IBM Partners with Oracle on Java

Oracle and IBM have reached an agreement to collaborate in the OpenJDK Java development community to develop what a press release terms “the leading open source Java environment.”

The two companies will make the OpenJDK community the primary location for open source Java SE development. The Java Community Process (JCP) will continue to be the primary standards body for Java specification work and both companies will work to continue to enhance the JCP.

The collaboration will center on the OpenJDK project, the open source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) specification, the Java Language, the Java Development Kit (JDK) and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). In addition, Oracle and IBM will support the recently announced OpenJDK development roadmap, which is designed to accelerate the availability of Java SE across the open source community.

This partnership marks an about-face in IBM’s Java development strategy. Previously, IBM had centered its Java efforts on another open source Java development environment known as Apache Harmony. Although Java has been open source since 2006, it was developed by Sun Microsystems in the 1990s, and Sun retained influence in the JCP even after Java went open source.

Now Oracle has inherited that influence. Considering that IBM made an attempt to purchase Sun for a reported $7 billion, in no small part due to its Java resources, this agreement was by no means a sure thing. Although proponents of smaller Java development initiatives may complain this partnership will snuff creativity and choice out of Java, the odds are most enterprise Java users will benefit from these two enterprise IT leaders cooperating on moving Java forward.