Sun Microsystems To release significant open-source Java components this year.

By the end of 2006 Sun will release the JavaC compiler and the Hotspot virtual machine, two key technology elements to run programs written in the Java programming language.

The components are part of Java Standard Edition (SE), which runs on servers and desktop computers. In addition, Sun will release all of Java Micro Edition (ME), the version for gadgets such as mobile phones, by the end of this year. Sun has long been lambasted by open-source fans as a proprietary company. The open-source Java effort, along with, are the highest-profile elements of an aggressive program to reverse perception and reality.

Ultimately, Sun hopes to make allies out of programmers who have influence over the technology paying customers use. "We're trying to engage the community," said a company spokesman and will be also seeking feedback about details such as licensing options.

The full Java SE software package will be open-source software in the first half of 2007--probably the early part. However, Sun doesn't have rights to some elements such as the software to render fonts on a screen, so there will be proprietary modules that accompany the open-source software.

Sun hasn't yet determined what license or licenses to use for open-source Java. However, for Glassfish, the open-source version of Java Enterprise Edition (EE) that Sun released in 2005, Sun chose the Community Development and Distribution License the company created. (Java EE consists of several higher-level components that require a Java SE foundation to run.)

Open-source advocates have pressured Sun to release Java's source code as an open-source project, but Sun refused, citing the concern that Java could "fork" into incompatible versions. But the imperative for open-source software is greater now, and forking no longer an overriding concern.

For the most part, Java didn't fork, though variations in versions from BEA Systems, IBM and others raised some complications. But in the years it refused, developers turned their attention to other options.

In 2005, the Apache Software Foundation began to create an open-source version of Java SE. IBM, which was instrumental in helping Sun launch Java in the 1990s, weeks after it began.

Microsoft, after an ugly legal spat over its Java license, released a Java analog of its own: the C# programming language and .Net environment for running C# programs. While .Net lacks Java's wide availability on many different operating systems and processors, Microsoft released enough of the technology as an industry standard that Novell has released an open-source version, called Mono, that runs on Linux.