Open Source Vendors Optimistic on Oracle-Sun

[ganeshbala]

Open Source Vendors Optimistic on Oracle-Sun

Sun is one of the world's largest open source vendors, making its acquisition by Oracle a development that will have repercussions throughout the open source world.

Despite the enormity of the news, however, many open source vendors that spoke with InternetNews.com said they are cautiously optimistic about the impact of Oracle's Sun acquisition -- and what it could mean for open source software, Java and Linux.

On the Java front, the Eclipse Foundation, which for years has had a Java development effort competitive with Sun's Netbeans, sees the Oracle buy as opportunity for the governance of the Java Community Process (JCP) to evolve. The JCP is the process by which Sun has led the governance of an open development process for Java since 1998.

"Oracle is a strong leader and contributor to both the Java and Eclipse communities," Mike Milinkovitch, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation.

"The JCP needs to undergo a major reorganization to make it more open, transparent and, in particular, vendor-neutral.