IBM cool to Sun's open-source Java plan

In a bit of irony, it looks like IBM (who has been trying to get Sun to Open Source Java for years) isn't that happy with the GPL. From the article:
After years of internal debates and public calls from IBM to make Java open source, you would think that IBM would be overjoyed at the news.
Not so.
IBM on Monday issued a statement attributed to Rod Smith, vice president of emerging Internet technologies in the IBM Software Group, who penned the open letter in 2004 requesting Sun to make Java open source.
Smith said that IBM supports all open-source licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). But he noted that there are already two projects around open-source Java.
There is Harmony, a project in the incubator phase at Apache to build an open-source edition of Java SE. IBM joined the Harmony project shortly after it was launched in 2005.
Meanwhile, Motorola two weeks ago said that it will contribute code to start a Java ME project at Apache .
“In light of the Apache projects, we have discussed with Sun our strong belief that Sun should contribute their Java technologies to Apache rather than starting another open-source Java project, or at least make their contributions available under an 'Apache friendly' license to ensure the open-source Java community isn't fragmented and disenfranchised, instead Sun would be bringing the same benefits of OS (open-source) Java to this significant and growing open-source community,” the statement said.

Just goes to show that you really can't make everyone happy. Overall the Open Source community seems quite happy with the GPL decision. I haven't yet had the time to look deep into the Java community reaction, but I do plan to. I'd guess that despite this initial reaction, IBM will likely become more involved as time goes on. What exactly will happen to projects like Harmony remains to be seen.
–jeremy
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