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Sun released the Java HotSpot virtual machine and compiler as free software under the GNU General Public License on November 13, 2006, with a promise that the rest of the JDK (that includes the JRE) would be placed under the GPL by March 2007 ("except for a few components that Sun does not have the right to publish in distributable source form under the GPL").cite-ref-89[89] According to Richard Stallman, this would mean an end to the "Java trap".cite-ref-90[90] Mark Shuttleworth called the initial press announcement, "A real milestone for the free software community".cite-ref-91[91]

Sun released the source code of the Class library under 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 software and open-source license.cite-ref-92[92] Some of the encumbered parts turned out to be fairly key parts of the platform such as font rendering and 2D rasterising, but these were released as open-source later by Sun (see OpenJDK Class library).

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