So there’s more information about the Java (TM) announcement and I’m going to assume the best.
Before I go any further, let me again acknowledge that it’s a big step and I have strong hopes that the things that are not perfect will get sorted out over time. Also, as always these comments are my own and don’t reflect IBM’s position etc etc.
As I said earlier in the day, governance is key and it seems Sun’s model is not changing in the short term i.e. Only Sun employees can commit changes and shared copyright assignment. They say that the former is intended to change over time but one of the charts on the site uses the word ‘eventually’ which isn’t encouraging. I think that these factors make it likely that Kaffe+Classpath will continue to be actively developed until there is more of a level playing field but I believe that’s healthy anyway.
Sam Ruby jokes (I think) that Debian will end up calling their build of the OpenJDK sources IcedTea rather than Java (TM) but the Sun FAQ is pretty clear on this question
Q: What must I do to call my software based on code from the OpenJDK or phoneME projects “Java”?
A: The requirements for the use of the “Java” trademark and name have not changed with the open sourcing of the JDK and Java ME source code. The GPL v2 does not include a trademark license – no OSI-approved open-source licenses do. Sun does not currently have a licensing program that permits the use of the “Java” mark in your product or company name. You can use a truthful “tagline” however associating your product or company with Java technology, according to Sun’s standard terms for use for trademarks. Please see http://www.sun.com/policies/trademarks/ for more details.
This more than suggests that even if you build OpenJDK from a set of sources you get verbatim from Sun you can’t call it Java (TM) (or java.exe ?) . It sounds to me like Distributors, to call something Java will have to use Binaries of Sun’s builds (which are potentially a fork themselves) under the DLJ… which makes things really complicated. Not legal questions I want to be anywhere near.
For the moment I’m very happy that Apache Harmony exists and is doing so well. It’s through competition and challenging Sun that Java (TM) will gain most.
I’d expect everything to go on for a while, anyway. On the Kaffe/Classpath/gcj/cacao/IKVM/JamVM/* side the future development will happen with a chance of strongly collaborating with Sun on shared code.
On Harmony’s side, probably not so much, though everything is possible there in the future. Nothing, except current policies, prohibits ASF from working with/on GPLd code. And policies are always up for debate.