Hello!
Yesterday I attended the panel debate at Jfokus[1]. I did listen to some seminars as well. The keynote by Simon Phipps[2] was the one I remember best. The other was more technical about Java and no-one of then mentioned that Java now is going to be free software.
The panel debate went well (I think I did ok). The focus in it was not like I thought. There were no questions about software patents[3] or the choice of license, well there were a question about the license but all agreed that it was good that Sun choose a good free software copyleft license.
Simon Phipps, who was sitting next to me, mentioned that Java might be released under other licenses as well and is already dual-licensed. He also mentioned that OpenSolaris also might be released under GPL. Currently there were some issues but he thinks they might be solved in GPLv3 (he seems very positive about v3).
Phipps was the one that said the most. He used the term free software often, well he did sit next to me :), and also said to one other panel member that they misuse the name Linux. He said that Java would run under the GNU system even with other kernels than Linux (probably referring to GNU/OpenSolaris distributions, but he also mentioned the Debian GNU/BSD).
There was one question to me that I got stuck answering. The question was if I thought that Sun should have done this earlier. I was surprised by the question and said that I would have liked it to happen earlier but better late then never.
Sun held a dinner on Tuesday that was very nice, also the event yesterday was very good. About 470 persons attended.
/Marcus
[1] http://www.jfokus.se [2] http://www.webmink.net/ [3] Phipps mentioned software patents in his keynote very briefly. He said that corporations needs them because corporations have them. He said that they are indeed bad, but is here and will be, so he told us to "get over it".