Blackdown Java

Blackdown Java is a port of Sun Microsystems's Java virtual machine to Linux by a group of volunteers led by Karl Asha. It predates Sun's official Linux port. It still supports platforms that the official version does not, including SPARC and PowerPC. Currently, Blackdown Java supports up to version 1.5 of the Java run-time libraries.

Despite widespread confusion, Blackdown is neither free software nor open-source software. The reason that it was the default Java in Gentoo Linux and many other distributions, is because the binary redistribution policy allows it to be pre-installed or distributed through that distribution's package management system, whereas at the time, Sun Java's binary redistribution policy did not.

Since Java 5, the Operating System Distributor License for Java (DLJ) meets many Linux distributions' requirements, so it is now the default for at least Gentoo Linux, unless you specify Java 1.4 or earlier, for which the DLJ does not apply.

The project appears to have been closed. The Java software itself still exists on many mirrors.

External links

* [https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/ jdk-distros: community collaboration with the DLJ] - The official site for the DLJ.