The company’s senior management has also singled-out Java rival IBM Corp on the issue of open sourcing code, saying the software and services giant should get the bulldozer out and release its own software code to the community.

Outspoken chief executive Scott McNealy delivered his observations during a keynote presentation at the annual JavaOne Conference in San Francisco, California, yesterday, where his sentiments were echoed in a subsequent press conference by president and chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz.

Both Sun and the JCP have come in for criticism, in recent years. Sun, for its continued control over changes to Java, whilst community members have complained the JCP doesn’t move quickly enough in delivering specifications.

Notable examples of recent delays at the JCP include Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4, which was held-up for a year. In that particular case, though, the community was attempting to ensure J2EE 1.4 kept pace with evolving specifications from the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization.

McNealy said of Sun’s JCP control: Someone has to be in charge or no one is. There’s a time and a place for market economics and for a benevolent steward. I think we’ve done a fairly good job, and mistake free.

He added: One of the worries people have had recently is if you think we have done a good or awesome job, is are we going to make it. We aren’t going anywhere. We are rock solid. We have $7.5bn of cash in the bank.

Adopting a school report-card metaphor, McNealy rated industry participation in the JCP is an A saying 55 different organizations are participating on Java Specification Requests (JSRs). The JCP earned an A for its three J2EE releases, a B plus for Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) and B for Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) B.

Turning to Microsoft and Red Hat, McNealy noted the JCP earned less than perfect marks in class participation – we have two delinquents.

I encourage these two, to come to class and contribute, McNealy said. One has a lot to contribute. And the other should just show up… the community and the planet and the investment you are making would be hugely leveraged if you could get those two to support where we are headed.

Schwartz reinforced McNealy’s comments, calling on Microsoft and Red Hat to join, while indicating a belief Red Hat has so far remained outside the JCP to grow its Linux distribution and related server products. Our role is to bring in as many participants as possible [to the JCP]. That means reaching out to Microsoft and Red Hat, and different industries, Schwartz said.

McNealy went on to criticize IBM over Java and on open source. The companies’ long-standing rivalry over Java and Sun’s control of the JCP took a fresh twist this year, with IBM’s open letter asking McNealy to open source Java. McNealy repeated his earlier call that IBM should open source its software, attacking IBM’s hammer and chisel approach to open source software.

Let’s get the bulldozer out. Stop writing open letters to the number one donator [Sun], McNealy told JavaOne delegates. He later told press IBM would love to wrest Sun’s stewardship of the JCP away, because of Java envy. I believe once they have Java envy and they wish they had Java and they’d invented it – that’s ok. They’re human. It’s a sales envy – we can say we have James Gosling.