Java Tutorial - Java Script :

Open Source Communities

Another common question about open source software is “Where does it come from?” There is often a subtle hint of “Can I trust it?” in that question. The answer to this last question is yes, you can trust open source software, because it is open and free for examination. The answer to the first question is that open source software comes from people, organizations, and companies that invest their time and money in developing these projects.

Some projects are sponsored by large reliable companies such as IBM (Eclipse), Sun (NetBeans),SAP (SAP DB), and Netscape Communications (Mozilla). Others are developed by individuals (McKoi comes to mind). Still others are parts of larger open source communities (Apache’s Jakarta for example).Open source software projects have infrastructure needs just as any other project would. Many of these efforts are very large and complex and require coordination among many developers. The open source community provides this infrastructure for the developers. Once established, many projects can often share the same infrastructure, forming a community. These open source communities often serve as incubators for new ideas.

In the following sections, we look at some of the open source communities that have formed over the years to develop and support open source Java development. These communities represent good places to start when searching for open source software. Mostly, our focus will be on projects and communities with a focus on open source Java software.