Following fresh on the heels of the release of Tiger, Sun has provided tentative details concerning its next Java release. Code-named "Mustang," it is anticipated to be released in spring 2006.

Graham Hamilton, vice president of Sun Java platform, said in a conference call during Tiger's release, that Sun is committed to the idea of compatibility, rather than outright distribution of Java's source code. Developers will however get their hands on some parts of the yet-to-be released Java code, Hamilton said, without any additional commentary.

Hamilton defended Sun's staunch advocacy regarding compatibility, saying, "We have a very strong compatibility requirements. If you're going to ship products based on it, we ask that the products be compatible."

The release date of spring 2006, interestingly enough, was not arbitrarily set by Sun, as James Gosling, CTO of Sun Developer Products Group, said. According to him, the launch date represents an average; pulled together based on how often Java users want an update. What data Gosling used to arrive at this date was unclear.

It has been floated, that Java Specification Requests (JSRs) will start appearing in the Java Community Process (JCP) during the next few months. As for what can be expected in "Mustang," it is still too early to say exactly, with only the very broadest of statements offered during the announcement. "The breadth of the platform is a huge spectrum," said vice president of Java developer platform and strategy, Jeff Jackson. "We got a huge number of new feature requests."

Most analysts feel that J2SE 6.0 will pick up where Tiger left off, focusing on XML, Web services, Java desktop and performance, and large systems performance. Sun seems to have gotten a jump on this release already, to some degree. Jackson commented that the company has already taken feedback from partners and discussed licenses over potential new features. Further information about what these features might be was not provided.