He also said compatibility is a major issue with the planned move. "I don't think anybody wants to see a diverging Java platform," Green said, arguing that one of the "great values" of Java is that the company has been able to avoid divergence and ensure consistency.

The challenge now, he said, is how to solve those issues. "I'm going to sign up big time to go figure that out."

Michael Goulde, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said the move by Sun is not a shock since the company has been taking steps in that direction, even as it has argued that it wants to maintain compatibility and prevent code forking.

"All along, they've given that as one of the arguments for not doing it, so it's going to be interesting to see what they'll do," Goulde said. "It's something people in the open-source community have been harping on for a long time, so it's almost anti-climactic at this point. The devil's in the details. There's a lot of things they need to think about -- under what license, how the community will be structured and organized."

One other benefit, he said, is that it could help further accelerate the already abundant innovation around Java. The move by Sun will also address a longstanding irritant in the open-source community -- that "it's a little bit awkward working with something that's not open-source to create open-source software," he said.