Sun Microsystems looks like it will be open sourcing the Java programming language in just a few more months.The company apparently is ironing out issues with maintaining compatability in Java and ensuring no single company develops its own implementation, according to Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun. Phipps spoke at the Open Source Business Conference Europe in London this week. The event is being covered by InfoWorld affiliate IDG News Service.Sun revealed open source plans for Java at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco last month, but did not set a timetable. After being pressured into the open source move for Java, it will be interesting to see if Sun can maintain the compatability in Java that it has sought to preserve. If the code is out in public with no restrictions, who knows what kind of forking and derivatives might arise. Might Java end up like Unix, with its multiple, vendor-specific variants? Software Development