Sun sponsors Free Software Foundation
Sun Microsystems has become a "patron" sponsor of the Free Software Foundation, the organization founded by Richard Stallman that ultimately spawned the open-source software movement.
Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer, announced the move on his blog Saturday.
"Both organizations have been promoting software freedom in different ways for more than two decades, albeit in different ways and with different objectives," Phipps said.
The move fits with Sun's expressed fondness for version 3 of the General Public License (GPL) whose development the foundation now is leading. Sun is releasing Java as open-source software under the GPL.
Patron status gives Sun the right to market itself as such, two hours of consulting on licensing issues, and five T-shirts and baseball hats and miniature CDs that boot a version of the foundation's Gnu's Not Unix (GNU) operating systems based on the Linux kernel.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
