diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index 21e84fb9d..4cc8f3306 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -389,6 +389,7 @@ Valentino Miazzo
 Victor Toni
 Vimil Saju
 Vincent Legoll
+Vitold S
 Volker Leidl
 Waldek Herka
 Wang Weijun
diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 8f8d635e7..4cc9c83a9 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ Fixed bugs:
    archives that are different at the byte level each time an
    archive was built.
 
+ * runant.py should now work as well when the path of the Java executable
+   contains spaces.
+   github pull request #1
+
 Other changes:
 --------------
 
diff --git a/contributors.xml b/contributors.xml
index 4e6e88dad..f8d6105a9 100644
--- a/contributors.xml
+++ b/contributors.xml
@@ -1564,6 +1564,10 @@
     <first>Vimil</first>
     <last>Saju</last>
   </name>
+  <name>
+    <first>Vitold</first>
+    <last>S</last>
+  </name>
   <name>
     <first>Volker</first>
     <last>Leidl</last>
diff --git a/src/script/runant.py b/src/script/runant.py
index 7111766a8..a0b27645d 100644
--- a/src/script/runant.py
+++ b/src/script/runant.py
@@ -51,7 +51,10 @@ if not os.environ.has_key('JAVACMD'):
         if not os.path.exists(os.environ['JAVA_HOME']):
             print "Warning: JAVA_HOME is not defined correctly."
         else:
-            JAVACMD = os.path.join(os.environ['JAVA_HOME'], 'bin', 'java')
+            JAVA_HOME = os.environ['JAVA_HOME']
+            while JAVA_HOME[0] == JAVA_HOME[-1] == "\"":
+                JAVA_HOME = JAVA_HOME[1:-1]
+            JAVACMD = os.path.join(JAVA_HOME, 'bin', 'java')
     else:
         print "Warning: JAVA_HOME not set."
 else:
@@ -85,8 +88,11 @@ CLASSPATH = ""
 if os.environ.has_key('CLASSPATH'):
     CLASSPATH = "-lib " + os.environ['CLASSPATH']
 
+while JAVACMD[0] == JAVACMD[-1] == "\"":
+    JAVACMD = JAVACMD[1:-1]
+
 # Builds the commandline
-cmdline = ('%s %s -classpath %s -Dant.home=%s %s ' + \
+cmdline = ('"%s" %s -classpath %s -Dant.home=%s %s ' + \
     'org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher %s %s %s') \
      % (JAVACMD, ANT_OPTS, LOCALCLASSPATH, ANT_HOME, OPTS, ANT_ARGS, \
         CLASSPATH, string.join(sys.argv[1:], ' '))