Sun Endorse(?)s Apache Harmony, Will Participate
Graham Hamilton: Sun is a big supporter of Apache (this includes making donations of hardware and storage) and we're always very glad to see them participate in Java development. In many ways launching a J2SE project is the obvious next step in Apache's work around Java. Personally, I am very curious about how the Harmony project will work out - creating a full scale implementation of J2SE is a mammoth task, as the Sun J2SE team knows only too well. However I wish Apache success and we'll certainly be tracking this as it develops. We'll probably participate in the project at some level, although most of our efforts will continue to be focused on building Sun's reference implementation of J2SE.
Simon Phipps: I'd like to add my welcome to the Harmony project, a proposal (which I assume will be approved) over the Apache Incubator to grow a new, independent, up-to-date and 100% compatible implementation of v5 the Java platform. Things like this (and the new openness of the v6 - Mustang - work) renew my confidence in the promise of the Java community - read the FAQ to see more. This is just the sort of responsible, community-led evolution that the JCP rules were changed to facilitate.