Java is free at last. Now what?

Java started down the road to openness more than a year ago. Today it's finally free. According to Red Hat, its open source IcedTea Project has passed Sun's Java Technology Compatibility Kit, a rigorous suite of tests designed to verify that a Java implementation conforms to the full Java specification. That makes it official: IcedTea does everything that Java is supposed to do, and it's fully open source. It's

Java started down the road to openness more than a year ago. Today it's finally free.

According to Red Hat, its open source IcedTea Project has passed Sun's Java Technology Compatibility Kit, a rigorous suite of tests designed to verify that a Java implementation conforms to the full Java specification. That makes it official: IcedTea does everything that Java is supposed to do, and it's fully open source.

It's impossible to overstate the significance of this milestone. At last, a full-blooded Java implementation is available under a 100 percent Free Software license. At last, the open source community can put aside any lingering objections to developing in Java.

So is this it -- the beginnings of Java's golden age? I wonder.

In terms of raw popularity, it's hard to argue that Java has been anything but a runaway success. Doubtless it will continue to enjoy a loyal following among enterprise application developers for years to come. Despite its newly relaxed license terms, however, actually growing Java's installed base could prove more challenging.

I wouldn't be the first to argue that Sun missed the boat by not releasing Java under an open source license sooner. As Apache Project co-founder Brian Behlendorf said in 2006, "I think had they done it, they would have established Java further as the language of choice by so many more people."

The Linux community, in particular, has long viewed Java with ambivalence. Sun makes prepackaged binaries of the JDK available to Linux users at no charge, but that simply isn't good enough for Linux distributions that bundle only software that's available under a Free Software license, such as Debian and the Red Hat-sponsored Fedora project.

The lack of a proper Free Software version of Java has left Linux application developers with a dilemma. Should they go ahead and code in Java, taking advantage of its rich collection of cross-platform APIs, knowing that by doing so they will alienate that portion of the Linux community that objects to proprietary software licenses? Or should they choose another tool?

Take note: Developers have no shortage of free and open source tools to choose from. In an ironic twist, some have even preferred to work with Mono, the Novell-sponsored open source implementation of Microsoft's .Net platform, rather than fall into the so-called Java Trap.