'Could have Java been open sourced earlier?' Calvin Austin (pictured) - who left Sun in 2004 after 8 years at Javasoft - asks himself rhetorically this week, in his blog. 'Yes,' he answers, '[but] Sun kept many communities involved including the Java champions which I have to give them full credit for.' All in all, he concludes, 'This is a great week.'

Does he think Java will fork, as a result of this week's announcement? "No, maybe slightly, but nothing that would affect companies that standardize on a version anyhow."

"What Sun finally did this week by releasing Java under GPL was a historic event. Using the GPL instead of yet another Sun license certainly makes adoption that much easier," Austin adds.

"Sun kept many communities involved including the Java champions which I have to give them full credit for, although it would have been even nicer if we could have dropped the NDA! So in closing, this is a great week," Austin concludes.