Dear Java Community,

As you can see, we're making progress with our plans to open source Sun's implementations of the Java platform. I'm happy to see Java technology embarking on a new journey with this official open-source licensing announcement.

Java technology has been a cornerstone of software development for more than a decade now -- the community is ready for the next chapter, and the timing is right. As we stated at the JavaOne conference last May, the most crucial part of this decision was that we realized developers want to preserve compatibility, interoperability, and reliability. We intend to take steps to help make sure Java technology remains compatible, interoperable, and reliable. And we know the Java community feels the same way.

We will continue to do an immense amount of testing with the Java platform. Everything we do will get checked, rechecked, and we will debug rigorously. We expect that people who care about reliability and compatibility with the Java specification will continue to use and enhance Java technology.

One reason Java technology remains so popular is that it's remarkably successful at spanning a lot of different domains. You can write software for application servers, cell phones, scientific programming, desktop applications, games, embedded software -- the list is endless. We're intend to maintain the support of this broad span of domains.

Sun continues to embrace open source, and I invite you to join us. There are all kinds of contributions you can make. If there's a bug that you really care about, you can go work out a fix. (That's one area where developers have made tens of thousands of contributions over the years.) I also invite you to help us add new features. If there's new functionality that you really want in Java technology, the process is there to help you to add that to the platform as well.

Sincerely,

James Gosling