Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz is set to announce the open sourcing of the core Java platform within 30 to 60 days. After months of discussion, it looks like the fears of open-sourcing core Java is finally overcome.
The past discussion about the issues of opening up core Java had always been it opens the doors for competitors to grab and change Java, resulting in the kernel forking and compatibility problems. The biggest benefit it may bring is to keep Java alive with community efforts given that Sun is not adequately promoting Java anymore.
One of the major hurdles of open sourcing Java is the approval of open source license. Sun may not have the rights to open source all the code given that there are codes licensed from third party. As a comparison, it took Sun five years in the case of OpenSolaris project to replace these codes with open source or rewritten codes. The initial components of Open Source Java will likely be the Java compiler and Hotspot.