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Open source Java?

Posted by Zonk on Sun May 15, 2005 03:55 PM
from the open-source-that-wakes-you-up-in-the-morning dept.
Java Programming Software Apache
Bruce writes "Newsforge is reporting that Java 2 Standard Edition, may soon be set free of Sun Microsystems' notoriously complicated licensing. A group of 12 Apache developers have put together a proposal called Harmony. The proposal appeared as a simple project call last Friday on an Apache incubator mailing list. It would make this new, built-from-the-ground-up version of Java available under the Apache 2.0 free software license. And it's causing quite a stir in the Java community, especially since respected Sun frontmen Tim Bray, Simon Phipps, and Graham Hamilton have given the project their blessing. As yet there has been no reaction from Dr. Java, James Gosling himself, who is in Brazil talking to developers. In a FAQ on the Apache site, Harmony project leader Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote: 'We believe that there is broad community interest in coming together to create and use an open source, compatible implementation of J2SE 5, the latest version of the Java 2 Standard Edition specification. While the Java Community Process has allowed open source implementations of JSRs for a few years now, Java 5 is the first of the J2SE specs that we are able to do due to licensing reasons.'"
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[+] Java To Be Opened For Christmas? 243 comments
MBCook writes "At the Oracle OpenWorld conference, Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced on Wednesday morning that Java would be opened within 30-60 days, which would would mean about Christmas Day at the latest. Sun first announced they would do this back in May at JavaOne but didn't give a date. We've seen rumblings before on this topic. Schwartz also commented on the companies Sun Fire servers, Sun's relationship with Oracle, and general trends."
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      • Yeah, ask the main PR man for a competing product what he thinks of more competition. You're bound to get some unbiased answers.

        Personally I don't see how anyone can care about .Net vs. Java, they are so close to identical it's not even funny. As to the implementation, neither GCJ, Kaffe or Mono is 'there' yet in terms of quality, at least not in my experience. If we just leave people to do their hacking, evolution will weed out the bad implementations and we'll have the best tools available.

  • I was under the impression... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 15 2005, @03:59PM (#12537808)
    That there was an open source java project already, BlackDown. I fail to see what the big deal is here really, and arn't the Java standards open anyways and anybody could just write up an open JVM/Compiler? I mean nothing is stopping anybody on /. (or in the world) from writing say their own C Compiler, or Lisp compiler, or their own Virtual machine software, once you know the hardware of the target system it shouldn't be complicated to get a "working" emulation/compiler. Now for performance you would probably be better off using an existing solution, but thats why we have Sun's Compiler.

    • Re:I was under the impression... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SharpFang (651121) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:06PM (#12537861) Homepage Journal
      Blackdown, Kaffe, GCJ, and quite a few similar "branches", all getting somewhere 60% down the way and stopping there. Somehow I don't quite believe the new project will get anywhere near "usable" as well.

      • Re:I was under the impression... (Score:5, Informative)

        by k98sven (324383) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:53PM (#12538161) Journal
        Blackdown, Kaffe, GCJ, and quite a few similar "branches", all getting somewhere 60% down the way and stopping there. Somehow I don't quite believe the new project will get anywhere near "usable" as well.

        Ok, first Blackdown is 100%. It's not an open source VM. It's a port of Sun's.

        Kaffe and GCJ haven't stopped anywhere. Both are using the same class library (GNU Classpath).

        Does this [wildebeest.org] look like 'stopping'?

    • Re:I was under the impression... (Score:5, Informative)

      by drew (2081) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:48AM (#12540532) Homepage
      blackdown is a community project, but it is not open source, and never has been. blackdown is the original port of the sun jdk source code to linux (and *BSD?), and the source code and binaries are licenced under exactly the same terms as sun's jdk, (which, iirc, essentially *is* blackdown.) in short, binaries are not freely redistributable, and you are severely limited in what you can do with the source code.

  • Dupes Ahoy! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jalefkowit (101585) <{jason} {at} {jasonlefkowitz.net}> on Sunday May 15 2005, @03:59PM (#12537810) Homepage

    I liked this story better when it was posted a week ago [slashdot.org].

    C'mon, "editors". This has to be getting embarrassing. Right?

  • gcj and the new license wars (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jgarzik (11218) on Sunday May 15 2005, @03:59PM (#12537814) Homepage
    gcj is getting pretty close. It sports a full virtual machine, and implements large swaths of awt and swing.

    Why start from scratch? It this simply because the Apache folks don't like the GPL?

    • Re:gcj and the new license wars (Score:5, Insightful)

      by k98sven (324383) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:36PM (#12538060) Journal
      Why start from scratch? It this simply because the Apache folks don't like the GPL?

      Actually it hasn't been decided if they will start from scratch yet. They might adopt an existing VM. They might adopt the GNU Classpath class library.

      The discussions on checking up the inevitable licensing issues are already underway.

      • GPL and Apache licenses aren't quite compatible.

        Since the GPL doesnt allow for distribution of code under any other license, then its not compatable with any other license. Other licenses are compatable with it, but its most certainly not a two way thing.

        Sometimes different ideologies foster competition, just as Firefox has forced MS to reopen development on IE 7, the GPL license forces people with more broader ideologies to create competitors to GPLed projects.
        • Since the GPL doesnt allow for distribution of code under any other license

          Don't you mean re-distribution?

          Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the GPL only covered re-distribution, and also could not prohibit authors from distributing under multiple licenses. Put simply, as the author of software, I choose the number and type of each license for every release of code.

          • You seem to be unable to differentiate between dual licensing, which has nothing to do with the GPL, and license compatability, which does. Everyone talks a lot about whether a license is compatable with the GPL, but everyone also glosses over the fact that this compatability is one way only - a by product of the way the GPL is written is that it is designed to leech from other opensource projects without the 'paying up' as you put it. My point is essentially that it offers no advantage to the Apache deve

  • Quite a stir? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:03PM (#12537834)
    I think this "quite a stir in the community" is wishfull thinking. The Java community at large doesn't care much about an open source Java. People want to or have to write code, not fighting holy OSS wars.

    This is a home-made a storm in a teacup. There is already an initiative to create a free Java: GNU GJC. And no one cares about it. The Apache people are just running some propaganda now, but it will be forgotten in a few weeks.

    • Re:Quite a stir? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by m50d (797211) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:25PM (#12537985) Homepage Journal
      The Java community at large consists of people who don't care about open source java precisely because there is no (good) open source java. There's a pretty huge sample bias there.
      • Speaking as a member of the Java community, the reason I don't care about an OS Java (beyond the "oooh neat" factor) is simply that I don't need one. I write Java for work, we need a stable, supported platform to run our apps on. Linux is _just_ getting to where it's useful for us, which is great. Java is there and has been for years. It doesn't cost us anything to run it, we get support, it works. Why again should we replace it?
        • Exactly. But the point is if you didn't feel that way, you wouldn't be using java. Which means it's stupid to talk about the community not caring, because the people who do care, like me, are naturally not a part of the community. Who knows how many more people would be using java if it were open source? You certainly can't tell just by asking the current java community.

    • Java's biggest hole is in the embedded market. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by btarval (874919) on Sunday May 15 2005, @06:16PM (#12538771)
      You may well be right for PCs and Servers. But frankly, the current licensing scheme of Sun's Java is really getting in the way in the embedded space.

      What typically happens is that some company has a neat idea for an embedded device. But they quickly find that the Java applications they want there won't fly because Java isn't supported on the hardware they were planning to use. They either have to fall back to a different CPU (which is usually more expensive), or pay a lot just to put Java on the CPU. Or go with C/C++ for their applications.

      x86 and PPC are simply not the entire embedded world. There are many other superb (and cheaper) solutions out there, in this space. And no, Java support is far from prevalent on MIPS processors, despite what MIPS might try to claim. I know, as I've been there.

      Please keep in mind that there are far more embedded CPUs around than there are PCs or Servers. So there is a clear need for Java, if it were available in this space. But it's not. gcc however, usually is, fortunately.

      If Java were indeed Open Sourced, it just might be as popular as gcc is in the embedded space. Until then, people in the embedded space have far more flexibility by going with C/C++ than with Java.

        • I agree, but there are quite a number of CPUs which do have the horsepower to run Java. Enough so that the selection of a non-Intel CPU is feasible and reasonable. It is a shame to see people restricted here simply because they thought Java was originally a good choice, based upon their experiences with x86.

          I suppose that does give a competitor who knows what it is doing a leg up. But still, the point remains that the lack of Openess with Java is hindering its adoption on a good many CPUs.

          As far as the

    • Re:Quite a stir? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tim C (15259) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:42AM (#12540762)
      I've been a professional Java developer for 5 years now, and I completely agree. I have never, not once thought "if only Java were open source!". (For comparison, I first started using Linux nearly 8 years ago)

      I have no desire or need to change or add features, I have no desire or need to run it on unsupported OSes, and I have no desire or need to distribute it to third parties. I have no desire or, as far as I can see, need for Java to be open sourced.

      Your mileage my vary, of course, but for myself, I see no value in it.

  • Dupe, and why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by m50d (797211) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:03PM (#12537842) Homepage Journal
    Why does this attempt get so much attention? There are plenty of existing attempts at getting a free java, why does apache feel the need to start a new one?

    • Re:Dupe, and why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mikaelhg (47691) on Sunday May 15 2005, @05:15PM (#12538271)
      We don't just need a Open Source Java, we need a Open Source Java implementation fit for production use.

      To produce such a thing, we need a community of competent people committed to that goal. This is what other Open Source Java projects lack.

      To get such community going, one needs to communicate in a certain manner. This is what the Harmony people are now doing. The strenght of this project is, to me, that it has both excellent technical competence and competence in community management and in setting and achieving goals in a reliable manner.

      This attempt is getting so much attention because senior people who understand that there is more to life than mere technical details pay attention when people who have a track record in producing results, speak.
      • What makes you think the people behind the current open source java projects are incompetent and not committed?

        What an insulting thing to say.

  • Bringing open source Java runtimes to fruition should be an important step for open source java projects that are currently held back from entering distributions and packages because of this requirement. Also the requirement of Sun Java to use Java 5 on Linux (this situation may have changed..) would be a good thing to challenge.

    Having such a fundamental and established organization like the Apache project behind the effort should really aid & help to posture this effort within the wider open-source community.

  • Interesting name "Harmony" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stevew (4845) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:06PM (#12537858) Journal
    What is interesting is that another project by this name got started during the QT is BAD days. Several developers started the "Harmony" project to replace the QT library with a GPL'd clone. Trolltech relicensing the library stopped this in it's tracks.

    Odd how history DOES repeat itself ;-)

  • Zzzzzz. Wake me up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thammoud (193905) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:10PM (#12537890)
    when this topic dies down. As a Java developer for the past 7 years, can someone remind me as to how Java will benefit from being open source? Sun along with the JCP has done an incredible job in advancing the platform. Java is the number one development environment for business applications. Bar none.

    Why would someone encourage fragmentation and resource wasting ala KDE, Gnome and the gazzillions of Linux flavors is beyond me.

    Sun, keep up the great stwerdess of the Java platform.

    • Re:Zzzzzz. Wake me up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dmaxwell (43234) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:50PM (#12538141)
      Sun won't even take reasonable steps to allow distros to pre-install Java. Yes, it is simple for me to install Java after the fact. It is a legal licensing pain to distros to offer well integrated Java installs. That is one problem.

      The other problem is that only platforms that are directly important to Sun or IBM get full featured Java environments. Java on PowerPC Linux is still substandard. IBM makes a JVM availiable but you have to jump through hoops even as an end user to get it and you still don't have a browser plugin. An Open Source Java would be available on just about all platforms with equal functionality.
        • if the problem is that Java is hard to distribute w/ OSS, shouldn't the solution figure out how to pressure Sun or IBM into distributing Java with OSS?

          People have been working on that problem for almost ten years, and no progress has been made. It's time for a different approach.

    • Re:Zzzzzz. Wake me up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MrDomino (799876) <mrdomino.gmail@com> on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:51PM (#12538149) Homepage
      As a Java developer for the past 7 years, can someone remind me as to how Java will benefit from being open source?

      Ever tried running Java on *BSD? It works to some extent, but it isn't pretty. Having an open implementation could mean that Java and Java Server Pages would become more widely accepted in servers running open systems.

        • LOL. Yes. Lisp. How about APL? or some other equally retarded language only mathematicians, washed-up AI people & other various people who never got past just being a programmer (vs designer vs software engineer) could love...

          I love people who don't know what on earth they're talking about. Lisp has little to do with AI except as an accident of history. Today people use Lisp to write 3D games for the Playstation, complex business applcations, robot controllers for NASA and just about anything in betwe
        • Also, there are plenty of benchmarks showing Java is as fast or faster than C and C++ on large datasets and long-running applications, when the environment initialization isn't a hit on performance.pAlso known as contrived tests.

  • What about patents? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unoengborg (209251) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:27PM (#12537990) Homepage
    Didn't Sun and Kodak have some patent dispute over Java a while ago where Kodak won. What risks would this Apache projects involve with respect to Kodak patents?
    • What risks would this Apache projects involve with respect to Kodak patents?

      The Kodak patent is so broad that it could be used to sue anyone using an object oriented programming language. It is not Java specific. Sun settled with a $92 million payment, Microsoft has taken a license.

      Unfortunately it seems to have survived a court test, so it will take a lot to get it declared ivalid. However most people believe that it should be because of prior art going back to the days of Simula.

  • Getting ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Exaton (523551) <exaton@@@free...fr> on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:31PM (#12538020) Homepage
    Zonk, you are an embarassement, an icon of shame for this website.

    You've been around long enough now. Time to start quickly checking /. archives before accepting news submissions.

    I hope you're really, really ashamed of the multiple editorial failures you're responsible for. Time to step up and do something about it, man ! No need to follow bad examples !

    And I choose not to go AC to say that.

  • IBM connection (Score:4, Informative)

    by wrmrxxx (696969) on Sunday May 15 2005, @04:41PM (#12538088)

    What makes this slightly interesting is the IBM connection:

    Geir Magnusson Jr. is a lead in the proposed Har mony Project

    Geir Magnusson Jr. is from Gluecode [codehaus.org], which IBM has acquired.

    If it weren't for that, I'd just say "yeah, whatever - it's just another JVM implementation."

    • Geir Magnusson Jr. replies here [theserverside.com]:


      Apache Harmony has nothing to do with Gluecode. Gluecode focuses on Java application servers. It has nothing to do with J2SE implementations, and has no interest in J2SE implementations.

  • I don't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark-t (151149) <markt@@@lynx...bc...ca> on Sunday May 15 2005, @05:21PM (#12538334) Journal
    People wine at Sun "Open Java... Open Java... Open Java...".

    And when they finally look at doing so, all I see people saying are things like "We already have GJC, you fuckers... we don't need you anymore".

    I just don't get it.

    • People wine at Sun "Open Java... Open Java... Open Java...".

      Those people are whiners anyway; they have no credibility.

      And when they finally look at doing so...

      You didn't understand the article correctly. Sun is still not planning to open source their VM.

      all I see people saying are things like "We already have GJC, you fuckers... we don't need you anymore".

      One benefit of open source is that it makes users independent from vendors. Not needing Sun is very important for some people.

      Apache made the p

  • Why ask why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rdean400 (322321) on Sunday May 15 2005, @05:21PM (#12538335)
    The fact of the matter is that there are certain of Sun's terms that don't suit the business model or philosophy of other parties. Harmony will provide a way to provide a version of Java that is compatible with those interests.

    I'm a power user that doesn't need support for my operating system, so there's no reason to buy the boxed versions other than to provide financial support to the vendor or to acquire software the distribution is prohibited from providing for free download due to licensing restrictions -- like Java. It doesn't make sense to pay to get something free.

    Kaffe and GCJ don't cut it because they are not completely compatible to the spec and their performance is woeful compared to Sun's JVM, let alone JRockit or J9. This will provide a version of Java that distro vendors and others can bundle with their products on terms compatible with their licenses, business models, or other philosophical beliefs.
  • Did anyone else read this as, "java gods declare sun evil, fork and establish new and open authority to replace them?"

    Something about the overall tone seemed to imply that they weren't just writing an implementation, but intended it to supercede Sun's closed implementation.

    Sounds good really.

    • Tell me please: Why should I, as an end user, download and use Apache's Harmony instead of using SUN's "real" Java.

      Scenario 1: You as an end user wouldn't have to. It would be included with your operating system, which is not currently the case. If you have to seek one out you would probably seek out Sun's, but if your Linux distro came with Apache's you would just use it unless it was unsuitable in some way.

      Scenario 2: You develop Java apps. Right now you have to direct end users to another website (Sun's) and follow instructions found there to download and install Java. You could instead offer an install package that already includes Harmony.

      Scenario 3: You want to use Java on an unsupported machine. Right now you don't really have many options for running Java apps on PocketPCs, for example (Like my Jornada 568). An Open Source JVM would almost certainly be ported a wide variety of platforms (considering how many platforms have reimplementations like Waba attempted for them the demand is obviously there).

    • Re:"blessing" doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jerf (17166) on Sunday May 15 2005, @05:04PM (#12538217) Journal
      Something clearly makes it hard to re-implement Java

      I'd like to tender a vote for "It's sheer Brobdingnagian size". Individually, each individual function of an API is something you could probably assign a college student to do, but taken together, to re-implement something like Java (which, like "Perl" or "Python" and unlike old-style "C" or ECMAScript, also implies a fairly sizable standard library) is just damned hard.

      And as one lil' open source developer, I can't work up much excitement about re-implementing a language spec. (Full disclosure, I hate Java, but that statement is generally true; I can't think of any language I'd care to donate my time towards re-implementing.) I can't imagine this helps the developer pool. (Obviously this is not true of everyone, if you think I just claimed otherwise please learn to read what people say, not what you think they said. I'm just saying that I doubt this gets many people's blood pumping in a way that Yet Another Web Framework or YA MP3 Player seems to.)

    • Re:"blessing" doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Daniel Ellard (799842) on Sunday May 15 2005, @05:55PM (#12538664)
      Whatever the specific reasons, it's a failure of Java as a general-purpose, standard programming language.

      Utter nonsense. Let's count the number of distinct implementations of Perl, Tcl, Ruby, Visual Basic...

      Languages that are reimplemented frequently tend to be small, simple and appeal to language weenies (scheme, *ML) and/or there's money to be made.

      The specs for Java have always been completely open. Anyone can reimplement it. The only restriction is that you can't call it Java unless it meets the spec (and proving that it meets the spec is, quite understandably, nontrivial because Java is a large, complex language).

      If you like Java but want to change a few things, you're even free to do that, as long as you call it something else, like C#.

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