Black Duck Software, provider of software compliance management solutions, today released comments related to Sun Microsystems’ decision this week to open source Java. Many organizations are using open source code to develop software, and the Sun announcement means that any company using Java will need to understand the implications of the licensing terms of the open source General Public License (GPL) and the impact on software that is developed with Java.

Black Duck Software CEO Douglas Levin offered the following comments about the news:

* “Sun’s announcement regarding Java is a major boon to the open source community. It’s unprecedented for a platform as integral to computing as Java to make such a licensing change. Companies need to understand its impact on many fronts. At the most elemental level, though, the licensing change affects the way Java can be used and deployed.”
* “By open sourcing Java, Sun is poised to gain the enthusiastic support of the development community. Continued innovations from this community are likely to increase the longevity and utility of the Java platform.”
* “The decision to use the GPL instead of the CDDL, which was used by Sun when Solaris was made an open source project, will be received well in the open source community. Sun learned from their last open source product and license introduction.”
* “It’s interesting that Sun chose the GPL, given the pending changes to the license and the ongoing public debate about GPLv3. Sun’s commitment to the GPL is an endorsement for the community-driven licensing process. It raises the importance of understanding what the GPL lets companies do with Java and, on the flip side, how they’re constrained.”
* “This announcement has been anticipated for quite some time. The licensing change shows how enterprises today might receive software from a vendor that is governed by more than one license and underscores the importance of knowing the origins of software assets. We advise that now, more than ever, is an appropriate time to put in place a mechanism for complying with open source licenses and automating the proper use of open source code.”

Recent announcements from software providers such as Oracle, Novell, Microsoft and now Sun, underscore the impact of open source on mainstream computing in the enterprise. Businesses need to understand the licensing implications of using open source, particularly where software assets may contain components of mixed origin and license conflicts may arise. Black Duck Software helps enterprises identify and manage licensing obligations that may apply to their software assets through code assessment.