Why is the Java TCK and Java compatibility in general of such importance?
Rich: When we first set out on the work with OpenJDK, we really wanted to ensure that whatever we ship is fully compatible. There’s, I think, a very, very limited market for a Java that doesn’t work like everybody else’s Java. We run the TCK on all our builds. It’s a huge burden; it’s not exciting or fun work. But we feel it’s very, very important. The initial OpenJDK shipped with Fedora was actually based on the JDK seven code base, so a lot of work had to be done to produce the OpenJDK six implementation. So it was essential that we ran the TCK tests anyway to make sure we had everything right. But we continue with that commitment. Like I say, there’s very little for Red Hat to gain by shipping a Java implementation that doesn’t work like everybody else’s. DZone: Do you think Java adoption in the Linux community could have benefited from greater uptake had Sun open sourced Java much earlier than it actually did. Rich: Yeah. I think Sun’s hand was somewhat forced. I think they reacted
