Partnering with O'Reilly and CollabNet, Sun Microsystems has launched a new Java.net portal designed to "expand the Java technology portfolio of applications, tools, and services by promoting conversation and collaboration around development of practical applications across industry groups." O'Reilly & Associates is the feature editor for java.net and CollabNet provides a collaborative hosting infrastructure using its SourceCast software. "At the foundation of java.net is an infrastructure and philosophy that supports open communication and development among peers. It includes project-support tools such as mailing lists, identities and personalities, reputation, weblogs, and wikis. It provides the tools an open source development project needs to be successful: a CVS source tree, bug-tracking system, forums, and mail lists. It also provides tools for gathering information on what's happening in the industry through RSS newsfeeds." The Java.net portal represents "the realization of a vision of a diverse group of engineers, researchers, technologists, and evangelists at Sun Microsystems, Inc. to provide a common area for interesting conversations and innovative development projects related to Java technology."

From the Announcement

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today unveiled java.net, a new community and Web site created to facilitate Java technology collaboration in applied areas of technology and vertical industry solutions. Sponsored by Sun, the creator and leading advocate of Java technology, with editorial resources and technology infrastructure provided by CollabNet, Inc. and O'Reilly & Associates, java.net aims to expand the Java technology portfolio of applications, tools and services. Leading technology companies, industry associations, universities and research institutions, Java user groups and individual Java technology enthusiasts will all come together at java.net with industry veterans such as James Gosling, the creator of Java technology, to enhance the developer community and experience.

java.net, an open source development site, will offer a rich array of advanced collaboration tools including project and community source code hosting, mailing lists, forums, blogs (online journals featuring regular participation by James Gosling) and wikis -- collaborative hypertext documents authored with a simple markup scheme. java.net also hosts a "Javapedia" -- a wiki-based encyclopedia of Java software, terms, luminaries, service providers and more -- currently being developed by Java technology enthusiasts.

Sun Microsystems also announced today that it will open-source millions of lines of code at java.net. Examples of the wide variety of code and toolsets, communities and projects Sun will make available at the site include:

• Java Desktop: A new gathering place for members of the Java graphical user interface (GUI) community offering discussions, technical articles, open source projects and other news of interest to developers who use the Java desktop platform to produce applications with rich client interfaces.

• Java Web services and XML: Sun demonstrates its commitment to the open source Web services community with its contribution of key XML technologies including Java API for XML-Based Remote Procedure Calls (JAX-RPC), enabling developers to build Web applications and services with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and supporting Web Services Description Language (WSDL); Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB), enabling developers to generate Java classes from XML schemas, providing an efficient and standard way to map between XML and Java code; and SOAP with Attachments API for Java 1.1 (SAAJ), providing fundamental support in the Java platform for building basic SOAP messages.

• Java Gaming: A community Web site that provides the gaming community with a place to share ideas and gain up-to-date information about Java technology-related gaming development resources.

The work of existing open source communities will also be part of java.net, including:

• Project JXTA: An award-winning set of open, generalized peer-to-peer protocols that allow any connected device (cell phone to PDA, PC to server) on the network to communicate and collaborate.

• Jini: An open software architecture that enables the creation of network-centric solutions which are highly adaptive to change.

• NetBeans: A modular, extensible, multi-platform Java integrated development environment (IDE).

In concert with the launch of java.net, the Java Research License has been newly simplified to help spur innovation among universities and researchers in particular. java.net and the CollabNet SourceCast software can support the use of any Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved license for projects developing source code. java.net is pre-configured to support the BSD, Apache, SISSL, GPL, LGPL and MPL licenses, in addition to Java source code SCSL. java.net also supports a variety of document licenses.