My Thoughts !

Free and Open Source Java

Finally Sun has open sourced Java. For a Java developer like me, it means nothing. If they concentrate on the licensing and redistribution of the JRE, it would be great for me and the software houses as well. There is no point in creating Desktop applications in Java if there is no assurance that a Java Runtime will be available in the user's machine and even worse that you can't ship Sun's JRE due to a hell lot of license restrictions. This made vendors like IBM and BEA to have their own JRE implementation, but then they are not into desktop application developement. So the future of Java Desktop applications lies on the licensing policy of the JRE and may be tie ups with hardware vendors like Dell & HP for pre-installing Java on the PCs they sell (IBM already bundles their JRE with IBM machines)