Sun's new web portal for open source Java is a big step forward, says Laurie Wong, product business manager for software, Sun Microsystems Australia and New Zealand.
“What we are trying to do by open sourcing Java is to make it easier for the open source community to use Java as a tool of choice,” he says.
There has been some splintering in the Java community on how to enhance Java, he says, but he hopes that the open source initiative will help bring the community back together, and also bring the Java community and open source community together.
However, it is still a concern how the Java source code will be managed, Wong says. He adds that Sun has consistently held on to the principle of compatibility since Java was born, and that is the way the company wants to keep it.
The Java community in New Zealand and Australia is growing, says Wong. In total there are about 18,000 developers registered in the Sun Developer Network across both countries, with around 2,500 in New Zealand.
“[But] the total New Zealand Java community will be much larger. I would hazard a guess that it could be upwards of 10,000 or more,” he says.
Since the developer event in Wellington in May, there has been about 200 new registrations per month, according to Wong.