Java, Open Source to Forkin’ hell
Good commentary on the debate regarding Sun’s decision to Open Java.
Although, In both my opinion and many others, Open Sourcing a large product or platform distribution always leads to fragmentation of the very product or platform. Far too many examples of that. Even the argument that it will “micro-fork” for specific purposes, is well, still a fork. Oracle for example has decided to offer its own Linux distribution based upon Red hat, only to offer support for less. No doubt, within 2 years we will have Oracle MAD HAT, and Red EVEN MADDER HAT. So maybe we will end up with a more data-centric Linux distribution, which was part of the idea behind the Red Hat enterprise distribution all together. Which will prevail? Maybe the cheaper of the two, or three, or four or …
All of this feels messy and with no doubt hardly aids the “business” enterprise; considering they already have a difficult time choosing and or managing between Microsoft, Sun and “OTHER”. All of that on top of the daunting task of managing the current VP list, the company coffee brand, stapler brand, pencil brand, desk brand, … 
Companies looking to build new products on Java should really look at their options once again. (Assuming they did it in the first place) I am not talking about the micro products like phones, pda’s etc. Rather, I am talking about desktop products; this is where a reconsideration of the Java platform choice should be addressed. With Sun all but saying “We can’t take it any further than it is, you have a go at it”. Which of course means, which fork will be for you, and will it last, will it be supported and will it be continued in terms of development. Will it still run on all the fancy OS upgrades (i.e., Vista and its far too numerous siblings) Granted, it will be sometime before anyone is really faced with the above questions. Although, assuming you are planning now, now then is the time to think about the future. (Which is pretty obvious, generally speaking) 
