Sun Microsystems has unveiled plans to open source Project Darkstar, an online game server platform written entirely in Java.

The company also announced the opening of registration for the Darkstar Playground, which will enable developers to create a variety of games that can be provisioned through a single server platform.

"Project Darkstar is proving to be an important technology foundation in the exploding multiplayer online game marketplace," said Chris Melissinos, chief gaming officer at Sun, at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"By open sourcing Darkstar technology, we will help enable the widest possible market for online game developers and remove the burden of having to build enterprise-grade server solutions, leaving them to do what they do best: build great game experiences."

The latest release of Project Darkstar promises a simpler programming interface for increased productivity, plug-in APIs to facilitate the integration of third-party extensions, and enhancements for scalability, performance and fault-tolerant operation.

The source code for Project Darkstar will become available under the General Public Licence in the coming months.

The Darkstar Playground will allow approved developers to gain access to server resources provided and operated by Sun to start developing their online games.