It's open source, but all committers are Googlers and/or have to sign a copyright assignment. It's controlled by Google (which isn't a bad thing necessarily).
And Java is controlled by whom?
Oracle. They own the Java trademark, so any fork cannot be called Java unless they certify it.
> It's open source, but all committers are Googlers and/or have to sign a copyright assignment. It's controlled by Google (which isn't a bad thing necessarily).
Very importantly it's a copyright (and patent) license, not assignment. And it's the same thing required for any contribution to Chromium[1], and just about every competently run open source project out there, so it's not really an interesting distinction. The important aspect is more that the only "spec" for PNaCl is the documentation, which means that it can be changed by them...but then you break everyone's already compiled apps, so there are some incentives against that. Regardless, it's still open source, and you can still fork it, etc.
I agree 100% that proper handling of copyright is important (and yes, I was wrong about the license/assignment thing), and I think Google is doing the right thing here.
My point was that Google controls the project (so far as it is possible to control an open source project). I don't see that as a bad thing.
And Java is controlled by whom?