Will Schwartz take Java open source?

Generally however the news has been met by yawns. This headline was fairly typical: The IT Industry Is Showing Its Age.

The idea is that the "glory days" of computing, like the glory days of rock and roll, are in the past. It's just another industry. Change from here will be incremental. No more earth-shattering stuff to see here.

Nonsense.

Computers still don't talk. Computers still don't think. When my kids were little I used to patiently explain that "computers today are primitive compared to what they will be in your time."

And they were. They are also primitive today compared to what they will be in the time of my grandchildren.

How we get there, and whether America leads us there, is up to people like Jonathan Schwartz. While he is bound to spend some time mending fences, praising his predecessor beyond his worth for instance, he is also facing his first big test, JavaOne on May 16.

There I expect to see the headline -- Java going open source.

Java's great promise has long been stymied by the fact that Sun expected to be paid for it. One of the more exciting projects today is an attempt to get around this by creating an open source alternative. Schwartz may have already signaled his intent by praising Brazil's open source movement last month in his blog, before taking the CEO chair.

So, will it happen? And what do you expect to resuilt?