[via BetaNews]

Following through on a promise it made earlier this month, Sun confirmed at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco Tuesday that it would open the source code to Java, but said it needs the community’s help in getting it done to prevent fragmentation of the technology.

“The question is not whether we will open-source Java, the question is how,” Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said during his opening keynote. […]

In addition, Sun rolled out a new licensing program for operating systems, which will make it easier for companies — including FreeBSD, Linux and OpenSolaris vendors — to bundle the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) with their distributions. Restrictive licensing has held back Java’s adoption on these platforms.