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Sun Demurs On Open-Source Java 209

Posted by timothy from the titles-redone-at-great-expense dept.
Tarantolato writes "A Sun spokesman and James Gosling now say that there are no set plans to distribute Java under an open-source license. According to Gosling, 'the debate is still going on, fast and furious'. Concerns about forking are cited, as usual."
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Sun Demurs On Open-Source Java More

Sun Demurs On Open-Source Java

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  • I am now convinced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Micro$will ( 592938 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:05PM (#9345403) Homepage Journal
    that Sun is more mixed up than a fart in a fan factory. Free hardware, no, free Java, no free Java.

    • Time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by persaud ( 304710 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:13PM (#9345454)
      A change of thought often requires a change of guard. Time brings both.

      • Re:Time (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05, 2004 @07:15PM (#9347319)
        Yeah, but speaking as an -employee- of Sun, the time it is taking to change the guard is starting to kill us. At the Director level and _below_ there are a lot of good folks, but above the Director level (including Director+VP level) they just need to go. And we all know that won't happen until the top level is chopped.

        And I keep thinking it will happen after every RIF and annual loss, hell, that thought is what keeps many of us here because we -know- what we could do if things were going in the directions they should.

        I would caveat this with saying that I think Schwartz should stay, but I am starting to believe that his support of Open Source and Linux as mass-market sellers is a facade. However out of the entire upper echelon I would want him to stay over all others.

        Sun has gotten in the feedback-loop track. They make a sweeping change in the -lower- ranks and if it doesn't fix things by the next analyst meeting, they do it all over again. The problem is that the core issues are driven by the upper ranks _and_ you can't measure success or failure of strategic level changes in a couple of quarters. If you change over and over again you never find out which of those changes will actually work. A number of businesses (media outlets especially as relates to ratings/sweeps) are susceptible to this, but I have never seen a player in Tech succumb to it quite so badly.

        Natch I will be clicking the "Post Anonymously" button!

    • Re:I am now convinced (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:16PM (#9345471)
      Actually, it seems to me that after several years of drifting aimlessness they are finally in the process of making a firm decision about whether to make a complete shift away from being a hardware/software/service company to being a pure service company. I think it is normal for there to be disagreement and confusion within the company about when, if and how this is going to happen. What I find disconcerting is how much of this is making it out into the public. Don't these people clear with PR before voicing all these claims? Honestly, all these conflicting reports are just plain unprofessional.

      • I wonder if Alice works there... (Score:4, Funny)

        by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:20PM (#9345492) Homepage

        Given how your comment about decision-making reminded me of todays Dilbert [dilbert.com].

      • Honestly, all these conflicting reports are just plain unprofessional.

        And in most companies grounds for termination. I expect this to happen soon if they want to maintain a shred of credibility.

      • Re:I am now convinced (Score:5, Insightful)

        by red floyd ( 220712 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:48PM (#9345655)
        I think you're right. I worked for Litton Data Systems for 17 years (disclaimer, Litton is now part of NorthropGrumman). During that time period, they were (unsucessfully) making the transition from being a hardware shop that did software as well, to a software and integration shop for COTS hardware and software.

        There was a lot of pain until the older upper management left (or was encouraged to leave).

        That sort of shift can kill a company, but if it survives it is much stronger (cf. IBM).

      • Re:I am now convinced (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Nestafo ( 777210 )

        Don't these people clear with PR before voicing all these claims?

        So the Java source should be open for the public but the decision processes should not?

        I would not call this a disagreement. Even though Sun owns Java, there are many other members in the Java community as well. By creating discussion, everyone can state their opinions and Sun gets valuable information to support their decisions.

        I think openness involves much more than just source code, and out-of-the-blue strategical moves certainly would

      • What I find disconcerting is how much of this is making it out into the public. Don't these people clear with PR before voicing all these claims? Honestly, all these conflicting reports are just plain unprofessional.

        I reckon it was some 'nobody' in Australia getting interviewed, running his mouth off and not realising he was getting quoted. Now HQ is scrambling to cover for him.

        Seriously, didn't they just have their big quarterly shindig that week in China? Yeah - here [sun.com] it is. So if he was important he wo

    • Re:I am now convinced (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Decaff ( 42676 )
      Java is free. You can download it for nothing. You can distribute the runtime for nothing.

      Free != Open Source
      • It's free now.

        Will it be free tomorrow?

        mumble... moveable type... mumble...
      • > You can distribute the runtime for nothing.

        No you can't. You may only distribute the runtime as a part of a larger software package that REQUIRES the JRE. What you can't do is distribute it with a Linux or BSD distribution. Which is why I don't have one installed right now, haven't felt any need to go through the bother just to see Java ads in my browser.

        If anyone can explain Sun's logic behind restricting the widest possible distribution of the JRE I'd certainly love to hear it.
    • Oh please.

      Some idiot "evangalist" for Sun spouts off saying something that he wasn't authorized to, and people act like it's the "official word".

      Have you ever met one of these guys? They're just regular engineering types that wandered a little to close to marketing for their own good.

      These guys have no authority any more than any other engineer from any other company. You can bet he got his ass in a sling for doing it too; the same as would happen at any other company.
  • Right now, Sun is acting like a headless chicken, running into Microsoft and one end of the court, pecking its way back into the Free Software side. It's ridiculous, really.

  • I've said this long ago... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by midifarm ( 666278 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:08PM (#9345421) Homepage
    Apple needs to just bite the bullet and acquire Sun. The bonus of this would be owning SGI and Cray. Any thoughts?

    Peace

    • ....and why is that a bonus for apple? sun/sgi/cray are all dealing with dwindling marketshare... apple has their own company to worry about.

      • Re:I've said this long ago... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by midifarm ( 666278 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:16PM (#9345472) Homepage
        I think the cornering of the high-end graphics market would be good in itself. It would be a good lead in for the enterprise market and potential x86 out roll of OSX (if they desired such a thing) Apple likes buying companies that do cool little things, how about once a BIG cool thing?

        Peace

        • Apple is perfectly capable of releasing an X86 version of OS X without Sun's assistance, however they certainly won't be doing it any time soon. It is a product to help them sell their HARDWARE, because apple is a HARDWARE company. If you can run OS X on a white-box PC, you have taken away one of the major selling points of macs.

          As far as high-end graphics goes, Sun/SGI seems to be the early 90's must-have.... these days those who would have once bought an SGI are now buying macs to run Maya or what hav
        • ...and potential x86 out roll of OSX

          Yeah, right after Mad Max 4 hits theaters, Duke Nukem Forever reaches store shelves, and BeOS reaches 90% desktop market share. In other words, not in our lifetime.
        • The high end graphics market has really shifted away from these big iron sorts of machines in last several years. PCs (and clusters of them) have really eaten away at the market companies like SGI once held in high end graphics workstations. The increased power of desktop PCs and ubiquity of GPUs has really closed the performance gap (although the price gap does remain, which is why companies like SGI are struggling) between these systems.

    • OS X + Java and Apple and Servers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by idonotexist ( 450877 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:21PM (#9345498)
      What is interesting is Apple's integration of Java into OS X [apple.com] (into the OS X System Architecture [apple.com]), in addition to cooperation with Sun (i.e., allowing OS X specific attributes into Sun's Java).

      These are unusual developments because they are not seen between any other OS and Sun.

      Certainly, Apple has an interest in Java and, while holding a very small server market share, increasing its server presence. Merely that Apple is not associated with the server market and Sun is, may be very valuable to Apple.

      Certainly a relationship between Apple and Sun does exist. How far that relationship develops will be interesting to see.
    • Apple needs to just bite the bullet and acquire Sun

      How Ironic! Back in the 90's rumour had it that Sun was out to aquire Apple

    • The idea has been brought up before, the problem being that Sun is a bigger company financially, than Apple. Apple can't acquire Sun, they would have to merge.
    • It's not going to happen, as Microsoft is an investor in Apple.
    • What the heck does Sun have to do with SGI or Cray?

  • Is it any wonder? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DoctorDeath ( 774634 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:08PM (#9345423)
    Is it any wonder why they are losing business, money, and on the stock market?
    • Losing Money? Like the huge amount they just got paid as a legal settlement from Microsoft; enough to keep them in business for a very long time?

      Losing business? Like the new and increasing demand for Java Desktop? Like their rapidly expanding software services division?

      *sigh* more Slashdot wishful thinking and FUD.

  • If forking is a concern... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:09PM (#9345426) Journal

    ...then perhaps they should look at why projects forks? If they can manage to spot things that might lead to a fork early on, they can adress it in a way that benefits everyone as well as avoids forks.

    Off course, that also requires whoever is responsible for the code to be able to work with others...

    • Re:If forking is a concern... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) * on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:28PM (#9345543)
      ...then perhaps they should look at why projects forks?

      Because Sun suspects that the Open Source crowd are only interested in the source for what they can get about it. They think that if they opened say Solaris, immediately the "good" parts of it would be copied into Linux and Solaris itself would get nothing out of the deal. Since Linuxes home platform is x86, not SPARC, they'd just be helping Intel's and Dell's sales by doing so.
      • They think that if they opened say Solaris

        Well, that is exactly what they are about to do:
        http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/applications/0,39001 094,39181540,00.htm

        This is not a rumour - it comes right from the top.
      • If the licence allows code to be copied into Linux or whatever, doesn't it also allow code to be copied from Linux or whatever? Maybe Sun can gain directly from this, too?

        • Re:Two ways? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by stiffneck ( 785847 )
          Don't take this the wrong way, I'm a linux user myself (and also Solaris and OpenBSD in rare occasions in a past job) BUT, is there even something in Linux Sun would want to copy?

    • Re:If forking is a concern... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:30PM (#9345557)
      ...then perhaps they should look at why projects forks?

      Projects fork because the software doesn't support new features which are required, or have more features than are required for a particular application.

      For example, one version of an application my not support multithreading. In that case, a fork is performed and the multithreading code is added. To merge the projects in the future, the differences are identified and #ifdef'ed. Another example is the case in which a desktop application is being ported to an embedded system. The embedded system GUI (PDA's) may not support all the features of the desktop GUI, and so use of these has to be removed and compensated for.

      Already, JAVA has two variants; Embedded Java (J2ME) and Enterprise Java (J2EE). The language has not changed, but there are whole set of API's available: Foundation classes (JFC), Media Framework (JMF), Advanced Imaging (JAI), Java 3D API (J3D), to name but a few. The existance of all of these reduces the likelyhood of any fork from occurring, since the features are already supported. So long as the entire system is split up into small sections, developers can choose which components to support. Sun could always refuse to provide any assistance to anyone who needlessly forked the Java programming environment (they could set up a certification program, and refuse to certify any application which did this).
    • Heck, if forking is a concern, then they should see the writing on the wall and open source Java as soon humanly possible.

      There'd be no better way to nip potential feature drift in the bud in the gcc [gnu.org], IBM [ibm.com], etc re-implimentations of Java in the bud than to open up Java. Yes, the compilers are going to be different, but noone in their right mind is going to reimplement a reasonably licensed set of libraries, and that's where almost all the real meat is in Java.
    • Code forks because Microsoft wants to take over or fragment the market by creating an incompatible implementation, as it has done before. I think that's what Sun's primary concern is.

      Anyway, why is this so difficult? Can't they just add a term to an open source license that says that compatibility has to be maintained in some form and to some degree, verifiable by third parties? Sure, this brings up the issue of how to test for that, but that's what the compatibility test set is for, right? If someone

      • Can't they just add a term to an open source license that says that compatibility has to be maintained in some form and to some degree, verifiable by third parties?

        They don't even need to do it in the license, they can do it just fine with trademarks. Look at how the Open Group manages the Unix trademark and decides who can call themselves "Unix" and who can't. And the Open Group has a tougher job, because they're trying to unify what was previously divided, and what is currently multiple separate and

        • They don't even need to do it in the license, they can do it just fine with trademarks.

          I'm not so sure. Assuming that Microsoft is the one Sun's worried about, MS has enough clout and money to circumvent the trademark issue. They could just call it J++ or whatever and say that it's an improved form of Java (but not Java, in small print).

          I'm not sure Unix is a great example either. Case in point: GNU/Linux (hint: GNU's Not UNIX). With enough following or market force (of which Microsoft has both), th

    • Hmmmm, ...then perhaps they should look at why projects forks? If they can manage to spot things that might lead to a fork early on, they can adress it in a way that benefits everyone as well as avoids forks.
      Assume that I have some significant new and wonderful improvement to MySQL, coded debugged and tested. Other than minor issues with the name MySQL, forking is essentially trivial. I fork and it's now me and a few others versus MySQL AB and the rest of the world. Bad odds. I can try to keep updating to
  • Sun's going kepp on waffling until the last of their money left over from the dot-com boom is gone.
    Expect some real decisions made in desperation as they run out of money but for right now there's definitely a leadership problem at that company.

  • Sun at the right angle? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ignatus ( 669972 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:15PM (#9345470)
    Given the fact that they claimed to release parts of solaris as open source [nytimes.com] I seriously doubt the honesty of Sun (both their pro and contra opensource actions). It looks to me as if they are trying to make a fuss about it in order to get in the news. I really hope i am wrong, and that this is the result of a doubting management at Sun, lost in the dilemma to encorporate opensource or not.

  • Sun's like my Grandma (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:18PM (#9345481)
    Sitting on the front porch, arguing with herself.

    The only difference is, Sun is losing those arguments!

  • make their own virtual machine and bytecode, and then make mods to existing language compilers to complie to bytecode the OSS virtual machine can run.

    Then make a plug-in for Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and others and leave the IE plug-in up to Microsoft to adopt and create.

    Imagine a virtual machine that can run code made from C, C++, Python, Smalltalk, Perl, XBasic, Real BASIC, Delphi/Kylix, Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL, and other languages in a bytecode format.

    If Sun won't do it, screw Sun and shut them out!

  • Publicity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by eeg3 ( 785382 )
    Sun seems to be doing a wonderful job of creating publicity for itself despite accomplishing anything. That's pretty clever, if they just keep announcing stuff then deannouncing for the publicity they stir up. I'd still like to see Java opened, but this furthers the thought that it just won't happen. Not any time soon, atleast.

  • C# and Market Standards (Score:3, Insightful)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:22PM (#9345502)
    (tinfoil)I'm sure the risks of someone "embracing and extending" are considerably lessened now that Microsoft is out of the picture.(/tinfoil)
    But seriously, all Sun has to do is respond correctly to the market over time to maintain their leadership role with an open-source Java. If they can be like Linus then their code will be the reference everyone accepts otherwise some other player will eventually fill their role as the de-facto implementation.

  • Sun, get a roadmap! This marketing is killing you. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:23PM (#9345508) Homepage
    Sun can't seem to get it's act together--
    even though Java is improving (1.5 is *much* better)
    and the upcoming chips look good as well.

    My opinion: Sun's own marketing is screwing them.
    A deal with Microsoft? I could believe it, if Sun
    could explain it and what it means for developers.
    Java open or closed, both ways have pros & cons--
    so pick one, stick to it, and give us a roadmap!

    -A former Sun Javasoft employee

  • What's the forking problem? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 ) <tim.almond@NETBSDgmail.com minus bsd> on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:25PM (#9345524) Homepage
    Surely, forking only occurs when either a project can sensibly go in two directions, or if the maintainers of the main project give up on it?

    I don't see many forks of Open Office or Perl out there.

    • Surely, forking only occurs when either a project can sensibly go in two directions, or if the maintainers of the main project give up on it?

      Maybe in a perfect world, but in the real world forking also occurs when there's money to be made or lost. Surely Java's enemies would love to encourage forking it (if it were possible) simply to undermine the portability of Java code (Java's best feature).
    • "I don't see many forks of Open Office or Perl out there."

      To fork Perl, you'd have to understand its source-code.

  • Can't they fight unwanted forks with trademarks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:26PM (#9345529) Homepage Journal
    According to Sun, Java and JVM [sun.com] are registered trademarks. Since Sun owns the trademarks, can't they fight the unwanted forks by exercising the trademark laws?

    The forks that are compliant and please Sun Micro can use Java(tm) and can distribute JVM(tm). The forks that Sun doesn't really care about and the ones that pollute the Java world would just have to be something different, call them Jaba, Jamboree or something else, but no one is allowed to use the trademarked terms without Sun's permissions.
    • ... but I have yet to see it ever addressed by any statement made by Sun.

      Why is that, exactly?

    • I've been saying this since the whole idea of OSS Java came up. It's a simple but excellent solution to prevent (non-amicable) forks.

      Why doesn't anyone else (but the parent poster) seem to see this?
    • As I said in a previous post, when you're talking about Microsoft, which is really whom we're talking about, the trademark isn't as strong. Microsoft has enough money and clout to put out something that's close enough to draw people in but different enough to thwart Write Once, Run Anywhere, and to have it be adopted under a slightly different name. Take GNU (GNU's Not Unix), for example. Close, but not actually UNIX. GNU has an incentive to be compatible with UNIX. MS has a counterincentive to be comp
      • All MS has to do is call it MUNJ (Microsoft UN-Java) or J++ and say it's better than Java but not actually Java and bundle it with Windows and now you have a divided market, with half the Java software only working on Windows.

        J# is alive, and although never terribly popular, it's still sponsored by MSFT as a way to migrate existing Java code to .NET platform.

        Still there are few J# shops and companies "developing effective J# solutions", you're either Java, or .NET (meaning C#, not some bastardized half-l

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LittleLebowskiUrbanA ( 619114 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:26PM (#9345530) Homepage Journal
    From Jonathan Schartz's bio at sun.com

    "Mr. Schwartz also re-established Sun on the desktop with launch of the Java Desktop System which has quickly become the industry's number one desktop alternative"

    Since when? They can't commit to Open Source anywhere, you have a user agreement the size of the bible with their company-branded Linux distro that's at least a year behind the times and Redhat's new corporate desktop is going to make Sun's "Java" system another joke on Slashdot. Never seen such a leadership problem in my life. Conflicting press statements every damned month.

  • Sun needs to see a doctor (Score:3, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:36PM (#9345585) Homepage Journal
    It has a bad case of schizophrenia.

  • Who needs Sun. Open Source alternatives exist (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The world hasn't been standing still waiting for Sun to make up its mind. The hacker community has been busy as bees cooking up some Open Source Java. Here is complete rundown. [sourceforge.net]

  • Do it Sun! We want a fork! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ChiralSoftware ( 743411 ) <info@chiralsoftware.net> on Saturday June 05, 2004 @02:38PM (#9345600) Homepage
    Forks are good! Forks mean difference and diversity. Difference and diversity means exploration of new ways of doing things. Maybe someone will fork Java and add in a totally new way of doing graphics rendering, or disk access, or network access, or maybe someone will make the JVM into a Linux kernel module or something that runs directly on hardware without an OS, or it will run on other OSes (OpenBSD for example). There are so many possiblities including possibilities that no one has thought of right now. All of these are forks to some degree and who knows what the result of them will be.

    The reason why forks are not dangerous is because people will still want to write "standard" Java code, no matter how many different strange Java-esque things there are.

    Linux is horribly forked. There are dozens of different distros, on dozens of different hardware platforms. There are many different kernels, and the different distros often have their own kernels with their own patches and changes. And here is a perfect example of a fork in Linux which has come back to help all of Linux: Because Linux was forkable, the NSA chose Linux to be the basis of its secure operating system, SELinux. SELinux is so strange and different from regular Linux that it wasn't compatible. It was a true fork, creating a different set of APIs that were mutually incompatible in many ways. The openness of Linux allowed this innovation to occur. It was something that Linus hadn't thought of years before it happened (I'm guessing). And yet it happened. And now, guess what, the work that was done in SELinux has been rolled into 2.6!

    So, we had open source software, which allowed a fork, which allowed for totally innovative, off-the-wall creative development, which turned out to be cooler than people would have expected, which then ended up getting un-forked back into the main codebase!

    If Sun open sources Java in the right way, that is exactly the kind of thing that will happen with Java, too. It's hard to prove this argument, because I can't say exactly what those innovative forks are going to be, becase they're things that people haven't thought of, but that's what will happen.

    So do it Sun!

    -------------
    WAP news [chiralsoftware.net]

    • The reason why forks are not dangerous is because people will still want to write "standard" Java code, no matter how many different strange Java-esque things there are.

      That is exactly why forks of something like Java are dangerous.

      The thing is, Java is a major part of the software industry today. There are companies who actively want to fork it and produce incompatible non-portable versions that become the de-facto standard: Microsoft.

    • The reason why forks are not dangerous is because people will still want to write "standard" Java code, no matter how many different strange Java-esque things there are.

      There's a possibility "standard" Java will mean the most popular distribution of Java, and if popularity varies greatly with time problems might arise. A situation similar to IE and CSS might also develop, where a bad effective standard prevents the adoption of the proper standard.

    • From reading the follow-up comments I can see that people are not completely clear on what "fork" means. Making a new type of JVM with a totally different network layer, but the same APIs (ie, the same java.*) would be a fork. Doing such a thing would not in any change the language or cause any bytecode compatibility problems and it would have no impact on the "write once, run everywhere" idea! It would just be a fork in the codebase. If someone has some innovative idea for how to enhance the performanc
    • The reason why forks are not dangerous is because people will still want to write "standard" Java code, no matter how many different strange Java-esque things there are.

      Sure, just like people want to write website that follow the standard, like most linux apps work perfectly on any system as long is has the right libs in the correct version, the correct version of gcc, the correct kernel version and the right package manager, just like C(++) is write once compile everywhere and like SQL statements that

  • still chugging litres of java, & still tired? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    try this strange brew [kombucha.org], that's good for you, & freely distributable too.

  • For me, the OSS community is what makes Java such a good platform. There are so many cool tools and APIs. On any one of my projects it seems as if more work has gone in to making the OSS tools that I import than whatever I use from closed packages. It's a shame Sun don't give these developers any credit.

    Even though I love Java I don't feel any particular loyalty to Sun and would prefer to not use their products. I just have no idea how near or far GCJ and the GNU Classpath are away from letting me do this.

  • Really, when you have so many disparate voices discussing the course for the future, shouldn't there be someone to focus them and come up with a strategy? Who lets these people get in front of a mic without clearing their announcements first?

    I am convinced Sun is dying. Not BSD dying, but real dying. Don't quote me on that.

  • They Probably Just Misread the Press Release (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @03:09PM (#9345746) Homepage Journal
    They probably meant to say "We now offer an open source Java." It's an easy mistake to make really, "not," "now," they're pretty close to each other after all. I'm sure it'll all be sorted out soon.

    Personally, and this is just me talking here, I rather prefer LISP to Java anyway. It seems to be a lot less awkward to use, without the confusing standard libraries that try to maintain backward compatability from the time the language was invented. Seeing as how it offers the same advantages as Java (garbage collected, objects, etc) I don't know why we don't just go that way.


  • The issue isn't forking, the issue is how to generate revenue.

    It's the usual balancing act: open sourcing software would have many benefits, but what effect will it have on revenue? For a company with revenue problems this is a legitimate concern.

    Forking isn't a big deal that they are making it out to be. They are using it as an excuse. Yes, yes, I know what MS tried to do to Java - note that not open sourcing it didn't stop them.

  • Regarding sun's current marketing tactics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by solid_liq ( 720160 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @03:21PM (#9345830) Journal

    I HAVE A PROPOSAL

    Ok, everyday, I get on the net and I see a story that Sun has announced something. Then the next day I read a story that Sun has backtracked on what they announced the previous day. Later that day, Sun makes a different announcement. The next day, they backtrack on that announcement. Later that day, they make another anouncement... And the cycle continuous.

    So, my proposal is this. For Sun stooping to such tactics, I say we teach them a lesson about continously blowing smoke up our collective ass by boycotting news from Sun until they stop constantly backtracking on their announcements and actually live up to a promise.

    Until then, I do not want to see any more news from Sun. I used to be interested in any news about the company. Now, however, I only think about how much internet bandwidth is being wasted by these fiction stories every time I see a Sun announcement.

    Please don't get me wrong, I would love to continue to hear news about Sun. I just don't want to hear any more lies.

  • Open Letter to Sin/Java Concerns GPL Licensing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hackus ( 159037 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @03:35PM (#9345906) Homepage
    It should be done immediately.

    I would like to say to any Sun employees that the very fate of your jobs hang in the balance here...if not the survivability of the company.

    If Java is not opened up gcj will replace it and you will loose relevance.

    As is now, gcj is on par with a good 85% plus of the Java class package sets for jdk 1.4.2 as well as native binary executables of Tomcat 4.x are just around the corner, if not produceable already.

    You can work with the Open Source community to define what Java will be in the future, or risk becomming a SCO placard if you decide to sue us later on for open sourcing the language itself.

    So, your fears about forking Java are already acting on that future by not doing so. Many like myself want to see gcj project move forward quickly due to Sun's questionable financial future and its historic reluctance from management to work with us.

    In the end the OSC will have what we want: complete ownership of our own source code and the absolute right for anyone to possess it when the sale of development or software shrinkwrap is completed.

    You can join with us and work toward setting standards for the language and the class sets...

    OR

    We will continue with gcj project backend for the gcc compiler toolsets and insure projects such as Tomcat and Jeromino have safe futures....with or without Sun Microsystems.

    We welcome all companies to join us on this crusade to liberate source code in the sale of software and services...and any company that joins us we will utilize such services they offer.

    The longer you delay, the further in doubt Sun's future existence is questioned and the more risk you put upon the open source projects.

    The OSC community will not tolerate the questionable future of Java very much longer given the spectacular decline of SUN in the past 4-5 years financially and the waffling of key technologists that have built the company. (Joy's on and OFF again relationship for example...)

    Investment of time and resources into the Apacje Tomcat project is too valuable now...

    Will you come with us or will we leave you behind?

    -Hackus
    • Open Letter to Sin

      A Freudian slip perhaps?

    • I would like to say to any Sun employees that the very fate of your jobs hang in the balance here...if not the survivability of the company.

      I'm sure they are listening to your every word. I'll bet they'll be calling you up any minute with a job offer based on your lucid analysis...

      If Java is not opened up gcj will replace it and you will loose relevance.

      Oh, gimme a break.

      The OSC community will not tolerate the questionable future of Java

      Well, blow me. I did not know that you were Lord High Chief

  • Where is the business case???!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @04:12PM (#9346102) Journal
    Kaffe [kaffe.org] has been developing an open source Java implemenation for a while now. There is GNU ClassPath, GCJ and a bunch of others.

    (i) Why aren't the people yelling for open source Java busy working on Kaffe and the others?

    It seems to me this is more of a "Sun, give us your code or you suck!" type of deal, than anything else.

    (ii) Who is going to put up the resources to continue to research and development the Java platform? If the open source community has not been successful in creating an open source java from scratch, what makes you think that we would be able to maintain and improve the technology?

    Netscape was talked into releasing and subsequently rewriting their flagship product as open source. That did not save them, in fact they spent a ton of money doing that. This move benefited the open source crowd ( I am writing this from mozilla ), but how did this help netscape?

    (iii) Has OpenOffice/StarOffice improved Sun's bottom line much? Any?

    Does anyone have a denfensible on plan on continuing the R&D of Java after open sourcing it? And I mean a business plan that is backed up by data?

    • I agree that there is a certain degree of immature "give us your code or you suck" attitude in the FOSS community; but more than that is at work here. Sun's public statements have become increasingly confusing and bizarre as of late (not just this: also similar dancing around open-source Solaris, the "Redhat is proprietary" fiasco, etc.) and people are just plain goddamn flabbergasted.

      BTW: do you have any idea what the current business plan is for Java? I sure don't.
  • What is Sun's problem? They have cited that redhat linux has been forked. However, there is still only one product that can be called redhat linux. Sun still retains trademark rights on the Java name and they can restrict what is called Java. In fact Sun can restrict the name Java being used with respect to programs and programming languages period.
    The fact is that of course there will be forks. Look at all the redhat forks. However, the fact is that those forks, Mandrake for example, ARE compa
    • This poster is beginning to break the problem down into parts that need to be handled separately.

      For the runtime part of Java, maybe what is needed is a license scheme that can parent copies of code licensed as both GNU and BSD.

      How about another level of licensing abstraction?

      Lets explore dual licensing for Java's runtime: the Java runtime and runtime modules ought to be dual licensed. A BSD style license is for Sun to create a family "run anywhere" runtime products for many operating systems. The same s

  • Open sourcing the Java Libraries and Solaris (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NZheretic ( 23872 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @10:21PM (#9348156) Homepage Journal
    It makes a lot of sense for Sun to open source the Java Libraries and Solaris Kernel [java.net]

    It's sound business for Sun to (A) Open source licensing the Java J2SE,J2EE and J2ME framework libraries ; and (B) Release a fork of the Solaris Kernel under the GPL license.

    It would benefit the entire Java based industry, including the free software, open source and proprietary based vendors, to open license the core J2ME,J2SE,J2EE libraries and Java to bytecode compilers.

    Java's primary strength, the ability to write code which is constantly portable across many vendors platforms, would be greatly enhanced if all of the vendors were using the same core libraries.

    To insure that the standard base core would not become polluted with incompatible forks, the source could be licensed with a clause requiring any incompatible changes or any additional classes or methods to be moved to and occupy only the vendors namespace. Another clause would require that the vendor version of the Java to bytecode compiler and any GUI IDE defaults to generating portable bytecode, without embedding any vendor specific references.

    The OSF definition of an open source license clause five explicitly states: "The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software."

    Developers and vendors would only be required to shift changes to the vendors/developers namespace if the changes were incompatible with the JCP JSR open standards. This would not prevent the development/distribution of additional optimizations, ports or bug fixes. Since adoption of standards has for a long time been an open source tradition, it would not be much of an imposition on the open source community.

    Vendors don't have to use *all* the same "core" libraries - just provide the same standard interface. The open source Java core can been seen as a starting common base. Each vendor would be free to "short circut" their implementation as long as the standard API behaviour remain the same. Vendors would still be free to compete on their JVM performance along with how well it performs interfacing data bases, integrated development tools, etc.

    Sun could require contributers to the Java Open Core to let Sun or the JCP dual license the result as Sun does with OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. If a vendor does not wish to disclose their modifcations then the vendor could pay for a closed source license scheme. The payment could then be split up amongst Sun, the JCP and the contributers.

    Ask IBM and HP what their customers are demanding and you will find out more often than not that it's vendor neutral/independent solutions. Customers don't want lock-in slavery anymore. That is why Linux is such a success and why there is more demand for Java skills than any other programming language.

    It should not be necessary to open source license Sun's JVMs. In the long run it could greatly benefit Sun to develop the JVM under a dual license as it doing with OpenOffice.org and selling StarOffice.

    Releasing a fork of the Solaris Unix Kernel makes even more sense when you consider Suns move towards commodity based hardware, like AMD's opteron, and enterprise desktop systems. Sun is going to need drivers to interoperate with x86 hardware and common peripherals. In comparison to Linux, the range and quality of hardware drivers available to Solaris is pitiful.

    If Sun can manage to get out from under the SCO Groups claims over the old AT&T code base, by dealing direct with Novell who still appear to hold the rights and copyrights, then Sun would be free to release a fork of the Solaris kernel under the GPL license.

    Sun would be then free to take any source code from the Linux kernel and incorporate it into the GPL'ed Solaris kernel fork. Sun would then free to deploy that kernel in desktop and clustered systems markets, where Linux currently does have a lead over Sun.

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