Slashdot reports that Sun CEO Scott McNealy has finally answered the long awaited question that has been on the minds of open source and Java developers and the answer is “no”. He stated today that Sun sees no solution solved from open sourcing Java that isn’t already addressed.
Sun: No Open-Source Java
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It’s not like this wasn’t to be expected. Previous comments McNealy has made in no way indicated that he was even thinking about it. I think the open source community should throw their support behind one of the open source javas and build it into our own unique cross platfrom language.
I can’t program in Java. Calling set and get methods just drives me nuts, for example.
Sun is running very low on assets that people actually care about. Java is the last real poker chip McNealy has going forward, and its obvious he was never going to open it.
At this point no one should really care – gcj exists for those who insist on an open implementation. To me opening Java would largely be a symbolic gesture at this point.
…can still make a lot of money off Java. It’s capable of growing a lot more. It’s not going open source until they stop making money.
“I think the open source community should throw their support behind one of the open source javas and build it into our own unique cross platfrom language.”
That is not going to happen. Even if it did it would be just another language. Noone would use it in place of Java for Java projects.
Sun gains nothing from opening java up. It matters very little to Sun what Linux does on the desktop. Since there’s nothing to gain for them (even if the risk of loss is small) it would make no sense to open up java.
The Netscape situation was different. They were doomed and they knew it. They had nothing to lose, and their client technology was never considered a core asset, so opening it up wasn’t a big risk to them.
Sun seems to think that utilitarian (sp?) control over Java is essential to Sun’s survival. In fact, I think it is just the opposite. Sun’s insistance that everyone conform to their Java specification is the reason that Microsoft developed C# and .NET. If Sun was truely interested in making Java be all it can be, they would have not pulled out of the ISO certification process in the late ’90s.
That is not going to happen. Even if it did it would be just another language. Noone would use it in place of Java for Java projects.
Just like no one is going to use mono?
You don’t really have any evidence to support that assertion. Now maybe you’re right but how would you or anyone else know at this point? It’s working for the mono folks, I’m sure there is a possiblitly that it could work for java.
The arguments for opening up Sun’s Java were unconvincing anyway.
I think open and well documented interfaces are more important. Here Sun/Javasoft made a remarkable job. I don’t know of any programming language or VM that is so well, thoroughly and systematically documented as Java and JVM.
The problem with java forks, is that no matter how good they are they are still limited by the standard java that most people will have installed.
There is no reason to make a java runtime clone that has a real HTML editor component for example, because the one most people will use comes with standard java and it will still be broken. You can’t even override the standard one with a non-standard one that might actually work. Then with Sun controlling the standard and willing to litigate over it, they have you over a barrel.
So now with java they distribute a massive library of components a number of which are pretty useless. Unless Sun fixes them, I don’t see them ever improving.
Again with the DB2 mention. DB2 is a going financial concern based on units sold. Units of java runtime or java development kits sell effectively for 0 (unless they are selling derivative licences to people?)
It might prevent .NET (mono) from eliminating Java on the *nix platform.
Because Java is already used by a very large community of Linux folks. Look at all the projects on sourceforge done in Java. The only real thing that open sourceing Java would have done was let the people in the “GNU/Purist” camps ship Java by default. Java was being used before and is being used now and will continue to be used in the future. MONO is a different beast entirely. It has different goals and different ambitions.
I personal don’t really any OS, frameworks, languages and others as to be in GPL or BSD license. It’s just because of the fork that can destroy the standard and can cause the more confuses. The fork is probably the nice thing for the most of developers, but not to the home users and businesses. But, any apps that are in the GPL/BSD license is what I don’t care.
Note that, I said that it can so it doesn’t mean it already has happened. For the best example would be too many Linux distros.
I personal don’t really like any OS, frameworks, languages and others as to be in GPL or BSD license.
Umm, I have missed the ‘like’ so added above..
It’s just because of the fork that can destroy the standard and can cause the more confuses
I would imagine that if the OSS community got ahold of Java, we’d probably have like 15 different variants of it in short order. Because, as they say, choice is a good thing, yes?
Sun is running very low on assets that people actually care about. Java is the last real poker chip
I’d be curious to know if after all the years of development that Sun has to put into Java if it’s paid off with the enterprise Java stuff they sell. I bet it hasn’t.
I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would use Mono/.NET on the Linux platform:
I could say the same thing about Java on the client side of any platform. It’s pretty much failed on the client.
With Classpath and IKVM, at the rate things are going in a few years there will be a solid portion of the 1.3 and 1.4 APIs that are stable in OSS land. Hell in another 2-3 years Classpath could actually have full compatability up to 1.4.2 for all we know. Once it gets fully working under IKVM it’s over for Sun. Most Java apps will be completely runnable on top of .NET and there will be no reason to stick with Sun’s Java.
Because Java is already used by a very large community of Linux folks.
It seems like about every 6 months we get Havoc Pennington or Owen Taylor or some other people in the Gnome camp gently suggest that people use Java, but I never see anything substantial written with the gtk+ bindings or qt bindings for the KDE folks. People pretty much hate Swing.
Look at all the projects on sourceforge done in Java.
LOL, just because Johnny teenager puts up a java project on sourceforge doesn’t mean anything and you know that. Besides, if it’s Java how do you know it’s intended for Linux unless they’re using gtk+ or QT bindings.
Most Java apps will be completely runnable on top of .NET and there will be no reason to stick with Sun’s Java.
Yep, and it’s beyond me why you can’t distribute the JRE with distros without some special agreement from Sun. Sun better wise up before Mono is on every major distro out there.
related to Gnome development and I guess Linux development in general. This guy is right on.
http://usefulinc.com/edd/blog/contents/2004/03/24-gnome-doc/read
I would imagine that if the OSS community got ahold of Java, we’d probably have like 15 different variants of it in short order. Because, as they say, choice is a good thing, yes?
Nope, I don’t think you understand. Fork the OS, frameworks, languages aren’t always a good solution as I have said that it can destroy the standard.
But, choice of apps that are forked is great. Apps vs OS/frameworks/languages are a big difference when they get are forked.
But, choice of apps that are forked is great. Apps vs OS/frameworks/languages are a big difference when they get are forked.
Since I was thinking about forks and you brought this up I’m curious to what your opinion is on one unified desktop environment? Because when you think about it, KDE and Gnome are just frameworks.
Well, at least now GNOME can focus on Mono. It is free software and GPL compatible, no more excuses.
Since I was thinking about forks and you brought this up I’m curious to what your opinion is on one unified desktop environment? Because when you think about it, KDE and Gnome are just frameworks.
My meaning of frameworks are general such as installtion, toolkits and etc. However, how many big companies have ever port their apps in Linux/BSD? Such as Adobe, Macromedia and other big companies? For the best example, Macromedia is going to port Flash in Linux and guess what framework they are going to use? None, just using WINE, which it’s sad.
Other example would be Opera, TextMaker and etc. Opera has its own 95% GUI and use QT very small only for menu. TextMaker wrote their own GUI, no toolkit dependency.
When, you have too many choices of OS, frameworks and etc then the result is that aren’t easy for the companies and business to make the decision to choice. Also, it’s a lot of work and the time isn’t cheap.
It’s why I don’t care if the apps are forked, because that’s up to the users’ choices and not to companies/businesses. Of course, the real problem is that it’s hard to get everybody to agree/like/prefer on the same things. 🙂
I like what this guy is saying. I am not going to bother trying to write anything for Gnome, mainly because I don’t want to have to spend more time learning how to get autoconf and all that make stuff trying to happen rather than just being able to write some code, which I can do.
It is important to be able to learn how to ‘make’ a project, but I think being able to do it in an IDE to start with is good. I take this approach with Java projects. Get it working in Eclipse, then write an Ant build script for easy deployment.
I would be interested to see how a mono build works, I am assuming it is the same as a C build in Linux? Anyone able to let me know?
The good part of the news is that there is no need to bother with installing Java or a Java-based app, for the next two or three years. This holds for my desktop, at least.
For newbie programmers there is also no need to bother with learning Java. Mono seems a safer bet (with a lot of desktop apps to appear soon and better integration in a GNOME desktop).
…just a less restrictive license. The current terms are inane — they require distributors to put resources towards defending Sun from indemnity claims, they require jumping through hoops and paying Sun much moolah to be able to actually package and distribute binaries, and they have draconian derived work standards.
do like redhat write in python
if you write in java or mono it will not work on a lot of distro’s without downloading extra packages.
on the java C# thing: I think C# will beat the crap out of java, so if I was sun I would make java open source so development can go quicker and java can get more optimised.
Amen to not forking just because GPL zealots thinks forking is “l33t”.
Great job Sun, you still own the show…
The autotools are a freaking complex piece of shit. I don’t think anybody really likes them, but I guess there is nothing out there that ready to take over. The sooner that the autotools die the better.
A Mono apps build system can be as simple as a little command line in a file because for the most part you just need the assembly refernces and the source file list(which can use wildcards) and can be recursive. No need for a makefile or any autotools mess. Very simple stuff. Monodevelop has its own project system that it inherited from Sharpdevelop which is xml based.
Yep, this will be the downfall of Java on the desktop – well it probably died a while ago – but in any case, in 3 years time the .NET runtime will be on every somewhat new windows computer in the world(java will be on none) and Mono will be shipping with all major distros(java won’t be – probably). Linux will continue to squeeze Sun’s servers and you’ll get developers clamoring over the ease of development of ASP.NET on linux, windows, sparc, etc.. By the way, the sparc JIT is now completed. In any case, Sun had a chance on the desktop a few years ago maybe, but it’s long past gone now. Heck, even Microsoft developers were stoked about Java years ago, but of course there was no chance in hell that Microsoft was going to push it without being able to leverage the operating system. McNeally fscks up again.
Documentation is a huge thing that is missing for the open source developer newbie. You’ve got some 30 year old guy who works 9-5 and might want to do some Gnome stuff but is in no way inclined to trudge through header files. KDE is much better at developer docs than Gnome is. There should be lots of examples, and preferably in different languages(MSDN). You need a good IDE(Monodevelop anyone) and for christsake can the autotools die already. There has to be a better way.
@OGalaxyO – You don’t have to rewrite everything in C#. Those apps that are already in C should stay that way. Maybe do a Mono plugin system for your app. The great thing about C # is that it’s trivial to call native code from with in C# code unlike Java’s JNI.
Crap, wrong thread! you can put that comment in the recent Gnome thread. Hmmm….what time is it again? bedtime i guess.
AND THE WINNER IS: MONO!
Ok boys and girls, SUN has just missed it’s chance. SUN says no to Opensource, Opensource says no to Java. It’s as simple as that. On the other hand, Novell is very supportive… The next GNOME will be build ontop MONO!
This decision is a pity for the OSS comunity, but still, I think it is a sane one for Sun. If Java got GPL’d , numerous forks would create a lot of problems.
See if you can guess the time.
Sun open sources JAVA.
Predict how many days it would take before windows comes with an incompatible version for all the windows users to use.
There goes the portability. Why doesn’t everyone get this? I guess they like living in a MS VB world.
Extra credit question: Ask MS how long it will be before they have a Linux poort of VB.
Look, Sun isn’t going to give java to the OSS community right now and that’s not a problem. This can only go one of two ways. One, and by far the most likely, Sun Microsystems will go out of business. This is probably not too far off into the future either. When that happens, you can count on them giving Java to the OSS community just like Netscape gave their code away. Two, they don’t go out of business but continue to improve and develop Java. Either way, the sitation is just fine. What the OSS community needs to do is start using Java a hell of a lot more. We need to make it our language. And besides, it is definitely a major step away from MS. We must do all that we can to see Java become the de facto standard instead of .NET. Forget Mono, does anyone ever question why MS would allow an open-source implementation of their standard? I’m sure it’s because they believe in the principles of free software and are trying to do their own part.
It seems to me that those who repeatedly say-“making Java open source would simply lead to many forks” have bought McNealy’s argument hook, line and sinker-ie. are uncritically assuming that McNealy is a) telling us the truth and b) that his knowledge of this is a certainty. Unfortunately Sun has now made this decision publicly, even though there has been no real doubt as to their position for many years now.
I do respect their right to make his decision-it is their product, their technology, their IP. Of course this just proves how meaningful the word “community” is when McNealy talks about it. The redistribution issue involved in the JRE license is to put it mildly- draconian. This issue, seperate from the issue of open source, could be easily remedied-if Sun wanted to, but obviously they show no desire to budge even a millimeter.
In the context of the Linux/unix worlds there have not been any serious forking issues as regards languages since the ecgs/gcc fork many years ago-which resulted in a re-merging after a short period of time. Sure C++ has had many, many incompatbile implementations-but not in the *nix world-sun’s c/c++ compiler is practically(I believe HP-UX and AIX still offer their own propietary build systems/compilers) the only oddball left in the *nix world-gcc is the standard which all forms of Linux and BSD use.
Forks as regards languages are almost always issues involved with the compiler -propietary UNIX systems provided their own propietary build systems- and their source code was developed according to the build environment-can one even call these implementation issues involved in build systems forks?-language + build system=platform-Java is not merely a language-it is an amalgamation of language+dynamic build system+runtime environment .
These issues are pretty much meaningless for Java-Java is first and foremost a run-time environment-not a build system-(gcj is a java build system). Of course there could be different run-time environment implementations-as was the case with the Windows Java. Yet the *nix world cares deeply about cross platform capabilites-far more so than Sun ever has. Most GNOME and KDE applications can be run on non-*nix systems(Windows,Mac OS X, etc.). The developers of the libraries upon which GNOME and KDE are based have gone out of their way to provide these libraries from a large varitey of platforms-work that they have engaged in freely.
Making Java open source would be a move which specifically would be tailored to the open source community-and that community is the community of *nix developers in the main. Since these developers themselves have already proved a strong desire to maintain cross-platform ability why should one believe that *magically* they would wish to subvert the cross-platform capabilities of Java ?
What open source means to Java is a profound increase in terms of talented coders pouring over the Java source-fixing bugs and incrementally improving the code and the possibility of tighter integeration of Java into the native platform environments .ie that Java client applications can become native applications for the client user. Java has already succeeded amazingly in the server world-enterprise is almost synonymous with Java.
Java has bombed(failed miserably) in the client world-except for in-house(ie. major firms) client applications tightly coupled with Java servers and technologies custom-tailored to the client-server world-ie. cell phones/PDA’S. There is apparently no market for Java client applications-the only Java client applications I have have ever seen which are even worth mentioning are the IDE’s for Java….hmmmmm.
In recent days Havoc Pennington and Miguel de Icazaa(sp?) have been engaged in a dialogue about the platform needs regarding the future of GNOME desktop application development. Java -even if it were open sourced- does not lend itself to rapid application development-at least in terms of self-standing desktop applications. If it were open sourced tools could be created to adapt Java to be suitable for such needs-but much work would be necessary before anyone would see Java desktop applications-and this is the issue at hand for future GNOME development- which tools are best suited to rapidly produce high quality desktop applications.
If someone would open source their JVM(perhaps IBM) the open source community could use Java as integral technology to successfully bridge the client/server vs. desktop dichotomy. Java bindings for GNOME and KDE simply don’t cut it-which is why there has been virtually no adoption of these technologies. SWT, from IBM, with native GTK+/windows/OS X GUI implementations is one important step in the resolution of this dichotomy-but of course this step did not come from Sun and is not endorsed by Sun.
Sun is, at least in part, holding so firmly onto Java because they see a future in which servers + thin-clients constitutes the computing world-and this is what Java has been all about. They fear, rightly, that open sourcing Java would lead to developments in Java which make it suitable for rapid applciation development for networked-pc’s.ie fat-clients. Linux is a true hybrid-it is suitable for thin-client applications(LTSP) and embedded designs(cell phones/PDA’s) and full-blown servers and standalone or networked PC’s.
Linux does not fit in Sun’s strategy-it doesn’t fit, as such, in Sun’s world view of computing ie. consisting of multiple thin-clients conncected to a few servers(as oppossed to Microsof’s worldview of computing-where internet-capable PC’s(where networking is really only an afterthought-.NET is microsofts move towards an implementation of true networked PC’s-but it mandates the same local computing resources that standalone PC’S have- are absolutely dominant).
As it stands Java is simply not valuable to the open source community of desktop application developers. But it could become so-but only if Java is open sourced-how this happens is not so important-it is a question of time-if Sun or IBM did this tommorow-we would see stuff inside of a years time-gcj/kaffee still need 2-3 years to become really viable if they have to do everything themselves-yet it is this time frame-the next 2-3 years- which will decide the fate of Java as regards the desktop of networked PC’s-if Java is not open sourced withing the next 2-3 years it will become utterly irrelevant outside of the server industry.
First, Java in the OSS world is very strong. Have a look at this graph:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/%7Eflab/languages.png
That’s a graph of the various languages in use on sourceforge.net over time. Java shows strong growth and has a generally dominant position, where C & C++ are in decline and C# is barely noticable.
There are huge numbers of excellent Java OSS tools used in the java community.
Second, the zealots like to state that “linux doesn’t ship Java”. This seems like a strange claim to me – most linux distributions are selfish corporations, and Java is extremely important in the corporate world. They’d be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn’t.
Hence actually looking at who distributes what, we see:
RedHat distributes (IBM and BEA) Java. See:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/features/
Novell/SuSE distributes Sun’s Java See:
http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/new_feature…
Gentoo distributes Blackdown’s Java. See:
http://packages.gentoo.org/packages/?category=dev-java
Debian distributes an older Sun 1.1.8 version of Java. See:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/
Mandrake distributes Sun’s J2SDK & J2RE. See:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/10.0/features/#11
Slackware distributes Sun’s J2SDK. See:
http://www.slackware.com/pb/?vers=slackware-9.1&set=d%3Edistrib…
So we see that all the claims that linux isn’t shipping java are, essentially, complete nonsense.
Who is shipping mono?
I did a search on Slackware and could not find Mono.
I looked for mono in TurboLinux and couldn’t find it.
RedHat search was down.
SuSE I am sure ships Mono.
I could not find mono shipping on Debian looking at their list.
Part of the issue is that there is illusion and there is reality. The illusion is that Java doesn’t ship with the mainstream distributions – the reality is different. Further, it is a competitive advantage to ship Java. Given the huge number of Java open source projects – a distribution simply is shooting themselves in the foot to not ship Java. How many open source projects use Mono? A very small number. How many commercial apps use Java? A very large number. How many companies have built Java apps for their intranets? A very large number. How many companies have built Mono apps for their intranets? A number approaching zero. How many commercial apps use Mono? A number that approaches zero.
That’s the reality.
Java is only growing across platforms.
It doesn’t simply dwarf Mono in adoption – millions to a few. It also dwarfs Mono in innovation and in technology.
Finally is Mono something the Linux world is going to be proud of ? I don’t think so. It’s a copy of Microsoft technology which was a copy of Java.
Secondly, the mono advocates (a very vanishingly small but vocal number of people) like to make out that mono will become the de facto standard for development on Linux. But think for a second. How likely is it that the linux world is goign to wholeheartedly embrace a platform under such extreme threat and patent encumbrance from MS? Especially after this recent, brutal lesson they have learned from SCO? What are the chances they are going to adopt a clone of MS technologies? I think very few people will accept this.
Mono is, and will remain, a tiny, niche player.
I suppose MS have done a very good propoganda exercise to fool certain OSS people. IE, they opened up, to an ECMA standard, a tiny, tiny proportion of the .NEW platform, the C# language. That makes them “open”, by the books of these people. But the problem for mono and for any project that decides to use it, is that the rest (see the Mono FAQ page) including ASP.NET, WinForms, ADO.NET, Soap web servers, SOAP web clients, Enterprise Svcs. , XSLT/XPath are all **PATENTED**. Compare to Java, where the entirety is open, and well defined. Not with an official standards body, but with a Java standards body, the JCP. ANYBODY can make a Java platform clone, and have it certified as Java-compatible if it passes the tests. All documentation and specs needed to do so are there. This is why there are about 150 JVMs out there, from countless large corporations from IBM to HP to Oracle to Sun to BEA.
Java is pretty much the current standard in business. There’s little to be gained from moving to .NET at the moment, other than total vendor&platform lock-in. Most companies are already using Java due to its head start, and there’s been absolutely no sign of any move in the industry, to a platform that has huge vendor lock-in and is if anything greatly inferior on the server-side. To be sure it will be a competitive market between the two, with each camp trying to entice others onto it, but this is not a market mono will (or can) be any significant part of, due to the necessary limitations imposed on it through patents and through only having about a dozen developers compared to the thousands working on the .NET and Java platforms.
Mono is a tiny niche, and will remain one. Its absolutely laughable to hear people pump it up so, when in actual fact, hardly anybody is using C# or even .NET (and it has been around for two years already!) and there’s no sign of any move to mono in the linux world (indeed, I would be very surprised at their foolishness if they did so. GNOME going to mono would certainly create a split, if you ask me).
Thank you.
Do you actually read what you’re writing before you hit the submit button?
“Yep, this will be the downfall of Java on the desktop – well it probably died a while ago – but in any case, in 3 years time the .NET runtime will be on every somewhat new windows computer in the world(java will be on none)”
Dell ships the current JRE with every Windows box now. I’m not sure why that would change in 3 years. AFAIK Sun had deals with other major PC vendors as well. Dell is shipping PCs right now with Java and .NET framework.
“and Mono will be shipping with all major distros(java won’t be – probably).”
As someone else pointed out more crapola.
“Linux will continue to squeeze Sun’s servers and you’ll get developers clamoring over the ease of development of ASP.NET on linux, windows, sparc, etc..”
There are already tons of options for “ease of development” on Linux without ASP.NET . Some of them exist on top of Java.
“By the way, the sparc JIT is now completed. In any case, Sun had a chance on the desktop a few years ago maybe, but it’s long past gone now. Heck, even Microsoft developers were stoked about Java years ago, but of course there was no chance in hell that Microsoft was going to push it without being able to leverage the operating system. McNeally fscks up again.”
Microsoft wasn’t trying to “leverage the operating system”…they were breaking their licensing agreement. A simple search on the net would show this. By adding keywords to the language they were not only breaking their license agreement but possibly some code (mine for example….I used the word delegate for a variable and the MS java compiler wouldn’t compile my code because…guess what…they added the keyword delegate which wasn’t part of the Java language spec). Microsoft could have “leveraged the operating system” without those changes or could have worked with Sun to make them. They chose to break their license agreement instead.
from:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/docs/support
/faq-release/FAQ-java-linux-8.html#ss8.3
“What issues are relevant to understanding Java licensing?
As a user, you’re subject to the same licensing restrictions with Blackdown Java as you would be with Sun’s Java binaries on Solaris or Win32. It’s as simple as that. Pointers to the relevant Sun licensing README files are given below. In other words, you may copy Blackdown JDK binaries over the network from Blackdown mirrors.
As a developer, you unfortunately may not redistribute the Blackdown JDK on CDROM without permission from Sun. Sun has suddenly become very clear about this. Commercial Linux distribution vendors such as Red Hat must work with Sun directly to secure such rights.
The JRE (Java runtime environment) may be embedded and redistributed in your application.
J2SE (Java 2 “standard edition”) source is available strictly through Sun to those willing to agree to a license containing certain intellectual property restrictions. Your strict source differences (“patches”) may be exchanged freely and openly so long as they only address the porting of the code from one platform to another.
Blackdown is required to test its “full releases” of Java against a Sun-supplied test suite (see section Java Compatibility Kit). If they don’t pass, then they must be clearly labeled as “release candidates.”
(This topic is briefly introduced in section Under what license is Blackdown Java available?.) ”
The jdk and j2sdk are not distributable without prior permission from Sun. SuSE got certified for JDK distribution only last year as part of cross licenscing agreement with Sun due to Sun’s use of SuSE and their then propietary YAST software in Sun’s JDS offering. Redhat has had ongoing licenscing deals with IBM and BEA for several years now-again Redhat can distribute this software due to previous licenscing agreements with these respective companies. Gentoo does not distribute software applications-it distrbutes ebuilds-which contain code to download software from the respective authors.in the case of the j2sdk and jdk-one must go to sun’s site and download the binaries(agreeing to Sun’s license) and place them in /usr/portage/distfiles in order that ebuild then installs the software. Slackware must have some agreement with Sun in order to distribute the j2sdk-there are no packages available for Sun’s jdk or jre in there package list.
From Mandrakes page:
” J2SDK(TM), J2RE(TM) and Intel® compilers are also available in Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official packs.”
What exactly this means is not clear. Perhaps Mandrake also has some prior licenscing agreement with Sun or IBM-not sure. Debians includes the older Java probably due to licenscing issues-ie. the version they offer still had a debian-compatible distribution licensce.
You may think you have addressed the issue of Java(jdk/jre/j2sdk) distribution by spending 10 minutes looking through the web. /begin sarcasm/Congratulations-I am sure that all of the linux distributors addressed/solved this issue in the same way/end sarcasm/-you appear oblivious to the fact that distribution of the jdk-j2sdk has been a large contentitous and difficult issue for every Linux distributor for the last 6-8 years.
Read Sun’s licensce. Read it carefully. Now go back and look at the licenscing agreements which the corporate Linux distributors have signed ebabling them to distribute Java. Come back here when you are finished with you superficial simplifications.
from:java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/j2sdk-1_4_2_03-license.html
B.”License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, including, but not limited to the Java Technology Restrictions of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce and distribute the Software, provided that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified (unless otherwise specified in the applicable README file) and only bundled as part of, and for the sole purpose of running, your Programs, (ii) the Programs add significant and primary functionality to the Software, (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software (unless otherwise specified in the applicable README file), (iv) you do not remove or alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in the Software, (v) you only distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun’s interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement, and (vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys’ fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
#”
That’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t change the fact that most distributors distribute java. Case closed. Its the distro’s job to deal with these problems.
You seem to be saying, “yes, they might all distribute it, but it isn’t easy for them.” Yes? So? Why should I care? Distribution is difficult for a lot of software, but its nothing a bit of effort can’t get around in the case of Java, and every major distribution does so.
Lastly, most java people don’t care about linux anyway. it has a vanishingly small desktop share, so the deals Sun has with Dell and other major vendors are far mroe important to it, and reach probably thousands of times as many people as deals with the likes of Red hat would. Linux is a server-side technology, in the main, and there distributing as part of linuc just doesn’t matter so much, even though it is, mostly.
The only major desktop linux vendor is Sun, which has by far the largest slice fo the market with the JDS – which, funnily enough, has plenty of java in it as you might expect. The other major backers f linux, such as IBM, also consider it to be a natural fit with java, which they regard as much more central to their business than linux.
The OSS folks might want a free, unencumbered Java, but if they want it they shoudl shut up and write it themselves, and not spread their absurd FUD. Java is past the stage of being a failure, its a huge success.
Personally I’m glad Sun haven’t open sourced it. Java is a platform that MS has actively tried to fork, and embrace and extend, in the past. Its central to a lot of company’s offerings, from oracle to IBM to Sun to BEA.
IBM is the market leader, and the market elader hates standards, where the market followers love it. This si why IBM wants an OSS Java. It wants it so it can hijack the JCP and create horrible “javas” that aren’t recognisable or standardised. MS would also greatly welcome such a move (its pointless sayign they wouldn’t try to fork it – they have tried everything in their power to do so in the past. java is the market elader in a major slice of server-side business and middleware that MS would sell its mother to get control of).
So I really just all these various selfish interests to keep their hands of java and keep it under the stewardship of the JCP, cia which improvements and changes to java are made on an industry-wide basis, via input from lots of companies. ie, java is not “Sun-only” now, it is developed and improved by a whole industry, and is controlled just enough to stop forking.
All of which is great, as far as I’m concerned. An OSS java would just result in awfulness like SWT, and incompatible crap from IBM and MS and the likes, being created. It would destroy vendor-nuetral choices for customers and java standards, so no thanks. If I want that crap, I’ll use .NET.
This is a really stupid move on Sun’s part. .Net is a SERIOUS threat to Java. Sun had a chance here to make Java a good platform for open-source desktop development and they blew it.
While forking would be possible if they open-sourced it, it would be extremely unlikely (look at OpenOffice, Mozilla for examples). Large forks only happen if there is a major motivating factor. I don’t see one here, so I don’t think it is a very compelling arguement.
Assuming what Miguel says about the ECMA parts of .Net being RAND and FREE is true, Mono is looking like a pretty nice plaform for open-source development. Sun may not like it if Gnome adopts Mono as A (not THE) core development platform, but it isn’t like Sun provided them with a real alternative.
Sun has about 5 current Java VM projects. The flagship VM is Hotspot. A research VM that has been essentially scrapped called EVM could placate the masses. It had decent performance and was considerably advanced but lacked the momentum behind Hotspot. Or classic, which was Sun’s original implementation of Java that was eclipsed by the performance of Hotspot.
Either of these VMs could be open sourced and thrown like a bone to the community. But would they shut up? Doubtful.
Dell ships the current JRE with every Windows box now. I’m not sure why that would change in 3 years. AFAIK Sun had deals with other major PC vendors as well. Dell is shipping PCs right now with Java and .NET framework
Just because Dell ships a JVM with its boxes right now is irrelevant. Most PCs aren’t Dells and to rely on the graciousness of a couple PC OEMs to distribute the JVM is not exactly comforting for Sun. The point is that Windows doesn’t ship with a JVM and to suggest that OEMs will continue to ship a JVM forever is foolish.
As far as your Mono comments, there are already RPMS, ebuilds, .debs out there. Mono will be at least as big a Python so it’s ridiculous to think it won’t ship with major distros at some point in time after the 1.0 release coming up. Because of Sun’s “you need to indemnify us” clause in their license distros are very wary to ship it.
Microsoft wasn’t trying to “leverage the operating system”…they were breaking their licensing agreement. A simple search on the net would show this. By adding keywords to the language they were not only breaking their license agreement but possibly some code (mine for example….I used the word delegate for a variable and the MS java compiler wouldn’t compile my code because…guess what…they added the keyword delegate which wasn’t part of the Java language spec). Microsoft could have “leveraged the operating system” without those changes or could have worked with Sun to make them. They chose to break their license agreement instead.
You don’t get it. Java was completely unsuitable to write real client apps tin Windows without some hooks to the operating system and a native gui in a microsoft version. The point is that McNealy believed that Java was the platform and he turned out to be wrong. Remember his rants about “the OS being irrelevant”. This was McNealy’s lockin strategy. That’s why you don’t have something easy like Pinvoke on Java. Sun doesn’t want anybody to leverage native or system libraries. So Sun fumbles along with Swing for years, everybody hates it, and now Java is dead on the client. Sun dropped the ball and that’s all there is to it. To think that Microsoft was going to let Sun dictate the APIs that are used on a major windows language is ridiculous.
The can come up with 50+ more java clones wiht no new feature, example the 50+ text editors.
Right, a strong claim is that. If Java were GPL, and the author of it wasn’t MS or IBM, then how exactly could IBM possibly “rip” Java and embrace & extend it? Microsoft? All what is either truely or merely perceived as embrace & extend is OPEN to the public. Ofcourse nobody said Java the license to be chosen is GPL, but in the case of a license liuke the BSDL it would be indeed possible for IBM/MS. Bull argument, sorry.
You don’t get it. Java was completely unsuitable to write real client apps tin Windows without some hooks to the operating system and a native gui in a microsoft version. The point is that McNealy believed that Java was the platform and he turned out to be wrong. Remember his rants about “the OS being irrelevant”. This was McNealy’s lockin strategy. That’s why you don’t have something easy like Pinvoke on Java. Sun doesn’t want anybody to leverage native or system libraries. So Sun fumbles along with Swing for years, everybody hates it, and now Java is dead on the client. Sun dropped the ball and that’s all there is to it. To think that Microsoft was going to let Sun dictate the APIs that are used on a major windows language is ridiculous.
That’s not true. MS could implement his Windows GUI on top of Standard Java, using JNI. But they modified the languaje. They added new features to break java portability. That’s why Sun stopped microsoft in court. You can implement any GUI on top of Standard Java, look at SWT, java-gnome, etc.
Luckily, there are other alternatives (and, better ones) for multi-OS platforms than Java. While it does have its strongholds (mobiles, applets) for general use it seems too big & clumsy. At least to me.
One of the newcomers is Lua + libraries, packaged under the name ‘LuaX’. This provides scriptable language (Lua), graphics (SDL), network (luaSocket), some IO (serial, gpib), and does this in a small (2MB), multiplatform (Win32/Linux/OSX/NetBSD) and modular nature.
This is the first comment I write on it, the website is up and you’re welcome to join the mailing list.
Just because Dell ships a JVM with its boxes right now is irrelevant. Most PCs aren’t Dells and to rely on the graciousness of a couple PC OEMs to distribute the JVM is not exactly comforting for Sun. The point is that Windows doesn’t ship with a JVM and to suggest that OEMs will continue to ship a JVM forever is foolish.
Why? Do you have any idea how many PCs Dell ships to corporations? Its totally comforting to Sun to know that the major PC OEMs are shipping its runtime. There is no reason not to believe that OEMs will continue to ship a runtime. Can you point me to a reason why it would be a disadvantage to do so?
You don’t get it. Java was completely unsuitable to write real client apps tin Windows without some hooks to the operating system and a native gui in a microsoft version.
Thats interesting. I wrote quite a few client apps at the time that were real. They worked just fine.
The point is that McNealy believed that Java was the platform and he turned out to be wrong. Remember his rants about “the OS being irrelevant”. This was McNealy’s lockin strategy.
Who gives a crap what McNealy said. I always love the anti-Java people who bring up this kind of crap. I don’t know any developer who listens to that kind of crap. It really is irrelevant.
That’s why you don’t have something easy like Pinvoke on Java. Sun doesn’t want anybody to leverage native or system libraries.
Thats why they created JNI right?
So Sun fumbles along with Swing for years, everybody hates it, and now Java is dead on the client.
The only people I know who hate Swing are people who don’t know how to program with it. Its a fantastic GUI library but like any other complicated library there are some tricks. Its not perfect but its pretty damn nice.
If Java is dead on the client I keep seeing a lot of phantoms on my desktop. Strange.
Sun dropped the ball and that’s all there is to it. To think that Microsoft was going to let Sun dictate the APIs that are used on a major windows language is ridiculous.
Why should Sun let a licensee dictate what can and can’t be done with its own IP? There was nothing preventing Microsoft from doing what they did via “official” channels. Read the court case. MS violated the license agreement.
I’m a big Java supporter, but this will cause the OSS world to go down the Mono path, I’m afriad. That’s a big problem, IMHO. Sun needs to learn that it can control the trademark and the testing, which can ensure there is no fork. But no long-term successful language has ever been totally proprietary. The fact that Microsoft actually had part of .Net standardized (just the core stuff, I guess, not the larger libraries which makes this much less useful) while Sun hasn’t done anything with Java is a tragedy.
Everybody talks about Mono as the only alternative to Sun Java. Why?
There is a lot of open alternatives to Sun Java, for example GCJ and Kaffe. This two projects work with Classpath open implementation of the Java API.
I’m a big Java supporter, but this will cause the OSS world to go down the Mono path, I’m afriad. That’s a big problem, IMHO. Sun needs to learn that it can control the trademark and the testing, which can ensure there is no fork. But no long-term successful language has ever been totally proprietary. The fact that Microsoft actually had part of .Net standardized (just the core stuff, I guess, not the larger libraries which makes this much less useful) while Sun hasn’t done anything with Java is a tragedy.
Very little, if any, of this statement is actually true.
First off, I don’t see how you can possibly claim that this will drive Mono adoption. Mono is an open-source re-whack of a patented Microsoft technology. Microsoft has established some standards via ECMA for C#, but still hold the lion’s share of the patents. Further, ECMA standardization means that only ECMA members get input in setting the standard, so, as one might imagine, Microsoft still maintains effective control over .NET. Although Microsoft may be perfectly happy at the moment, to have an open-source implementation of their technology, the fact that they’re the patent-holders does mean that they get to dictate the terms with which the technology is used. They can change it, which nobody seems to have observed.
Simply because Sun hasn’t opened the source to Java doesn’t prevent anyone in the Open Source community from writing a Java-compliant implementation. Sun has recently released their certification tools so that anyone can use them, and the Java Community Process, which is the processes through which Java has been standardized allows for much more community participation than the ECMA.
I don’t understand why people think Mono is a better choice when Microsoft still maintains enough leverage over the technology to eliminate interoperability between Windows platforms and those using Mono. This isn’t the case for anything that complies with the Java standard.
Further, nobody is preventing anybody from creating an Open-Source implementation of Java. The claim that Sun is somehow shafting the Open Source community doesn’t make any sense. Nobody is complaining that Microsoft has only opened a portion of their .NET components and framework, but suddenly it’s a big deal when Sun decides it doesn’t want to open the internals of it’s JVM. There is serious Java competition between Sun and IBM and people don’t seem to understand or appreciate the degree to which this would be a win for IBM and not the open-source community were Sun to release the source code to their Java implementation.
(My comments reflect my personal opinion, and may not necessarily be the opinion of my employer).
I’m no Mono expert, but I am horrified at how people make gratuitous remarks about it (Mono) now being the superior alternative. Yet Mono has 0 advantages compared to any of the (opensource) Java implementations. If anything, it has the huge disadvantage that it’s based on catch-up work from Miguel and his boys, with Microsoft. And Microsoft will do something, as soon as it sees that Mono could enable non-Windows desktops. I don’t know what Microsoft will do, but I’m pretty certain that they’ll sell it under the name of “innovation”, and leave Mono in the cold.
Like a bunch of monkeys, unable to formulate your own opinion, you have to borrow it from Slashdot or from other empty-headed posters.
The claim that java would be forked into fragmentation is rediculous. I don’t think there is that many people out there willing to make a fork of java and maintain it. It’s a big undertaking. This is not like making a fork of something trivial like a text editor. If there was to be a fork there would definitely be a reason for it and either no one would use it if it sucked or the changes would be folded back into the original. Sun could also still maintain java and allow only there implementation to be called java. I think the best reason to open source it is so that the developers that use java could actually mold it into what they want java to be. I constantly hear people bitch about how close java is to being an amazing language, yet there are still a few things still holding it back.
Sun is free to do as they wish though but I gaurantee .NET is going to slaughter java in the long run. I think it might be time to give up hope now and just start using python. It’s easy to use and you can develop applications for it very quickly.
He is considering donating java to a non profit organization but the license may allow the code to be reviewed and contributed but no forking. “Considering”
Furthermore, Jonathon VP of Software claims if sun didn’t have java their software department would die.
looks like IBM wanted to screw java over by riding the Open Source loving crowd because they are the reason SCO is sueing linux users. shame on you IBM for exploiting the OS community! just because radical open source people love you know dosent mean you should screw over other people’s works and IP by trying to open source them! If java was gone then sun would be dead!
Sun is free to do as they wish though but I gaurantee .NET is going to slaughter java in the long run. I think it might be time to give up hope now and just start using python.
How are you going to guarantee that?
I really don’t understand this idea of it has to be either/or. Why is it that there are so many programming languages being used? Any company with a large investment in Java technology is not going to dump it because of .NET or lack of Sun open sourcing Java. If Java became stagnant I might understand that .NET would drive it out of the marketplace. Java isn’t stagnant by a long shot.