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Sun Microsystems Java Programming GNU is Not Unix

Java: One Step Closer To Open Source 318

Posted by Hemos from the inching-its-way-forward dept.
Ritalin16 writes "Sun Microsystems on Monday intends to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Java programming language by sharing the proprietary source code for several key Java applications used by corporate customers. Sun officials believe that by making the source codes open to developers, they will spur more involvement and use of Java-based applications."
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Java: One Step Closer To Open Source More

Java: One Step Closer To Open Source

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  • Read the "fine" article, please (Score:5, Informative)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) * on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:16AM (#12920040) Homepage Journal
    Ahh, someone who wants to make a front page slashdot article, but doesn't understand Java. What's worse? The editor that posts it, and doesn't understand java.

    The source code being released isn't "source code for several key Java applications," its the source to Sun's java application server (called "Platform Edition 9"). Other app servers you probably have heard of are WebSphere, WebLogic, and.... the open source JBoss! The reason Sun is open sourcing their app server is because no one uses it!

    If a company wants to run a giant professional website and has money to throw at it, they'll get WebLogic or WebSphere to run it. If they don't, they run tomcat (if no EJBs requried) or JBoss. No one uses Sun's app server cause its new and immature.

    This is not a step towards opening Java. The only relation this has to Java is the fact that it runs Java code and is written in Java. Just because sun open sourced it doesn't mean its thinking about open sourcing the Java lanugage.
    • Indeed the cynical might just see this as a way for Sun to look open without having to unlock anything important in any useful way whatsoever (yes, I think that the OpenSolaris licence was designed to exclude).

      Wake me when Sun
      a) stops changing their mind on every subject every day and
      b) actually open sources anything related to the actual language.

      *yawns*

    • Sun's app server is definitely not new and immature. It's based off iPlanet AS which if anything is older than Weblogic and Websphere. A better reason is that BEA (with Tuxedo) and IBM both have substantial experience selling app servers in general, and they know the enterprise software sales playbook by heart because they helped write it.

      Sun, OTOH, was and remains clueless about marketing software*. (Their latest foray, per-employee licensing for the Java Desktop System and the Java Enterprise Stack, got

    • Re:Read the "fine" article, please (Score:5, Informative)

      by Eric Giguere ( 42863 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:40AM (#12920235) Homepage Journal

      The reason Sun is open sourcing their app server is because no one uses it!

      Sun's application server has actually been free to use (including production deployment) for quite some time now, so this further step of releasing the source code under a friendly license isn't that big a deal. Let's face it, basic application servers are pretty much commodities these days, making it hard for anyone to compete in that space. With at least three open source app server projects on the go (this one, JBoss, Geronimo) it's certainly a crowded market. It's certainly not the big deal that misleading headline makes it sound like.

      Eric
      J2ME stuff [ericgiguere.com]

    • Re:Read the "fine" article, please (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bmarklein ( 24314 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @11:12AM (#12920504)
      "If a company wants to run a giant professional website and has money to throw at it, they'll get WebLogic or WebSphere to run it."

      Or they'll forego bloated commercial app servers and EJB and go with a lightweight open-source framework [springframework.org]. These aren't toys - in fact the EJB 3 standard being developed now is largely based on ideas copied from these frameworks, as well as the Hibernate [hibernate.org] open-source persistence service.
      • I didn't say anything against Spring, here. I use it with hibernate for my DAO layer and struts or tapestry for my presentation layer.

        Even with these technologies, though, I still see the vast majority of companies still will go with the commercial WebSphere or WebLogic, due to the support and extra features they get.

        I'm not saying thats the smart idea (I'm a Tomcat or JBoss supporter), but that's what I see...

    • Its not exactly new (Score:3, Informative)

      by cpn2000 ( 660758 )
      No one uses Sun's app server cause its new and immature

      The product name is new, the product core is not. Other names it went by include (in chronological order)

      • iPlanet Application Server
      • Netscape Application Server
      • Kiva Application Server

    • This is not a step towards opening Java. The only relation this has to Java is the fact that it runs Java code and is written in Java. Just because sun open sourced it doesn't mean its thinking about open sourcing the Java lanugage.

      Okay, that would explain a lot.

      But when I first saw the thread, I thought it meant that Sun was opening the "source" to javac and java, and then I got to wondering: Okay, what language are those programs written in? C++? C? Bison?

      Or is it largely "machine code"?

      • Sun's Java compiler (javac) is supposedly written in Java. The java program is just a front end to the Java virtual machine, which is rumored to be written in C. Bison is a technology for implementing parsers. It is not really a general programming language itself.

  • Too late Java is not cool anymore (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FriedTurkey ( 761642 ) * on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:16AM (#12920041)
    This doesn't really matter to Java detractors. IT types, usually not programmers, will bring up the same old tired clichés.

    Somewhere around the year 2000 Java became uncool especially with younger programmers. I guess because it became an institution taught in high schools everywhere. Maybe programmers feel Java is rammed down their throats so they champion less established languages even something by Microsoft.

    Java really is the best thing out there for a lot of things. Sun can give away everything and detractors will be like: "OK but what about your first born child?"

    • What about your fiirst born? (Score:5, Funny)

      by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:26AM (#12920122) Homepage Journal

      They already did that [opensolaris.org]*.

      --
      * Well, mostly.

    • Too late Java is not cool anymore (Score:5, Insightful)

      by expro ( 597113 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:39AM (#12920223)

      This doesn't really matter to Java detractors. IT types, usually not programmers, will bring up the same old tired clichés.

      Same tired old cliches. I can tell you first hand that lots of major developers of Java and early advocates have been turned off directly by issues that could have been addressed by open sourcing it. But that won't stop you from your tired cliches that it doesn't matter, just because you don't want it to matter.

      I was developing major applications with it before it reached 1.0, and still work with it quite a bit, but it becomes more and more irrelevant despite my best work because Sun wills it to be irrelevant. Even as a major early licensee of Java, basic problems were not considered important enough for Sun to solve, and it hasn't changed much.

      Somewhere around the year 2000 Java became uncool especially with younger programmers. I guess because it became an institution taught in high schools everywhere. Maybe programmers feel Java is rammed down their throats so they champion less established languages even something by Microsoft.

      Again, strong on cliche, very weak on technical understanding or demographic fact, but at least you contradict your prior nonsense that it is not programmers turning away.

      Java really is the best thing out there for a lot of things. Sun can give away everything and detractors will be like: "OK but what about your first born child?"

      Go whine somewhere else. You think you should dictate what is useful to us without giving us adequate control to meet our needs? We will continue to use Java less and less as other tools continue come forward that are more responsive to our needs. The stuff we run today in Java doesn't benefit from the JVM and will be ported away as performance becomes more important and other features we need to build in are still not available in Java, since it is not open.

      The whole attitude that somehow open source is wanting more from Sun than it would contribute back is ignorant, uninformed, short sighted, etc. Sun and their apologists should get a clue. Open source would make it responsive to a much wider range of developers and would produce developments Sun was too blind to pursue or pursued way too late and too little. Any harm has already been done to a great extent by Sun's pig-headedness. They should go off in a corner and use it by themselves if they don't want to open it up.

      Waiting for Java has become a dead issue. No one expects Sun to get a clue, so why are you still whining that some in the past thought they might.

    • Microsoft is rammed down the throats of student programmers in high school and college too. And unfortunately they're still around...

      I think what made Java uncool was the development of hundreds of clunky apps written in java for the cross platform benefit but left with their ugly windows interface. Think Azureus.

    • Re:Too late Java is not cool anymore (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cyngus ( 753668 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:47AM (#12920287)
      Maybe Java isn't cool on the client side, but its sure is used widely on the backend. I see many, many posting each day for Java programmers, as I'm looking for a way out of this hell hole I work in. When I first started writing Java I scoffed at it, my background educationally is in systems, so C and maybe C++ are my domain. But, if you need to throw something together quickly Java is a great language, not so much for the language features, but rather the API that comes along with it. I live by "make it work, make it right, make it fast" philosophy, and you can do the first two with Java very well. With some time you can even do the last one, but half the time development deadlines don't allow me to optimize things.
      • Then you missed the point. The JVM itself optimizes for you. I still fail to understand how people think they can write faster code in less time in c/c++ when java itself is just another c/c++ program that is handling many other tasks for you.

        If you would say in the long run you can manually optimize a c/c++ program to give you more speed, then I would say ok. But for me, I have a team of engineers working to make my program faster for me. They are called JVM developers.

        Java is simply a c/c++ program
        • "In theory, communism works. In theory."

          In theory, java programs are as fast as native ones. In theory.
        • " Then you missed the point. The JVM itself optimizes for you. I still fail to understand how people think they can write faster code in less time in c/c++ when java itself is just another c/c++ program that is handling many other tasks for you."

          I'm not going to disagree with you that the JIT compiler provides a lot of useful optimizations during runtime and is a great thing.... but it's not the be all end all of performance.

          I think the original poster was talking more along the lines of more design is

    • This is "+4 interesting"?

      "Oh well, all those mean, stupid people who disagree with my point of view for no rational reason are going to disagree with it again. I bet they are going to make specious arguments A, B and C. Obviously, the reason they all hate the thing I like so much is petty justification X, and they won't be swayed by any reasonable arguments. Which is a pity, because the thing I like is the best thing ever, and totally unfairly maligned and oppressed, as you can clearly see."

      If this i

    • Sun can give away everything and detractors will be like: "OK but what about your first born child?"

      No, sun can try giving away anything else it likes for publicity, and I'll be like "Thanks, but all I care about is Java". Props for opening Solaris, that is something that matters, but what the hell is the point of opening up Java3D (for example) when the base java is not open?

  • And Again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:16AM (#12920047) Homepage Journal
    Java: One Step Closer To Open Source

    *sigh* Sun is already as open as they're going to go [java.net] with Java by releasing it under the Java Research License [java.net]. Now Sun has never complained about or hawked Open Source JVMs [kaffe.org], but neither have they been too keen on helping out projects who bite their hands. As a result, the project to watch is the Apache Harmony Project [slashdot.org]. Given that Apache maintains a close relationship with Sun, hasn't burned their bridges [gnu.org], and has a good track record for completing very complex software, there's a good chance that the Apache JVM will quickly exceed Kaffe and GCJ.

    • Re:And Again (Score:3, Interesting)

      by njcoder ( 657816 )
      There might be problems surrounding the Apache Harmony project. Geir Magnusson now works for IBM. When Sun talks about a fear of forking Java like Microsoft did, they aren't worried about MS now, they're worried about IBM.

  • They... (Score:2)

    by Shads ( 4567 )
    ... just need to jump in both feet and get it done with.

  • "Open Source" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:22AM (#12920090)
    If Sun really wanted to be helpful they could forget the application server and really forget the source, and just concentrate on making a less restrictive BINARY license for redistributors such as linux distributions. Java is being held back in the absence of something like Harmony, and that's just absolutely rediculous when the problem would be so easy to fix. Sun needs to come to terms with reality and realize that they need an installed base, not the other way around.
    • Java is being held back in the absence of something like Harmony,

      How is it being held back? It is the most in-demand language in the job market, and the de-facto standard language for major server-side development.

      and that's just absolutely rediculous when the problem would be so easy to fix.

      It is not easy to fix. There can be major licensing and patent problems to overcome in open-sourcing a huge project like Java. This is why it has taken them so long to open source Solaris.
    • Even with a less restrictive binary license, most Linux distributions wouldn't include the software, and most Free Software developers would avoid the Java platform.

      An important part of the freedom to use software is the freedom to fix it when it's broken rather than wait on a vendor who may not be responsive to your problem.
  • In other news, the Ford Motor Company announced today a bold new initiative to sell more cars. It seems that they will now be allowing customers to open the hood and tinker with the engine after buying the car. Ford expects this to increase the popularity of their cars and create a huge market for third-party add-ons.
    • WTF is that supposed to mean? I assume that you're trying to flame other Slashdotters for being too optimistic about Sun open-sourcing Java. I don't think your analogy holds up at all, though.

      It has always been the case that one could open the hood of a car (be it Ford, GM, Toyota, or other) and pull hoses, reroute wires, change belts, or otherwise modify the engine mechanics. Ford may not encourage this with an ad campaign of, "Buy our cars because you can take them apart and reconfigure them!" but it
    • Fan belt demand sharply skyrockets as Slashdotters attempt to overclock their Ford boxen.
    • I'd probably want to buy a Ford again if that were the case. As it stands I think I'd rather have my head run through a cheese grater.
  • Sun will not go completely open-source. They already have JBoss, which is open-source... too bad that no one I know of uses it. Also, I doubt anyone would have used Platform Edition 9...unless they made it Open Source and promoted the hell out of it, which is why they are doing this. Everything will remain closed-source. *shrugs* just my 2 cents, though.

  • Great... more stupid questions from management (Score:4, Funny)

    by pestilence669 ( 823950 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:27AM (#12920136)
    News articles, like this one, have a way of being read by my bosses who mistake their content entirely. "I just heard that Java is free, can you look into that?"

  • I have been a Java developer since year dot (well it feels like it) and I can't understand the fuss about having an open source Java. Most of the libraries that I use (in fact all I think) are fully open source along with the application server the only bit that isn't is open is the core libraries but these are given away for free and I have never run into a license issue.

    The only thing that I would like in terms of openness is a packaging license that allows the registered linux distributions to repackag

  • Sun officials believe that by making the source codes open to developers

    Sun still doesn't "get" open source. Check out this interview [com.com] on news.com with Scott McNealy, Sun's CEO.

    We have a strategy that's very different from everybody else's, and it's community development. The way we say that is with the S curve in all our new literature. It's not for Scott, it's not for Sun, it's for "share." We're grabbing that word and saying, of anybody, we own the word "share." We own that space.

    The oxymoron app

  • Being kind of open-source is like being kind of pregnant.

    Look, either we can see the source for Java or not.

    In this case, it's a not.

    Sun: Thank you, come again.
    • Being kind of open-source is like being kind of pregnant.

      No. That analogy does not work at all.
      Lets say sun open sourced 90% of its APIs under a license that everyone loves. That would help projects like GCJ and gnuclasspath quite a bit.
      Java isn't one giant self contained executable that we need the source code to.
      There are plenty of parts that would be helpful.

  • It would have been nice if the Sun Java App Server could have become an Apache project instead of a CDDL project. It would have been a perfect match for Apache. But maybe that was asking for too much. Sun was very generous when they donated Tomcat to Apache back 1999 (and perhaps Sun's management thinks they were too generous since Tomcat forms the foundation for some products which now compete with Sun)

    Yes, I know that Geronimo is working under Apache to do an app server too, but they are still have a
  • It doesn't matter how many million lines of Java code Sun open sources as long as they still own the platform, and they do still own the platform:
    • Sun is the final arbiter of what constitutes a Java-compliant application. People incorrectly claim that Sun's control extends only over the trademark, but that's not true: they can keep you from shipping your Java implementation through patents and the licenses on their specifications if they don't like what you are doing, no matter what you call your Java.

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