache Harmony open letter to Sun regarding their licensing of the JCK. Since his response was buried in the comments of my original post, I thought it would be appropriate to reproduce them here.
Hi Ian I’m back from FISL in Brazil and just saw your blog. This is a matter between Sun and Apache that is very complex and does not benefit from being debated in press soundbites or one-sided open letters – consequently I don’t intend to try. As for Tom Ball’s blog posting, it’s ugly and doesn’t represent an official Sun comment.
If the situation gets addressed, it will be by the continuing quiet discussion between Sun and Apache that’s been going on for ages, and not by a public debate designed for Sun’s usual critics to pile on.
I really appreciate Simon taking the time to respond. As with anything, there is always two sides to a story, and I am sure Sun has their perspective. I also understand not wanting to undertake license negotiations in the press or blogs.
However, I do believe Sun needs to make a public statement on their policy for licensing the JCK to other open source implementations of Java. I think the central question remains ‘Will Sun treat all open source Java implementations, including Sun’s openJDK, equally or will Sun’s openJDK be given special treatment for licensing terms’.
Isn’t it only fair to answer this question in a public forum?
