Contents - Cultural View

Java Class Library 154
• GUI and 2D Graphics: the java.awt package supports basic GUI operations and binds to the underlying native
system. It also contains the 2D Graphics API. The javax.swing package is built on AWT and provides a platform
independent widget toolkit, as well as a Pluggable look and feel. It also deals with editable and non-editable text
components.
• Sound: provides interfaces and classes for reading, writing, sequencing, and synthesizing of sound data.
• Text: the java.text package deals with text, dates, numbers, and messages.
• Image package: java.awt.image and javax.imageio provide APIs to write, read, and modify images.
• XML: built-in classes handle SAX, DOM, StAX, XSLT transforms, XPath, and various APIs for Web services, as
SOAP protocol and JAX-WS.
• CORBA and RMI APIs, including a built-in ORB
• Security and Cryptography
• Databases: access to SQL databases is provided through the java.sql package.
• Access to Scripting engines: the javax.script package gives access any Scripting language that conforms to this
API.
• Applets: java.applet allows applications to be downloaded over a network and run within a guarded sandbox
• Java Beans: java.beans provides ways to manipulate reusable components.
Licensing
Following their promise to release a fully buildable JDK based almost completely on free and open source code in
the first half of 2007 [2] , Sun released the complete source code of the Class Library under the GPL on May 8, 2007,
except some limited parts that were licensed by Sun from third parties who did not want their code to be released
under a free and open-source license. [3] Sun's goal is to replace the parts that remain proprietary and closed source
with alternative implementations and make the Class Library completely free and open source. [4]
As of May 2008, the only part of the Class library that remain proprietary and closed-source (4% as of May 2007 for
OpenJDK 7 [5] , and less than 1% as of May 2008 and OpenJDK 6 [6] [7] ) is [8] [9] :
• The SNMP implementation [9] .
Since the first May 2007 release, Sun Microsystems, with the help of the community, has released as Open-source or
replaced with Open-source alternatives almost all the encumbered code:
• All the audio engine code, including the software synthetizer, has been released as Open-source [9] [10] . The
closed-source software synthesizer has been replaced by a new synthesizer developed specifically for OpenJDK
called Gervill [11] ,
• All cryptography classes used in the Class library have been released as Open-source [12] ,
[13] [14] [15]
• The code that scales and rasterizes fonts has been replaced by FreeType
• The native color management system has been replaced by LittleCMS [14] . There is a pluggable layer in the JDK,
so that the commercial version can use the old color management system and OpenJDK can use LittleCMS.
• The anti-aliasing graphics rasterizer code has been replaced by the Open-sourced Pisces renderer used in the
phoneME project [14] [16] [17] . This code is fully functional, but still needs some performance enhancements [18] ,
• The Javascript plugin has been open-sourced (the JavaScript engine itself was open-sourced from the
beginning) [19] .