Geir Magnusson: Today, the Apache Software Foundation sent an open letter to Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, regarding the ASF’s inability to acquire an acceptable TCK license for the Java SE TCK (also called the “JCK”) in over 7 months of trying. For more information, there is also a FAQ available.

I sincerely hope that Jonathan quickly intervenes as he is in a unique position to assess the trade-off between the short term benefits in the credit column against the intangible costs in the debit column of (1) actively destroying the community that Sun has taken so much time and effort to foster, (2) mortgaging the future of Java, and (3) undermining Sun’s own open standards efforts. Specifically:

• Harmony is exactly the sort of responsible, community-led evolution that the JCP rules were changed to facilitate. More background on the events that lead up to those particular changes in the JSPA can be found here.
• Down the road, I can see no way that the Executive Committee for Java SE/Java EE would approve a JSR for Java™ SE 7 Release Contents as long as the possibility of the spec lead tacking on such noxious FOU restrictions still exists.
• JSR 176’s spec lead’s proposed FOU restrictions conflict with Sun’s own Open Standard Definition.

Finally, it is my understanding that a number of Sun employees have attempted to help, but were blocked by people higher in the pecking order. Their efforts are most appreciated. Keep up the good fight!

how about it, sun?