This news is a few weeks old, but I didn't run across it till today.

The Apache Foundation is sponsoring the development of a compatible implementation of J2SE 5. The project is called Harmony, and is sitting in the incubator. The FAQ posted to the mailing list, answered the first few questions that popped into my head....

"Companies have gotten comfortable with Linux, and they're scratching their heads and saying, 'The argument for Linux was total cost of ownership and skills, and our developers like it and applications are supporting it,'" says Pierre Fricke, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates. "Then they start thinking, 'What about this thing called JBoss. Doesn't it offer some of the same things?' And it does."

Network World Fusion article, Open source products grab corporate attention, explains why National Leisure Group moved their J2EE infrastructure from BEA Weblogic to JBoss. The broader Open Source topic is discussed with some interesting insights into corporate backing as well as appropriate cautions....