A very good article
(http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/scripting/jruby_nb6/)
on Ruby is up on Sun's main Java site. It makes it clear that Sun is
working hard to support Ruby and trying to open up the language so
that it can enter new enterprises.

They are up front about their motives and admit in the article: "Sun's
strategy is tied to the assumption that deployment will follow
adoption, and it derives from the belief that businesses will not
deploy important applications or solutions without support. As Sun CEO
Jonathan Schwartz puts it, 'Mindshare gets market share.'"

The article also says:

"'We are actively interested in supporting non-Java technologies such
as PHP, Perl, Python, and Rails on our system and OS platforms,'" says
Tim Bray, director of web technologies and Distinguished Engineer at
Sun. 'While Rails is an excellent framework, Sun is making it faster.
Java technology offers first-rate deployment of Rails on GlassFish
while NetBeans 6.0 offers the best Rails and Ruby programmer tools
available.'"

This strikes me as a case where Sun's enlightened self interest is
serving the open source community.

I wonder: Does anyone think I am being naive about this?