Sun Microsystems will open source its web site authentication and web single sign-on (SSO) technologies through the Open Source Web Single Sign-On (OpenSSO) project. OpenSSO will let Java technology developers to participate in the evolution of these critical security components and include them in every application they build and deploy, Sun says. Sun also plans to release the source code for agents to connect the web site authentication and web SSO technologies with the Sun Java System Web Server and Sun Java System Application Server.

"This is the kind of move that the identity market needs to progress," says Mike Neuenschwander, associate research director at Burton Group. "We have to get beyond talking about retrofitting existing infrastructure and begin making identity inherent in everything we do. Sun's contribution to open source will help accelerate the industry in that direction."

In addition, Sun announced the OpenSSO community web site: http://opensso.dev.java.net. OpenSSO will provide developers with project information and resources to foster discussion and facilitate participation in the community, including: roadmaps, FAQ's, documentation, tutorials, sample code, and mailing lists. Initial source code will be available beginning in Q4 of 2005, with full release of OpenSSO in spring 2006, under the under the OSI (Open Source Initiative) approved Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), the same license Sun is using for its OpenSolaris project.

"Sun is committed to removing the barriers to participation by open sourcing the most widely used building blocks within the Java Enterprise System," said John Loiacono, executive vice president, Software Group, at Sun. By creating the OpenSSO community, Sun is leading the identity management industry in a new direction, providing the Java developer community with open access to technology and the ability to shape that technology's evolution. Web site authentication and SSO technologies are mandatory elements of a secure web infrastructure and by opening access to these important components, we will enable developers to rapidly and securely build applications.

John Loiacono