The
Java Development Kit (
JDK) is an implementation of either one of the
Java SE,
Java EE or
Java ME platforms released by
Oracle Corporation in the form of a binary product aimed at
Java developers on
Solaris,
Linux,
Mac OS X or
Windows. The JDK includes a private JVM and a few other resources to finish the development of a Java Application. Since the introduction of the
Java platform, it has been by far the most widely used Software Development Kit (
SDK). On 17 November 2006, Sun announced that they would release it under the
GNU General Public License (GPL), thus making it
free software. This happened in large part on 8 May 2007, when Sun contributed the source code to the
OpenJDK.