In an unexpected move, vendor decides to license open source Java under the GPL. First batch of source codes are also released.

A day after Sun chief Scott McNealy says "open source is our friend," a prominent advocate of the collaborative programming philosophy calls on the company to open Java code.

The Apache-based Java DB will be incorporated into the Sun Java Enterprise System and will receive support in the NetBeans IDE 5.0 plug-in, the company says.