TheServerSide.com has some interesting comments this morning on an article published on uk.builder.com about whether Sun should merge it’s open sourcing of Java with the Apache Harmony project.
The issue Sun has to resolve right now is that parts of the Java platform it is about to open source were contributed by other third parties and it does not have the legal right to change the existing license and open source the code. Presumably between now and when it open sources the code, Sun must rewrite these parts of the code so that it is legal able to change the license.
Since the Apache Harmony project to develop an open source Java compiler and runtime is already well under way and the fact that they have written their version from scratch to be ‘bug-compatible’ with Sun’s version, would this be an attractive codebase that Sun could leverage instead of having to rewrite the pieces that they do not own?