(June 12, 2003) - Sun Microsystems, Inc. took advantage of JavaOne to announce http://www.java.net ">java.net, a new community and Web site created to facilitate Java technology collaboration in applied areas of technology and vertical industry solutions. Sponsored by Sun, with editorial resources and technology infrastructure provided by CollabNet, Inc. and O'Reilly & Associates, java.net aims to expand the Java technology portfolio of applications, tools, and services. Leading technology companies, industry associations, universities and research institutions, Java user groups, and individual Java technology enthusiasts will all come together at java.net with industry veterans such as James Gosling, the creator of Java technology, to enhance the developer community and experience.

java.net, an open source development site, will offer a rich array of advanced collaboration tools including project and community source code hosting, mailing lists, forums, blogs (featuring regular participation by James Gosling) and wikis - collaborative hypertext documents authored with a simple markup scheme. java.net also hosts a "Javapedia" - a wiki-based encyclopedia of Java software, terms, luminaries, service providers and more - currently being developed by Java technology enthusiasts.

"I'm very excited about the strength and variety of code coming to java.net, and about the opportunity the new community gives developers to propel Java technology into new markets and new applications," said James Gosling, Sun fellow, senior vice president, Sun Laboratories, and creator of Java technology. "There's a tremendous collective force of innovation and ideas flowing through java.net, and I can't wait to see what it spawns."

Sun Microsystems also announced today that it will open-source millions of lines of code at java.net. The site will offer features including code, tools, and discussion forums for developers who use the Java desktop platform, Java gaming, and Java Web services and XML. The work of existing open source communities will also be part of java.net, including Project JXTA, Jini, and NetBeans.

Sun's move to establish java.net has met with tremendous enthusiasm from a wide spectrum of third-party organizations. The following companies will participate in or have indicated their support for java.net: Borland Software Corp., Compuware Corp., Cysive, DigiSlice Corp., ObjectVenture, Inc., Oracle Corp., Quest Software, Inc., Software AG, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Systinet Corp., and Zero G Software, Inc. Vertical industry groups also play an active role in the java.net community, including OSS/J and JAIN , as well as SIIA, the Software and Information Industry Association.

In concert with the launch of java.net, the Java Research License has been newly simplified to help spur innovation among universities and researchers in particular. java.net and the CollabNet SourceCast software can support the use of any Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved license for projects developing source code. java.net is pre-configured to support the BSD, Apache, SISSL, GPL, LGPL and MPL licenses, in addition to Java source code SCSL. java.net also supports a variety of document licenses.

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