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Solaris Issues New Licensing System for Java and Linux

Solaris is what Sun Microsystems are known for, but now the company is targeting the upstart of the UNIX world, Linux, and issues a new licensing system that allows smaller Linux distributions to work with Java on the same operating system. Solaris has announced its new licensing system during a speech carried at its annual Java One developer conference.

Sun will allow the Java Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 to be distributed by GNU/Linux and Open Solaris developers under a new license, the Operating System Distributor`s License for Java, or "Distro License for Java." Sun said it developed this license in conjunction with numerous GNU/Linux communities. It allows distributors to ship Sun`s Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit and Java Runtime Environment as installable packages for their operating systems.

The DLJ allows the different distributions to define the packaging, installation and support for the JDK within their distribution. Several smaller but growing projects plan to sign on to redistribute the JDK, including the Ubuntu, Gentoo and Debian distributions, as well as a number of Open Solaris distributions. Open Solaris is an open source project for its Solaris operating system, launched last year.