JRuby to live on after Sun-Oracle merger, engineer says

JRuby, a Sun Microsystems-driven implementation of the Ruby language for the Java Virtual Machine, is being used in a range of applications including one to battle infectious diseases. But like other Sun technologies, it remains to be seen how Oracle, which plans to buy Sun, will deal with it.

Still, a key developer of JRuby, Sun Senior Staff Engineer Charles Nutter, expects open source JRuby to do just fine. "I think JRuby, since it's an entirely open source, community-driven project, is going to live beyond any uncertainty that might come out of this," Nutter said during an interview Tuesday at the RailsConf 2009 conference in Las Vegas.

[ Related: "Is Java as we know it doomed?" | InfoWorld's Neil McAllister shows what Oracle's real motivation may be in buying Sun. | Sun's efforts to make Java open source have also led to decidedly mixed reviews. ]

While stressing he had no idea what would transpire between Oracle and Sun, Nutter added that he knows JRuby will survive.

Oracle announced its intentions to buy Sun for $7.4 billion last month. Although the company has shed little light on what it intends to do with the many Sun technologies, Oracle has been positive about Java.

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