http://www.sun.com/2006-1113/feature/index.jsp
Java has been a great language for programmers - feature rich, fast to develop language that supported all new concepts of the technology. But it also had some bad side.

So far, Java was bad from users point of view. Use of libraries made it more of a bloat ware. It had many undocumented feature and bugs, that made the program unreliable and at times slow to perform.

Now Sun is opening the door to greater innovation by open sourcing key Java implementations—Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE), Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME), and Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE)—under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), the same license as GNU/Linux.

 With one stroke, Sun has opened the door to change all this. Now that the source of Java is open, one can get to the core and make improvements to suit their need. It will also make possible to explore and debug the unexpected program behavior.

I am sure, in very near future - Java use will will surpass all other programing languages put together.

Thank you Sun for this great decision.