Blackdown Java was a Linux port of Sun Microsystems's Java virtual machine, developed by a group of volunteers led by Juergen Kreileder, Steve Byrne, and Karl Asha, and included a team of volunteers from around the globe.
[1] The first version, 1.0.2, was released in October 1996,[2] predating Sun's official Linux port.
Blackdown Java supported Linux on architectures that the official version did not, including SPARC and PowerPC.
Its binary redistribution policy allowed it to be pre-installed or included with many Linux distributions (e.g., Gentoo Linux)[citation needed], whereas at the time, Sun Java's binary redistribution policy did not.
The Blackdown team pioneered Sun's involvement with external, volunteer efforts.