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Java Fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS Community 738

Posted by timothy from the secret-source-infrastructure dept.
Joe Barr writes "Bruce Byfield has an interesting look at the 'fallout' between OpenOffice.org and the free/open source software communities because of their reliance on Java in the latest release. As he says, "It seems a decision based largely on practical considerations -- and with a disregard for the consequences for both the rest of the free and open source software (FOSS) communities and the future of OpenOffice.org itself." This is an issue that is not going away."
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Java Fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS Community More

Java Fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS Community

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  • Open Office and Java integration makes me nervous (Score:4, Interesting)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:22PM (#12070582) Homepage Journal
    The only virus I've ever had infect my Windows computer was Java based, installed due to a flaw in 1.4.2 and some website I visited I suppose. I don't feel any better about Java being integrated in some way that I don't understand with Open Office, than I do with Word using Macro files, or offering VBS integration perhaps.
    • The only time I got in an accident my vehicle had 4 wheels, so now I only drive a motorcycle.

      On a more serious note: Do you honestly believe that a homegrown macro language would have been any more secure than choosing a language which they know they can get help from the project sponsor on? I would guess that Python was the second choice, and would have been trendier, but they would be more likely to get integration help from Sun than from the Python crew (for financial/marketing reasons, not because of
    • Java has a very good security record. Anyway, this java stuff has not to do anything with remote execution, just with application code. The chance that there is a buffer overrun in Java is very small (it would mean a serious bug in the JVM). No software is perfect, but Java has a much better security record than most execution environments out there (compare it for instance with ActiveX).

      The problem is that there is little to choose from if you want rapidly developed, secure code. C++ code gets complex ver

  • Easy Solution (Score:4, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:23PM (#12070595)
    Just re-write everything in Visual Basic. That should make FOSS advocates happy.
    • And once morethe FOSS community illustrates how it kills itself. A free, viable, functioning alternative to Office, and people get upset because it doesn't fit their personal definition of "free" enough.

      Get some priorities. Sheesh. Only in this community do these minor issues get blown up into huge flamewars over nothing. "It's not FREE enough!" Who the hell cares, it works and it's free to use!

    • Free-er solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:03PM (#12072142) Homepage Journal
      Fork OO.o. The source is out there. Create a Free Software-correct fork of OO.o, call it "Free And Open Office" and go to town. Replace the database module with MySQL or PostgreSQL or whatever database you want. Hack out anything and everything that you don't like. F/OSS sees proprietariness as damage and routes around it.

  • the 'good enough' argument (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chris09876 ( 643289 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:23PM (#12070597)
    Lots of people say that this doesn't matter; as long as OO.o works well, who cares about what free or un-free components it uses. The article does an excellent job outlining the real issues here.

    Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost? Using java not only adds dependencies, but dependencies that some parties are uncomfortable with. Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore. Some of the core features (wizards) require java. Even though a wizard isn't "core" functionality, they're something that people in a workplace would likely need to use.

    Either way, this is a good article... it explains the issues in a very clear way.

    • Re:the 'good enough' argument (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:36PM (#12070736)
      Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost?

      At all costs. What else is there? Why would anybody develop software, if not to perform a function? The second that other things get in the way of "functionality", is the same second that that software starts to suck. What do you propose is more important than functionality?
      • At all costs. What else is there? Why would anybody develop software, if not to perform a function? The second that other things get in the way of "functionality", is the same second that that software starts to suck. What do you propose is more important than functionality?

        Microsoft said the same thing, relegating security and stability, but that's now come back to bite them in the ass.

        Phillip.

        • Re:the 'good enough' argument (Score:5, Funny)

          by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:31PM (#12071382)
          Microsoft said the same thing, relegating security and stability, but that's now come back to bite them in the ass.

          If you call being the largest software company in the known universe, and one of the greatest financial successes of our generation being bitten in the ass, then I hope that I'm bitten in the ass, too. Oh God, please, something or someone bite me in the ass!

          • Re:the 'good enough' argument (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Xugumad ( 39311 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @09:37PM (#12072368)
            This is a very good point; people think they want stable, secure software. They don't, what they actually want is cheapish (but expensive enough that it must be good) software that does what they need, plus plenty of things they think they might want to do another day, which is reasonably easy to use. A feeling that they're using the same software as everyone else (and several million people can't be wrong, right?) never hurts.
      • "What else is there?"

        Consistency, compatibility, support, long-term availability, appropriate licensing, security, dollar amount (not currently an issue with Java), adaptability, maturity, overall quality . . .

      • What do you propose is more important than functionality?

        Freedom.

        Pretend that I have developed the world's most functional word processing program. However, you may only use it under a licence that grants me censorship rights to anything you write. Would you want to buy a copy?

    • Re:the 'good enough' argument (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:42PM (#12070807)
      Corporate adoption may be slowed

      Don't be silly; Java's free as in beer, and plenty of places are already using it (or at least asking for it) on the server side. Besides, if they're replacing MS Office, why the hell would they worry that Java is or isn't Free? It's a lot freer than what they have...

      • Re:the 'good enough' argument (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jason Earl ( 1894 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:14PM (#12071772) Homepage Journal

        Yes, but OpenOffice.org isn't aiming for a spot on the server (where Java is entrenched), it's trying to upset MS Office on the desktop, and that's an entirely different situation.

        Say what you want, but a large percentage of the folks that are gutsy enough to be rolling out OpenOffice.org are doing so at least in part because they are Free Software advocates. In short, they are pushing OpenOffice.org for ethical reasons, and not for practical reasons. After all, a switch of that magnitude is definitely a risk. Lot's of folks are willing to take a risk on Free Software that they would not be willing to take for "inexpensive" software.

        Sun is just being stupid on this front. Java has already fragmented into several mostly compatible forks. IBM has their own JVM, as does Apple, Oracle, Borland, and there are a wide range of Free Software Java-alike systems. Heck, Red Hat and the Debian team are hard at work turning GCJ into a useable (if not completely compatible) system. Already one of the most popular desktop Java applications is IBM's Eclipse, and Eclipse uses the non-pure-Java SWT toolkit instead of Swing.

        Sun is losing control of Java, and the best way to reign in the various Java offshoots is to release Sun's JVM under a Free Software license. Freeing Java would completely kill all of the non-Sun Java toolkits, and it would give Sun the Free Software allies it needs to compete against Microsoft's .NET. Heck, right now Mono is doing a better job of enticing Free Software advocates than Sun is.

    • Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore.

      Yes it is. It costs nothing and it is fully functional. The truth is that use of Java is more likely to speed corporate adoption, as Java is the de-facto language for corporate server-side development. It has a good corporate reputation.

      Few companies who install Open Office care about the technicalities of FOSS. They like Open Office in the same way as they like Java - it allows a choice of workstat

    • What about the not good enough argument? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:49PM (#12070897) Homepage Journal
      "Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost?"
      Simple. Every and all costs. I program that is not "functional" is useless.
      " Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore."
      I guess you are right here. I mean so many companies worry about using Java. I mean it is not like java is "free as in beer". Guess what? A huge number of corporations already use Java for internal development. Those that are not tied to VB or .net are Java shops. This non issue will not slow down deployment one bit.
      This is yet another religion war that really means next to nothing. It is right up there with the GNU/Linux fight and BSD vs GPL.

  • Playing into MS hands (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Swamii ( 594522 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:24PM (#12070603) Homepage
    A few years back MS made a lot of fuss about Java while developing an alternative (.NET). In the process, they've planted some seeds such as "Java is neither open nor free!", and "Java is lock-in!", or the confusion surrounding Java on Windows, thanks to the MS VM supporting only v1.3.

    I'll tell you all now, I'm a Winodws developer and I write C# code. For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore; if you do, it's for support of an existing product. Virtually all new projects are .NET-based or native code. So if you, the open source community, cause more fuss over Java and whine about using it, then Microsoft has truely succeeded in it's FUD plan over Java.

    • Re:Playing into MS hands (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:39PM (#12070780)
      the confusion surrounding Java on Windows, thanks to the MS VM supporting only v1.3.

      I could be wrong, but I believe that MS's Java support (while it existed) only extended as far as v1.1.3, not v1.3. Of course, that's because they lost the court case to Sun, not because they couldn't or wouldn't support a newer version.

      For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore

      That's because traditionally, with a few notable exceptions, client-side Java apps suck. They're clunky, slow, and they look like arse. That's getting better, but it's almost certainly too little, too late. I do Java development on the server side, and I'm learning C#/.NET in order to do Windows client-side dev work (just scratching an itch). I'm not about to ditch Java, I just believe in using the right tool for the job. Now, it's arguable whether or not C# is the right tool, but experience tells me that Java isn't.

    • Re:Playing into MS hands (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Decaff ( 42676 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:42PM (#12070809)
      For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore; if you do, it's for support of an existing product. Virtually all new projects are .NET-based or native code.

      This may well be true for you, but it is not true in general. A quick search of Job sites shows that there is a considerable amount of new Java development on Windows, even client-side. There is also a lot of J2EE deployment on Windows servers.

      The lack of a straightforward migration path from VB6 to .NET has meant that a significant number of VB developers have migrated to Java. If you are migrating, it might as well be to something portable!

  • GCJ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ArsonSmith ( 13997 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:24PM (#12070610) Journal
    Can't these features be ported/compiled with gcj and run as native binaries?

    • The answer is mixed (Score:5, Informative)

      by vkapadia ( 35809 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:37PM (#12070749)
      From TFA,

      "By contrast, Red Hat and Fedora prefer to build OpenOffice.org with the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ), which is not only a compiler, but also a free JRE. This was Red Hat's strategy with earlier versions of OpenOffice.org, and Red Hat engineers are attempting to continue it. Caolan Macnamara, a programmer at Red Hat, has reported limited success compiling earlier developer builds of version 2.0. However, GCJ is not yet a complete replacement for official releases of Java, and adding patches makes the strategy painstaking and laborious at best."

      - vimal

  • Could it work with Java under Mono (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:27PM (#12070642)
    Kinda ironic that Novell's Mono (with root in Microsoft research) is the most promising free VM these days. Too bad Parrot doesn't seem to have java running on it...

  • GCJ- Linux app packaging (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:27PM (#12070644) Homepage
    I read this earlier. If they're going to use java, they should at least make sure it works with GJC out of the box. The one Java alsmost all distros ship with.. So redhat et all. don't have to jump through hoops to get it installed.

    I sometimes wish Linux had a application packaging system like MacOSX where you have the option of brining tons of libraries with you hidden under a file system pretending to be an app icon. It just works (most of the time). I'm tired of ldd.

    • Re:GCJ- Linux app packaging (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:47PM (#12070880)
      I sometimes wish Linux had a application packaging system like MacOSX where you have the option of brining tons of libraries with you hidden under a file system pretending to be an app icon. It just works (most of the time). I'm tired of ldd.

      Linux already has basically everything you need to build packages that way. The key thing is that Linux already has a way to specify where to find libraries relative to the binary that is trying to load them. Most people who build software for Linux don't know this and stupidly build hard-coded paths into executables and make you change your /etc/ld.so.conf to include every directory on the planet, but in reality this is a total waste of time since $ORIGIN is available and makes this issue totally go away.

      Basically, $ORIGIN works like this: when you build the binary and link against the libraries it need, you can put something like -z origin -rpath '$ORIGIN/../lib' on the ld command line. (Note that the dollar sign is quoted and is intended to go into the executable file unchanged.) This means if the binary in /usr/local/foo/bin/foo and it wishes to find libfoo.so, one of the places that the runtime linker (ld-linux.so) will look when it tries to load libraries is /usr/local/foo/bin/../lib, which equates to /usr/local/foo/lib. Presto, it finds libfoo.so and everyone is happy, and nobody had to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH or modify /etc/ld.so.conf.

      This means you can, if you want, distributed software that all goes into a directory, and that the directory can be put into any location you wish without any configuration changes needed to run it.

      As a matter of fact, even if your goal isn't to distributed a package with all its dependencies bundled in, it still should be the default to use $ORIGIN. If you are building binaries to distribute and your install process require the user to use ldconfig or modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH, you should consider the build broken.

    • Re:GCJ- Linux app packaging (Score:4, Insightful)

      by the-build-chicken ( 644253 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:25PM (#12071302)
      they should at least make sure it works with GJC out of the box

      Actually, no...if GJC wants to call itself a java compiler, it should make sure it properly implements the spec.

  • Speed up releases? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kschawel ( 823163 ) <slashdot AT li DOT ath DOT cx> on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:30PM (#12070674)
    I think the article makes some interesting points, such as:

    Some might argue against Schönheit's characterization of C++ as complex or Java as being not slow. However, technical arguments are in many ways beside the point.

    What I got out of it is that the Java environment makes it far easier to add features to the current OO. From the article:

    Java allows more rapid development of components for OpenOffice.org, without struggling with the complexity of OpenOffice.org's C++ build environment. People complain about releases not being quick enough and when Java is used to make the build environment less complicated, people bitch about it not being open source. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

  • FOSS [sic] versions of Java (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:31PM (#12070694) Homepage
    For all the daunting capabilities of the bazaar model and the "explosive" availablity of developer resource that are supposed to be out there, I find it interesting that someone hasn't developed a "trully free" alternative language/platform that rivals Java and .NET. All they can do is copy the big boys (classpath, Mono, the GNU .NET clone and so on) rather badly, and then bitch when someone decides that maybe, just maybe, this is an example of commercial software being far and above where FOSS will probably ever be.

    And let's not get started on IDEs...

    • Eclipse (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bstadil ( 7110 )
      And let's not get started on IDEs..

      You are joking Right?

      Esclipse [eclipse.org]

  • Fallout?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:33PM (#12070708) Journal
    This is an issue that is not going away.

    Whether or not the complaints are sensible, I've got to think that if this "fallout" involved more than a tiny handful of disgruntled people I would have heard about it before this.

  • Try AbiWord and Gnumeric (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:36PM (#12070743)
    Its very fast, featureful, native GNOME integration, and provides excellent functionality. Likewise Gnumeric is an excellent spreadhseet complement which is also fast and native to GNOME.

    What would be nice is a ppt reader to go along with them...maybe Evince could be made to read ppt?

    As for Java, I am only interested in the subset being promoted by RedHat - the free gcj/classpath variant. Call it FreeJava or whatever, but to me anything else is unacceptable. Come on folks, we came this far insisting on free software, don't give up now over one lousy VM and language spec.

  • Ah, fork it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:39PM (#12070771) Journal
    OpenOffice.org is released as an open-source license, right? So if they have such a big beef with the direction it's going, then someone can create a fork of the project and put the work into ridding it of this supposedly undesireable Java dependency. Or pick up the codebase, write all the currently java-dependent code in C++ and submit it as a patch.

    To me, this sounds like a bunch of politicians and lobby activists trying to make the most noise so that they achieve their respective ideological agendas. As an end-user of OO.o, I really don't care either way as long as the functionality is there. And, afaik, the current Java license allows for redistribution of the Java Runtime Environment so they can't retroactively pull that license and prevent people from doing something they've already granted.

  • Practical versus idealistic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) * <chris@swiedler.org> on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:40PM (#12070794)
    Here's a case where the FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) acronym doesn't work, because Free Software and Open Source Software are not the same thing.

    Practical, pragmatic decisions like using Java are not a problem for Open Source. That's what Open Source is: developing software in an open manner because of a belief that software developed this way is technologically better than closed-source software. It does not insist that every tool (or language) used in the development process be Free Software or Open Source. From a practical standpoint, it is sufficient that the tool or language meets the needs of the developers and is available on the required platforms, and does not appear to be a patent or other legal liability.

    Free software on the other hand, insists for idealogical reasons that any software or tool which is not completely free is deterimental to the community. It's important to have respect for this opinion, but it is not a catastrophe for the OO.org team to choose the Open Source route.
    • Practical, pragmatic decisions like using Java are not a problem for Open Source.

      Maybe so but the end result is no longer Open because it depends on closed libraries/REs. And OSS must not believe that software developed as open source is technologically superior if they're willing to give up access and control of the source code so easily.

      Free Software, on the other hand, has a very precise goal which is to make all software in the system open and free. And there are very real legal and financial reaso
  • It seems a decision based largely on practical considerations

    Silly open source developers - putting practicality and pragmatism above more important things like dyed-in-the-wool political viewpoints. Next you'll be telling me they're all off using these newbie Linux systems, rather than diligently waiting for HURD to stabilise like they're supposed to. Tch.

  • What's the issue again, I missed it... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:46PM (#12070865)
    Now I hate Java just as much as the next guy, (well probably moreso, but anyhow...) but I've compiled and used OpenOffice 1.x many times, and let me tell you--Java is not the problem. OpenOffice is *already* enormous and bloated and slow. It also already requires Java just to build the darn thing, or at least it did when I built it. Whether it depends more or less on Java, I don't care as long as it gets at least two of smaller, less bloated, faster...

    So, ok, now that we're agreed that we aren't necessarily talking about a technical issue here. Again, what's the problem. That "Java isn't open source [zdnet.com]"? Well why don't you ask IBM to open up a JVM for you. Or, better yet, write your own! Java is widely used, readily available, and actually pretty darn open as these things go.

    So what's the problem. Ideology? Zealotry? Arcane license disputes? Well, it's nothing that'll get in the way of me and my word processor. Just wake me up if it gets larger, more bloated, slower... :)

  • crybabies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pavera ( 320634 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:49PM (#12070889) Homepage Journal
    People are just being crybabies. All of the functionality that relies on java is new, and in my opinion non-core. Yes, they need to clean up the menu system so that choices that require java are greyed out if its not available, but 2.0 is worth it just for the ui enhancements and better filters.

    Base is a lame Access knockoff that crashes all the time. It won't be stable until OOo 3. And why do we care if we can't use wizards, aren't we always lampooning MS for their endless "wizard to create xyz"?

    What now we're mad cause someone used the best language available (to them) to produce some new features? I though FOSS was about choice, but I guess thats only if you pick the language that FOSS condones... You can pick anything as long as its lisp and emacs! Anyway, I'm not a java fanboy, I much prefer python or perl, but java does have its place and there are alot of coders who know it, so now we're saying you can't develop OSS in java.. that's a great stance to take.

    Grow up, download the JRE, or don't whatever, I've been running the 2.0 beta since it was released without the JRE and I haven't missed anything, for what I need an office suite for it works great. To be true I did install the JRE to check out Base, but it sucks, and I ditched it after about 10 minutes.

  • My take on it: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:50PM (#12070904) Homepage
    Okay after reading TFA, I think there is good reason for concern. I can also see the possibility of additional compiling projects. It's my understanding that since these are Java programs and there are programs that compile Java into binary. So I'm thinking we'll see custom OO.o distros featuring "now without Java dependancies!"

    And why not? That's the primary strength of the Open Source movement -- don't like where a project is going? Fork or customize in some way. Ultimately the popularity of the standard package versus the customizations will steer the project in the most popular direction.... in theory. (There are some hard-headed asses out there who, as in the case of XFree86) won't bend to popular demand and a completel fork would result. But the bottom line? The public should have its way if it wants it bad enough.

    Sun has a stake in the acceptance and popularity of Java. The motivation behind this should be fairly obvious. It's my understanding that in the future, Java itself will be open sourced and will ultimately take away a lot of the argument that many FOSS people have against this situation. (The other part, asside from the license stuff, is the poor performance... I hate Java performance sometimes...sometimes it really seems to drag.)

  • What's wrong with Kaffe ? JikesRVM ? Using Java? (Score:5, Informative)

    by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @06:54PM (#12070949) Journal
    What's the real issue ? Is the real issue simply that Sun wants to retain the right to define what Java(TM) is ?

    Given that it's perfectly legal to implement a system like Kaffe, given that it exists, that it can be done if you absolutely must, what is the actual issue with using Java in Open Source projects? Lord knows there are _tons_ of FOSS projects written in Java out there...

    If the issue is just the Sun license and the "non-official" status of projects like Kaffe, to that I just have to say, guys, get over yourself. If you don't like the Open Office folks writing functionality that depends on Java, write it in C or whatever your self and contribute it. Seriously.

    As far as end users? They don't care what something is written in. They want something that works. To that end, placing yet another installation requirement in the chain isn't great, but at the same time, the vast majority of user installations ( including on Linux ) simply aren't complete without a working JVM anyway, so... what's the big deal again?

  • What the heck is the matter now? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:03PM (#12071038) Journal
    Look, Sun makes Java, and it's closed soure.

    Java is many things. It is a programming language. It is also a runtime environment in the form of a protable virtual machine. It also comes with a huge class library.

    For some reason, that monkey Miguel went and decided to write his own version of M$'s Java clone, C#/.NET, for "Linux" (i.e. Unix-like OSes) to undermine everyone else's work.

    Now, you can get branded Java from people other than Sun e.g. IBM. IBM is currently a great favourite of the slashdot peanut gallery.

    In addition, gcc [gnu.org] comes with a Java-language to native code compiler as well as byte code (to run on the evil, nasty closed-soure Sun (or IBM or whoever's) JVM).

    If you don't like Sun, or IBM, or Blackdown or kaffe [kaffe.org]'s JVM, including their JIT [sun.com] compilers which can optimise to exceed the efficiency of statically-compiled code, then you can always revert to gcc's Java language compiler [gnu.org].

    However, I'm sure these facts will be conventiently ignored for the sake of a good, heated argument, and many rants.

  • Java, OpenOffice, and FreeBSD, oh my (Score:5, Interesting)

    by linguae ( 763922 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:06PM (#12071069)

    Read my post [slashdot.org] if you want to have a feel for how difficult it is to install Sun's JDK on FreeBSD. There are so many twists and turns here that when I reinstalled FreeBSD, I decided to install Kaffe [kaffe.org] instead to learn Java with (needed for future classes; language use not under my control).

    This may be flamebait, but one of the main reasons why I haven't used OpenOffice on my computer is due to these Java dependencies. OpenOffice not only requires Java, but it specifically requires the Sun JDK. Some users may be asking me, "What's the problem?" The problem with that is that there is no binaries for the JDK for FreeBSD 5.x, and that I must agree to a very restrictive license in order to download the sources. Next, I can't compile the sources into a redistributable package (because Sun says so, meaning that for every FreeBSD machine that I have I must compile Java manually, nor give Java packages to others), and I can't even look at the sources without being tainted for life. Finally, the compilation takes an extremely long time to finish.

    Don't get me wrong. I like what I've heard about OpenOffice. But as long as OpenOffice is encumbered with Java code that requires the Sun JDK, I'm not using it. How many of you know the BSD story when the BSD developers got tired of AT&T due to its licensing (for those of you who don't know, BSD was originally based on AT&T Unix) and started rewriting the "encumbered" portions of their operating system? It would be great if some developers would do the same with the Java portions in OpenOffice.

    To elaborate further, I feel that Sun's handling of Java is a nuisance. Java may be a nice language, but as long as its only really complete implementation of it remains licensed the way that it is, I won't code any open source projects with the Java language, and Java is never going to be a primary open source development language. Why should the code that I write be tied to a non-free, restrictively licensed runtime environment that only runs on the platforms that Sun says that it should run on? Python, Ruby, and even Microsoft's own C# (in the form of Mono) isn't encumbered by such restrictive licensing. Sun's slogan for Java was "write once, run everywhere." Well, it depends on what Sun consists of "everywhere." Since the operating system that I choose to use is considered "nowhere" by Sun, well, I guess that Sun's JDK is going to be "nowhere" near my machines again, and for all of the projects that require this JDK, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not installing them, either.

  • My problem with OpenOffice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:21PM (#12071258) Homepage Journal
    Is their insistence to include everything (and the kitchen sink) into their tarballs. And that includes Berkeley DB, stlport, jpeg, png, expat, freetype, zlib, sablotron, etc.

    It truly is insane... I'm grateful, Sun's license does not allow them to bundle in their own Java in too...

  • Welcome to KDE-GNOME Redux (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SEE ( 7681 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:27PM (#12071334) Homepage
    The Qt libraries were free, if not Free, and they made it easier to create an environment and apps that Just Worked. The result was a series of complaints, and when those failed, GNOME. TrollTech noticed that it was losing ground as distros favored Free Software over free software, and finally GPLed Qt.

    If OO.o becomes harder and harder to run on GCJ, you're going to see the same thing. Maybe an OO.o fork, maybe a specific effort to create a different Free competitor. But dependence on a non-Free system component is going to create trouble; if OO.o wants to thrive in the long run, it's going to either need to be GCJ-compatible or have Sun open-source Java.

  • Java and OOo portability... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soullessbastard ( 596494 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:44PM (#12071504) Homepage Journal
    Disclaimer: I am an OpenOffice.org Mac OS X developer and a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project

    One of the biggest problems with Java in OOo is the way that it's being used. Probably the largest volunteer developer community outside of Sun is in the porting project which mostly aims to recompile OOo onto other Unix and Unix-like platforms. Part of the portability lure is that the older architecture of OOo made porting easy; OOo itself has its own internal complete abstraction layers for operating system functionality, windowing, widgets, and the kitchen sink. By simply porting those layers, OOo could run anywhere and even the most obscure Unix variant could have access to a MS Office compatible office suite.

    Java breaks that. Why? Not all of the platforms on which previous versions of OOo could be built have any official Java implementation (e.g. Linux/PPC).

    Now, Java is no longer optional. Java is actually becoming a requirement not only for running OOo. Some of the build tools are becoming implemented in Java. What's worse, many of these newer Java-dependent features and build tools actually require a specific version of the VM in order to be functional (e.g. reliances on libraries distributed with Java 1.4+).

    This choice leave platforms without Java in the cold, but sadly it also leaves platforms with outdated Java VM versions in the cold. I only hope this doesn't further cause headache for some of the intrepid 64 bit porters out there since I don't know of any VM that can be safely embedded in 64 bit apps yet.

    Porting developers have raised this issue as far back as 2002 [openoffice.org] and earlier. There's no excuse for the Sun-dominated engineering of OpenOffice.org to have been ignorant of them. Instead of lowering the bar for the build process, the dependencies have just been injected into core functionality! It's sad when the pleas of some of the most prominent non-Sun volunteers to the project get blissfully ignored by the powers that be.

    I don't have a problem with using Java for open source software since, after all, NeoOffice/J is dependent on Java. As NeoOffice/J is focused solely on Mac OS X, however, portability isn't one of the NeoOffice/J goals. For OOo, however, portability used to be one of its strengths and is still one of the strongest development communities within the project that doesn't originate from Sun. It's sad to see decisions made that alienate one of the only vibrant non-Sun communities.

    While OOo has built a great community of marketing, translation, support, and evangelization volunteers, there is no substantial core developer community outside of Sun. Alienating the precious little that exists doesn't help the situation either. Unless there is serious effort to build up a non-Sun developer community, the project can only be doomed for failure when Sun cuts their development team (or goes out of business).

    ed

  • Java for Win/Linux/Mac (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smartsaga ( 804661 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @07:58PM (#12071615)
    So people use Java when releasing applications for multiple platforms. What's the big deal? The JRE costs nothing to companies anyways.

    Why use .NET to program if you can't get the windows and controls to work on MONO on linux?? GTK runs on Linux and Windows but no Mac support without installing X11. Installing X11 might be a pain for most Mac users, let alone that adds another step and requirement on the Mac side.

    Why do people dislike Java so much? Is it because it takes to much RAM when using Eclipse to program or NetBeans??? Is it because it's not easy enough for people to program?? What the hell??

    Java it's free, IDEs for development are free, it runs on Macs, Linux, BSD, Unix, Windows, etc, etc, etc... My point is... WTF??? It's like we say in spanish "peladito y a la boca" can't be any easier to develop for multpiple platforms having all the tools.

    I say people are just ging nuts over peanuts.

    Your multiplatform programing are belong to us... get it??

    Have a good one.

  • Much easier than it seems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tromey ( 555447 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:07PM (#12071712) Homepage
    Apparently mere mention of "java" makes people go insane.

    OO.o 2.0 is already working [spindazzle.org] on free JVMs. FC4 is shipping this, along with Eclipse, Tomcat, and a ton of other stuff. We've got jonas running as well, just not quite ready to ship.

  • One reason - speed & resources (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ivoras ( 455934 ) <ivoras@NospaM.fer.hr> on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:08PM (#12071720) Homepage
    OOo 1.1 was NOT a speed demon on any platform. Most people I know who tried to use it on slower platforms (1GHz or less) claim it's slower than MS Word from circa Office 2000. Also, its startup time is really bad on whatever platform.

    I tried OOo 2.0 beta on Windows and was unpleasently surprised. There were *no significant changes* in its ugly-ish user interface (other than it finally supports XP skins and Impress has slide sorter as dockable thingy; actually the ONLY thing i liked in OOo2 is more options in PDF conversion - too bad SWF support is stalling) and it's very bloated. Since it requires Java, especially in the database component/client, it's practically unusable - it devours memory and CPU for event the simplest operations.

    Now, this is very bad PR. Consider a company with somewhat older computers and OS+Office (e.g. Win98, Office 97 or 2000) wishing to switch to Linux - that scenario is getting less likely by the day (If said company, for whatever reason (faster? smaller?) chooses FreeBSD, it will have even more problems w/java):

    • User interfaces on newer Linux distributions are getting waaaay too memory-hungry (ref: a Slashdot article a while ago about bloat in Gnome)
    • OpenOffice.org is getting bloated even faster
    Unfortunately, OOo is still the only Open-source product out there that can reasonably understand MS Office file formats.

  • the other fallout (Score:3, Funny)

    by LordMyren ( 15499 ) on Monday March 28, 2005 @08:50PM (#12072060) Homepage
    they forgot to mention the other fallout: the one between the developers and the people who like text to appear as they type.

    java is slow [armadilloaerospace.com] - John Carmack, Command Keen programmer.

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