That the process works?
Yeah.
Do you think some more pieces will be made open-source, or will it be the whole thing?
We could do the whole thing. We could do it by pieces. We've discussed all of them. We actually do open-source a lot of stuff,
but not the core bits. And we've talked about slicing up the core so that some of it's open-source, and by and large, that
isn't an easier problem than doing the whole thing.
When do you think it could happen?
Don't know. There are days when I feel like it's going to be tomorrow. There are days when I feel like it's going to be never.
It depends on if I've been talking to the lawyers. If I talk to the lawyers involved in the Microsoft case, I always come
back completely horrified, [thinking] if we ever do this, we're screwed.
Other days?
Other days where I'm just fat and happy.
Have you made your feelings known internally at Sun, that you favor open-source?
Oh, yeah. I've always felt that sort of in the abstract, open-source is the right thing to do for a lot of the kinds of things
that we do. There are a variety of issues that make it a very complex discussion as to whether it actually works as a business.
You feel that Java has now reached a level of popularity with the market that would ensure that Java remained interoperable?
Yeah. My personal feeling is that we're over the edge, but I also feel a little nervous about that. There are still all kinds
of opportunities for mayhem. ... I'm not convinced that I'm right. I like to bitch and moan about lawyers, but they often
have actually good points.
Do you get much feedback from JCP partners?
My impression is that a really, really high-order concern for the whole development community is interoperability and consistency.
And right now we're at a level with our licenses where we are as close to open-source as we can be while having a pretty decent
hold on the whole interoperability story. The thing that we and everybody in the community are concerned about is making sure
that the interoperability story carries on.
How much is the open-source debate going on internally at Sun? We have this discussion all the time. We've been having this
discussion for years.
More so recently?
I think more so recently. But we were having it long before it became a big thing in the press. ... Early on, everybody was
terrified of Microsoft because of their behavior. [But] in the early days of Microsoft, they were actually wonderful. The
people at Microsoft that ran the relationship with us were really great. Then if you look at the evidence logs, there was
this one e-mail that came down from on high to the managers running the Java relationship with Sun that sort of said, 'You
don't get it. This isn't our business model.' And then the guy who was in charge of the Java effort at Microsoft basically
was no longer in that position sort of instantaneously, and immediately our relationship with Microsoft just changed. I mean,
they were pulling every trick one could imagine. And it turned into a court case, and it was just awful.
At that time, open-source Java didn't look like such a good idea to you?
I was so happy we had that contract.
When did you have your change of heart that Java is now ready for open-source?
Probably a year or so ago.
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(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
