News Feature

Sun Open Sources Java Under GPL

November 17, 2006 — CIO —

1. "Sun Open Sources Java Under GPL,"
CIO.com, 11/13
No one was in any doubt that Sun would make its core Java platform freely available, given that the company pledged to do so in May. The interesting twist when the company did finally announce the open sourcing of both its Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) and its Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) this week was Sun’s choice of license. Instead of going with its own common development and distribution license, which Sun has used when previously open sourcing products, the company opted for the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). Sun’s hoping that making Java available under GPLv2, the same license used by the Linux operating system and other popular open-source software, will encourage more developers to use Java as well as enable Linux distributions like Debian and Ubuntu to bundle Java with their operating systems.

2. "Dell Earnings Delayed by SEC Probe,"
CIO.com, 11/16
The bad news continues for the computer maker, which has yet to recover from a string of disappointing fiscal quarters. Dell was forced this week to delay reporting its latest financials due to complications related to probes into the company’s accounting and fiscal reporting being conducted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Dell’s own audit committee. The SEC began an informal probe into Dell in August that has been escalated to a formal investigation. Speculation continues to rise that Dell executives, notably Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rollins and Chief Financial Officer James Schneider, may be on their way out.

3. "NBC Executive Is Expected to Bring Operational Strengths to AOL,"
The New York Times, 11/16
In a surprise move, Time Warner ousted Jonathan Miller, the chairman and CEO of its ailing AOL business, in favor of television executive Randy Falco. Heading up AOL since 2002, Miller had only recently reorganized the company around a new strategy of generating revenue from advertising sales, abandoning its longtime subscription-based model. Falco has spent his entire career, some 31 years, at NBC, and Time Warner is hoping he can bring more operational acumen to AOL. Interestingly, at the suggestion of Time Warner executives, Miller had recently met Falco for drinks to sound him out about joining AOL to assist him on the operations side. Miller apparently had no idea Falco was to be his replacement.

4. "Borland Changes Course, Will Spin Off Tools Group,"
InfoWorld, 11/14
In another unexpected turn of events this week, Borland announced it will spin off, not sell off, its developer tools group. Home to products such as Delphi and JBuilder, the tools division will become a wholly owned Borland subsidiary known as CodeGear early next year. Back in February, the vendor put its tools business up for sale, hoping to seal a deal by September. Although Borland did receive offers, none of them reflected the value the vendor had put upon the operation, according to Tod Nielsen, Borland’s CEO. Spinning off CodeGear will enable Borland to focus on what it sees as its core business, the application lifecycle management (ALM) market, and potentially also to return to profitability.