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Tim Bray: In the opening session at NetBeans day, Jonathan Schwartz said a few words and then brought Rich Green, our new software supremo, up on stage. After saying some nice things about Rich, Jonathan proposed that they do a Q&A, with Jonathan asking the questions, saying a "I'll simulate a developer". His first question was "So Rich, are you going to open-source Java?" Rich started with "Well, why not?" But then he gave what I thought was a really transparent brain-dump on the internal debate here at Sun, which is along the lines of "Open source good, compatibility essential". So it’s going to take a lot of work to figure out the story around compatibility and community, and that's going to require plenty of input from outside Sun. But then Rich said it again: "Why not?"

Given that inputs from outside of Sun has been overwhelmingly pro-open-source, and has been so for quite a few years, I think Sun will open source Java. If not tomorrow, then within this year.

(If they don't, I'll give up Java altogether and become a Ruby-on-Rails fanatic.)