JDK 1.2 and Hotspot have been delayed again. The new shipping dates are November 1998 and first quarter 1999. It's not a smart move as it will further discourage many Java developers. Let's hope that the alternative software offerings around will suffice to keep the wagon rolling.

mukesh agrawal writes "I'm surprised that this hasn't been played up much. But from the FAQ, it looks like JINI will be open source.
"Q: How will Jini technology be licensed?
A: To drive innovation for the vision of Jini and to gain rapid acceptance in the market the Jini source code will be open to the developer community, similar to Netscape's Mozilla model and Linux's GPL. To guarantee compatibility and quality a mark for commercial products is being considered. The specific details around the licensing model are still being finalized. A draft of the proposed license will be available in August. " " Very cool-good to see that Sun has seen the light of day.

As part of their 20,000 member drive, the Java Lobby is teaming up with the Java Journal to offer every one of their members a free subscription for a year. This offer is unlike most others in that people who live outside the US can also benefit... In related news, there's a rather interesting article about Java Virtual Machine performance showing that Linux has far to go. But has anyone performed a VolcanoMark test under Kaffe? On the other hand, TowerJ's native compiler does rather well... I wonder what performance Cygnus' offering will have (it's based on gcc and compiles native code).

Redhat's president Bob Young argues in an Internet World article that Java has not taken off, because it is not Open Source. Apparently the remedy for Redhat Linux will be including the latest version of Kaffe. With Kaffe and Jikes the ground would be covered. Let's just help and hope.

Rick Ross wrote in to tell us about another Java Lobby project. He says "Sign the JavaReady Petition Now! Support the Java Lobby's effort to get PC manufacturers and resellers to ship all new PC's with standard, compatible Java pre-installed. Your signature will help us prove to the major PC vendors that Java is an important factor in your purchasing decisions. Sign now, and please ask your friends and associates to sign, too!"

IBM has released an incremental Java compiler called Jikes. It's faster, produces more warnings, and might herald the porting of other IBM products to Linux, like their java-bytecode to native compiler (hint, hint). These products are the result of their researchers, rather than their product teams, which means that they can compete with the product line (like Visual Age for Java) yet be given away (no source).

Al writes "Today the Jazilla Project (a project to port the Mozilla source code to Java) passed a major landmark in it's development: Jazilla will now download documents over the web and display them in a Mozilla style front end (no rendering.... yet). Jazilla is written in pure Java using the JFC and a lot of hard work. Source code is frely available via ftp or CVS (CVSROOT=:pserver:cvs@cvs.jazilla.org:/cvsroot - cvs co javamozilla)."

Rogers Cadenhead writes"Marc Andreessen is evidently souring a bit on Java after the cancellation of Netscape's all-Java version of Navigator. "My joke is that a Java Navigator will have a lot of good attributes," Andreesen told Computer Reseller News. "It's slower. It will crash more and have fewer features. So you can do fewer things. It will simplify your life."

Compare this to the March 23, 1995, quote from Marc Andreesen in the San Jose Mercury News that gave a huge boost to then-unknown Java: "What these guys are doing is undeniably, absolutely new. It's great stuff. There's so much stuff people want to do over the network that they haven't had the software to do. These guys are really pushing the envelope."

Michael McDonnell writes "An Esther Dyson startup in Poland called NetBeans has a new Java IDE. The 'enterprise' flavor of the IDE sounds very cool because it supports distributed applications based on RMI. You can use this product to edit and customize itself (you gotta love javabeans). It runs on Linux (and other platforms) of course. "

According to UK based Electronics Weekly, Sun is considering relaxing the terms of the Java license. No precise details were available. (Access to the site requires cookies (boo) and registration (boo)).

Snoop Baron writes " Sun has put up an article in honor of Java's 3rd official Birthday (May 23, 1998). It gives a brief history of the technology up till today. I think it's definetly worth a read. "

It's happening again! Sun bug list has a new bug for people to vote on and A Linux Port is on the list. It has recieved hundreds of votes already, but if you want an official Linux JDK port, go express your opinion. This happened before, but with no success, but perhaps this time we can drum up enough votes to convince Sun that Linux has earned it.

Craig Maloney has written up a great review of Java Game Programming for Dummies availible through Amazon.com. If you are interested in a book that is useful for both beginners or want to know more, click below.

Jason Murray writes " Wired has an article that talks about a free Java OS. They say it openly developed and freely distributed." I'm amazed by how much People are still hammering on this JavaOS thing. Anyway the article talks a bit about BeOS and Linux as well. It's worth a skim.

Maciej Stachowiak writes " This article at wired explains how Microsoft might leave Java out of it's base browser download for IE 5.0, forcing users to load a separate plugin when they want to view java content. This is an attempt to push java down to the same status as activeX and browser plugins, i.e. most users will ignore it because they have no desire to download additional software. " On the flip side, this means that alternate Java environments (Kaffee? the Sun JVM?) could be coded up as plug-ins to offer a true standard Java implementation that would allow IE users to use a standard Java VM instead of MS's less-than-pure implementation.

Andrew Newton wrote in to tell us that The Java Activator is now available. Basically this little gem allows you to use a simple plugin to run the official Java VM instead of your browsers built in one. Theoretically this is more compatible. Looks pretty cool.

cpg wrote in to give us this infoworld article about JavaSoft, the trouble they've been having, and their plans to reorganize things to better handle the competition. And for competition, they actually mention free software Java VMs as being an issue. Kinda cool.

Paul Dwerryhouse writes "Infoworld have done a report on the existence of a number of free Java Virtual Machine implementations. Both Kaffe and Japhar have been mentioned. Mind you, I'm always surprised by the way journals describe such products as "weakening Sun's control of Java" - I'd always thought the point of Java was that Sun would make their money by licensing the name and by "providing the best Java environment" - ie, enabling real competition."

From Os News, HP is reconsidering its decision to gather a set of partners and set up its own standards process. Instead it will work with Sun to make a common Embedded Java standard. Then again, as a reader pointed out maybe not.

Maciej Stachowiak wrote in with this story over at LAN Times where you can read one writers opinion on MS's mutiliation of Java. I read this article and was just amazed by it. The writer has taken the Java Mantra of write once, run anywhere, and just said screw it, Windows is the only platform that matters. Wow. I'm glad that Sun has been having good luck at getting the Java logo of MS products, I just wish it would help convince people that J++ isn't really Java anymore.