Metrowerks Inc. announced that it has licensed its Java Acceleration Technology for PowerPC to the Linux community.

Metrowerks' Java technology, a Just-in-Time (JIT) compiler, will be provided to Linux users under a free non-commercial license similar to that used by Sun's Java Development Source code.

Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Java acceleration technology provides a drop-in, JIT compiler for the LinuxPPC and MkLinux ported Java Development Kit (JDK). The CodeWarrior JIT compiler increases the performance of Sun's JDK by a factor of five to ten on most machines, by efficiently compiling the Java byte-codes into machine code for a particular CPU at run-time.

Linux users may port Metrowerks' JIT compiler to run on x86, Alpha and Sparc and other UNIX platforms that do not currently have access to a commercial quality JIT compiler.

The Blackdown JDK porters, an organized group of volunteers porting Sun's JDK to Linux, have already agreed to help port this JIT to other versions of Linux and make those ports freely available in binary code.