Tiemann was reacting to statements that Schwartz made in which Schwartz said Sun would defend the open source community, "that innovation and our place in it, with all our heart and energy." The debate as to whether Java should be released as open source flared up most recently early in 2004 when Eric Raymond published an open letter to Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive, asking him to "Let Java Go.".

Schwartz himself has expressed openness to the idea, if a body remained within the industry to control compatibility and prevent groups from developing "forked," variants.

Tiemann said the reason for opening Java to the public is primarily to stave off advances by Microsoft's .NET. He said, "You have the question of whether .NET will take over the world [with] Sun trying to hold the line." According to Tiemann, if Java were released more innovation would be created and at a quicker pace than is happening with Java today.

Tiemann believes that concern over forking is anachronistic, and not a relevant concern. "That thinking is so last millennium." he said, "When Microsoft didn't get what they wanted with Java they created .NET. How far has OpenOffice [the open source desktop productivity suite] fragmented - not at all."

Of concern has been IBM taking control of Java. Sun and IBM have long vied over the platform, and Schwartz has even met with IBM over talks relating to opening Java. Tiemann said that the very fact that the two companies were battling over Java, indicated a need to put it into the hands of the open source community.