Sun of course talks a big game on open source, both as a company as a whole and where Java is concerned, but it seems that many in the community are getting more and more fed up with what they see as blocks in that road. Some recent comments on the subject: OSGi developer Neil Bartlett has a blog post full of dudgeon on Sun’s plans for modularity in Java. He notes that, rather than going with one of the two modularity-related JSRs we discussed on JavaWorld in August 2008, Sun plans to implement and support Project Jigsaw in the upcoming JDK, despite the fact that it’s not defined by a JSR and hasn’t gone through the JCP. (It has those last two qualities in common with another major Sun initiative, JavaFX.) Bartlett also notes that those companies that might own the rights to the Java brand this time next year (IBM, Oracle) will almost certainly kill Jigsaw, orphaning anyone who starts using it now. Speaking of the upcoming JDK … you remember Stephen Colebourne, who commented on my blog in the discussion of the Sun-Apache dispute. In a recent blog post, Colebourne sees a pattern growing from Sun’s attitude, and suggests that there will never be a Java SE 7 standard, just a JDK 7. Though the JDK will be open source, the standard it is based on will not be developed through an open process or be available under an open license, in his prediction. (The assumption here is that Java will continue under its current regime.) A number of Sun competitors interviewed by Internetnews.com on the IBM-Sun merger took the opportunity to criticize Sun’s openness. JBoss’s Rich Sharples says that “Sun’s inability to invest in the JCP combined with its desire to maintain control is stifling the innovation and investment in Java,” and SpringSource’s Rod Johnson said “The JCP is still less open than we would like” and “Broadly speaking, if Sun wants something, it happens; if they don’t want it, it doesn’t happen.” JavaOpen Source