Dave Shields of Jikes e-mailed me to report that while Jikes did not win the award for best compiler (who did?), Transvirtual's Kaffe VM won the best VM category, beating Sun and Microsoft. I'm happy to see Tim Wilkinson getting recognition -- I remember him from the fledgling days of Kaffe 0.1... On a side note, only 3200 of you have downloaded Jikes' source code within the first day. What are you waiting for? ;-) The previous record for Jikes in binary form was a whole 500. Anyone else know who won what at the JavaWorld Awards? update Apparently Symantec won best compiler.

ikky writes "This problably falls into the "We've-had-enough-of-Java-in-the-past-few-days", but here we go anyways. Seems like SUN has decided that the new JDK (officially launched today) will be named Java 2. Also the link provides some insight into SUN's OSS plans for Java. Great news for OSS! And it comes just after the Jikes release... " As an aside, thanks to Jason Y. Sproul for our spiffy new Java Icon. We've been running with that crappy blob thing ever since that whole Invaders/Java thing quite some time ago. Update! S: Here's Tim O'reilly's (and others) reaction(s) to the opening (but not open-sourcing) of Java.

Seems like people have been reading slashdot again... Sun apparently wants developers to know that it will not enforce the clause in its binary licensing agreement that prohibits the publication of benchmarks of the JDK 1.2, now called Java 2. Apparently you should be seeing a 20 percent speed improvement with the new JDK.

Jikes has been released as Open Source today, under the following pretty unrestrictive licence, which has been endorsed by Bruce Perens of Open Source. This is a big step since Jikes is a leading Java compiler and is really fast. It also signals the first Open Source license that IBM has crafted, this being their original code. I hope this will be the beginning of a successful relationship between IBM and the Open Source community. Read below the slashdot exclusive nerd announcement from Dave Shields, one of the Jikes co-authors and the open-source contact for Jikes.

Gavin Scott wrote in to send us a short excerpt from the JDK 1.2 License agreement. It says "You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun." Does this bother anyone besides the several of you that submitted it?

Deepak Saxena was the first to write in with this week's Cringley Pulpit. A little startup company called Eolas has received patent 5,838,906 on November 17th... a patent that covers use of embedded program objects (applets) within Web documents, the use of any algorithm that implements dynamic, bi-directional communications between Web browsers and external applications, and even the whole concept of executable content, which is at the very foundation of Java and ActiveX. Cringely argues that since companies must provide their share-holders with maximal value, and Microsoft has the deepest pockets of any company, Microsoft could offer to pay a high price for an exclusive license from Eolas, and let Eolas earn big bucks by suing everyone else for abuse of their patent. Clearly a coalition of players could bid against Microsoft, but perhaps a call for prior art (pre-1993) is needed: when, for instance, was Corba invented? Thanks to Acheron, here is the patent's URL on IBM's patent server.

Snoop Baron writes " The Java Lobby is holding a poll on their front page along with a discussion thread on the question: Should Sun make Java open source? Expect a lot of Java stories next week as the Java Business Expo starts on Monday. Of particular interest are the Java World awards, where many products that run on Linux are finalists: IBM Research's Jikes, Tower J's fast commercial native Java compiler, the GPL'd Kaffe VM, Metroworks' IDE (soon), JDK 1.2 (soon). It's interesting how stong IBM's showing is with 7 entries beating Sun's 5.

AbsurdSnore writes "Javasoft is carrying a new feature about the Virtual FishTank installed at The Computer Museum in Boston which is powered by Java. Is this the best looking Java application yet? "

Veteran reviewer SEGV has sent in his latest literary exploit, a review of Doug Lea's book Concurrent Programming in Java: Design Principles and Patterns. Not exactly a book for the beginning, this is design for those of you who know their way around Java, and are looking to firm up your theory base. Given the recent lawsuit end, it appears that a lot more attention is being focused on Java again. Let's trya nd get some real programming done for it.

The head of the Java lobby pleaded with Sun yesterday to open up the language development process. Recent friction between Sun and Embedded Systems manufacturers was also due to the feeling Sun had too much of a controlling interest in the language, and was not addressing the needs of its partners.

petergun wrote in to send us a note from Sun's Website which says "Sun is working closely with the Linux community on enabling a port of JDK 1.2. This port will enable full-featured Java technology-based applications to run on the Linux operating system. (November 2) "

WebTV, which is owned by Microsoft, has dropped support for Java within the product. This means that those on WebTV will /not/ have the ability to use Java over this. While WebTV hasn't exactly been a stellar success, this does hurt it even more with users. WebTV maintains that the drop is for cost reasons, and not part of the bad blood between Microsoft and Sun.

choir boy is curious about the following: " I'm working with a group of people who are seriously considering writing a nifty application that would, among other things, allow those of us who want to use Linux in the corporate world to be able to interact with those people who simply insist on using Microsloth products (such as Outlook). We're considering a bunch of options, Java being one of them. My question is... is the JDK 1.2 being ported to Linux?"

Metrowerks have released a JIT for LinuxPPC, and a source code license allowing people to modify it, and post patches or binaries -- but not the full source. Note that only people from the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the European Union (only those countries in it today) will be granted this license. Also the license only lasts a year. Ed Blackdown is apparently happy over this, but I find the restrictions over length and countries very distasteful. kaffe is an OpenSource alternative.

Ray Cromwell writes " There's a new story on news.com called Microsoft's Holy War on Java detailing the efforts Microsoft has gone through to derail Java. As someone who used Intel's JMF, I can tell you it is a loss. Let's hope Sun wins the case." The lengths to which Microsoft went to make Java into a lone lame duckling are quite incredible: adding extentions to Java on Windows which other Javas lack, convincing Intel to drop its Java work, buying other companies that had key technologies Sun was interested in using, etc.

The San Jose Mercury news is suggesting that Sun may be thinking of making the JDK open-source. Ed: Had they done this earlier their "write-once, run-everywhere" motto might now be true. Trying to keep everything proprietary probably cost them an early victory. Sharing and letting everyone participate may have resulted in lower expected profits but also in some profits. Right now IBM has more people working on Java than Sun, while HP has more experience in some fields Sun is trying to develop definitive APIs for. Although late, openness could restore Java's momentum.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's official. Sun and Microsoft will be facing in court over Java. It all ties back to the 1996 licensing change that Sun says MS violated. Details are sketchy right now, but this will be an interesting one to watch.

Drew Bertola wrote in to let us know Tom Tromey and some of the other guys at Cygnus have the basics of a development enviornment for Java going, including a gcc front end called gjc (which cannot yet create Java executables). The software is being integrated into EGCS. Check it out. (Sorry about the gcj mistake - I had a bit of a headache at 2am)

R-2-RO writes " Sun has a neat little article called A Gallery of Games in Java Technology. Topics in the article include Luring Consumers with Games, Why Java Technology Suits Games, Dodging Barriers in Multiplayer Games, New Dimensions: 2D and 3D, Building Interactive Communities, Going Beyond C++, and What Java Technology Brings to Gaming "

Herb Wolfe Jr. writes "I found an article about Symantec's AntiVirus Research Center finding a java virus. Basically, it attaches to a .class file. More info on the virus itself can be found at Symantec "