OpenOffice 2.0 Criticized on Use of Java 805
karvind writes "Yahoo is running a story on how OpenOffice 2.0 Faces Opposition over Its Use of Java. According the article: "The problem, according to some free software voices, is that OO.o relies too much on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s proprietary Java programming language in an open-source project. In particular, free software advocates are objecting to the use of Sun specific Java code for such OO.o 2.0 features as the new, Microsoft Access-like database management program, Base and Writer's (OO.o's word processor) document wizards." Linus Torvalds also moved to an open-source solution for software configuration management system."
It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, who is Linus Trolvalds?
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with him on his, "Everyone needs to be slowly dragged out of the not-free-as-in-beer arena, one finds it tough to imagine that rewriting these basic data-interaction Java classes is going to be easy to get done. The Access mirroring probably requires extensive use of this kind of API, and err.... Not the most glamorous of tasks... Since SUN's stuff is currently Free- As-In-Parking, one might think that getting people to do the redevelopment might be tough to motivate until really necessary.
A lot of parallels between this situation and the BitKeeper one, but rather than it being a third party tool it's a completely integrated API. One might think that this could be a problem in the future larger than the BitKeeper problem, were Sun to take a completely weird turn on things.... Suddenly needing to mirror an API's functionality - especially one as big as the entirety of the JVM's data-processing infrastructure.
So it seems Stallman has a very good point here. Can you imagine trying to, say, re-implement DirectX if Microsoft suddenly wasn't going to let you code using it? I don't know if this is a comparable task, but it's the only thing I can think of in my terms....
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
So Java's not open source; who cares. Out in the real world, no one cares whether Java is open source or not. Anyone can quickly obtain it with a couple of mouse clicks. If it enhances the functionality of OOo then why not use it?
The only worrisome thing is if Microsoft were to buy Sun and start slowly tightening the screws on Java. That would be awful and disastrous, but it's highly unlikely to occur given past history of anti-trust suits and such.
Now, what I'm really keen on is a version of OOo for PalmOS. That would be sweet. Why doesn't Sun cook that up while they're at it. Of course then they'll have to create a JVM for PalmOS as well. Also, we'll need Ghostscript, ghostview, xpdf, and a few other goodies to round out the Palm offerings. But with 600Mh processors, gigabyte-plus storage, and larger RAM, how hard can all this be to achieve?
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. C# runs at least as places Java 1.5 does, thanks to Mono/ASP.NET.
With Java, Sun's proprietary moving target policy means you're stuck between the "old standards" that Gnu's java and other non-licensees have, or the small handful of supported platforms from Sun and a couple licensees.
Thanks to Mono, with C# you're good anywhere you feel like cross-compiling to.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is that 99% of C# programmers only care about windows. Where as 99% of Java programmers could care less what platform they use.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have yet to meet a single programmer who works with mono "for pay". I would wager that 99.999999% of programmers who are getting payed to write C# are getting payed to write C# under windows. Can you say the same about Java? The Java projects I see are fairly well distributed between straight VM plays on windows or linux, or bundled into a platform like Oracle or Websphere. There is a lot of platform diversity in the Java arena, nearly none in the C# world AFAICT.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've used a variety of different versions of Linux and Windows on my desktop as suited my whim at the time. As you say, that's essentially irrelevant though; my code targets the JVM, not the Windows JVM or the Linux JVM or the Mac OS X JVM, just the JVM.
As it happens, I develop under the Sun JVM, but may well be deploying to that, or IBM's, or BEA's jrockit JVM. As long as it's the correct release, it's immaterial. (And in fact, sometimes I've not even *known* what JVM is being used in production)
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Insightful)
What about platforms where Sun does not provide a JVM? Those people will never be able to tun the full OOo, and the more Java used, the less they will be able to use. Will it eventually be zero?
This really is the problem. It ties OOo to only the platforms that Sun wants to support. Open java and the problem goes awa
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (So What) (Score:5, Insightful)
The JVM is a specification [sun.com] that may be implemented on different platforms as people are so inclined.
"Opening Java" will do nothing to address the problem of missing JVMs directly because the fundamental issue is one of demand. If you really need a JVM for your favorite toy OS, then start a project to build one.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Interesting)
You simply use a JVM from someone else. Use Apple's VM, or IBM's, or HP's, or BEA's.
Although Sun largely controls Java, it is by no means the only supplier of Java.
GCJ!! (Score:5, Informative)
Red Hat is paying people to support OOo 2.0 with GCJ. And GCJ 4.0 is already quite good... [lwn.net]
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
So, no. It will never be zero, and it's currently 100% usable without a JVM.
Doug
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Informative)
Well, let's see... OK, so what you're asking for is that Sun should write a standard for a slimmed-down version of Java, just for PDAs? Say, we could call it Java 2 Micro Edition [sun.com]? And maybe you'd want that standard to be implemented [lancs.ac.uk] on PocketPC machines?
Wait, it gets better. You can also find a full java implementation [blackdown.org] (Java 1.3) for iPAQ.
If you want something in between, there's also PersonalJava [sun.com]. It has more features than J2ME, but fewer than a full java. It's nearing end of life though, I'm not sure what will come out to replace it.
There are JVMs for PDAs and cell phones and yes, PocketPC too. They are a very good way of getting your software to run on many portable devices. The only downside is that your code will run slower than something hand-crafted for a particular type of device.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Informative)
This is an utterly uninformed statement. The JRE is indeed freely redistributable. [sun.com]
The whole point of the JRE is to allow developers to ship a runtime environment with their products, should a customer require it. If it were not freely distributable, few would develop for Java because there would be no guarantee that a customer would wish to download the JRE separately.
Regarding adding the JRE to OOo CD's that you pass on to customers, some people have done just that; google for this and you will find examples of people adding a JRE folder to the OOo iso.
Why would Sun restrict the distribution of JRE along with OpenOffice.org? It would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Informative)
1) The JRE is NOT freely redistributable. Therefore I can't legally add it to my OOo CD's that I pass on to customers and I have to make them download it first.
1) this is bullshit.
2) this is wrong.
3) this is FUD.
4) Sorry to say that
Why? Why do you think, there is a JDK and a JRE? Hm? Wow
Every software based on Java, to be bought on CD or DVD has an JRE bundled
angel'o'sphere
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Informative)
The ironic thing here is that Gnu has a Java compiler, gcj, *and* gcj is intended to ultimately become the Java solution for Open Office.
You'd think nobody knew there were open source Java implementations... Java is a great language, and there is
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the first "O" in OpenOffice stands for "Open", then having to rely on a particular company's implementation of Java is not a good thing. Look at the various Java apps written for Microsoft's version of Java, or webpages of the past that relied on vendor-specific extensions for examples of why that's not a good thing.
Any time a particular implementation that is *not* free (as in speech) becomes a defacto standard, everyone becomes tied to the whims of that vendor's implementation. True, Sun probably won't do anything drastic, but there's still a very real possibility that they won't see eye-to-eye with the OOo developer community on some random issue somewhere down the line.
I would rather have the fallout from such a situation be that Sun was left without the ability to force the developers into a move they didn't like, rather than having the developers be forced to fork and re-engineer the whole shebang or start over from scratch. That much work shouldn't get pissed away over something like that.
Again, that's a possibility, not a certainty, but why take chances?
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
Java code, in itself, is not bad. There is a need for a good, compile-once-run-anywhere format, and it seems Java has become the standard for this. Lots of people know how to code Java (in large part due to Sun's involvement in college curriculum,) and this is important, because when writing a piece of software, you want a large pool of knowledgable programmers to choose from. Lots of people know Java, and if Java fits your needs, you're gonna use it.
Java also makes perfect sense for the kind of stuff OO.o is using it for: basically "plug-in" features not central to the usage of OO.o, but still very useful. This is useful because of the large number of platforms supported by OO.o, they can just release an update to the java code and it will more or less run the same on every platform they support.
I think in the *nix arena, Java is more useful for application code because of the wide variety of OSes. Java VMs exist for pretty much every known architecture, and they were mostly written by the standards makers for Java (Sun) so they're gonna work pretty much the same. This involves a lot of trust in Sun, but it takes trust in some sort of standards-making body to unify any disjoint architectures. In any case, I trust Sun to start a project like this and stick with it over the years more than I do Stallman and the Free Software goblins.
The BitKeeper issue is different entirely; it was a commercial product being offered for free, with the possibility that it could be yanked out from under them at any time. There should have been background work on an eventual replacement for BitKeeper well before anything happened. Why is this different from the Java example? Because the OS kernel is totally different and there was no alternative. If Sun were to suddenly make Java pay-to-use, the programs could, for the most part, be rewritten in C++ with minimal effort (most of the work could be done in 15 minutes by a Lisp program.)
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is true, then why is there any reason to use Java at all? Convert to C++, gain huge speed increase, retain cross-platform compatibility with a simple recompile. Either Java is unneccesary or the conversion is more complex than you make it out to be. In the latter case, the "Java Trap" is very real, indeed, and very dangerous.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Would you speak to my group? We have a product we call 'Foomaster,' and we used a development approach you advocate to develop it."
"Only if you change the name of your product to Stallman-is-great:Foomaster."
"uhhh... no thanks. (maniac.)"
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to be correct the entire distro is the OS, and they should be called "linux kernal based or GNU/linux based whateverdistro 1.45923x".
Add to that the fact that anyone who disagrees with him is considered to have a moral defect and you have one grade A, USDA choice mainiac.Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, this isn't as far fetched as it seems.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Take the Open Office code.
2. Fork it.
3. Rewrite the java parts to be as "Free" as you like.
The great thing about OSS is you can do this.
There is NO comparison to BitKeeper. I have never heard that the Java agreement states that you can not work on a another VM or programing language if you use Java like BitKeeper did.
So if you want to complain but not do anything I suggest that you just use any of the free office style programs and stop complaining.
classpath (Score:5, Informative)
That's why GNU classpath & GCJ is important. It will provide us with a free (as in speech & beer) java VM for those who doesn't want to use Sun's VM (linux users, basically). Redhat is putting lots programmers & money behind of GCJ and collaborating with tons of community-based projects - they really want a free java. In fact, Redhat has some people hacking on GCJ to support openoffice's java features [gnu.org].
Actually, GCJ 4 is one of the GCC 4.0 greatest features, here is an article [lwn.net] about why it's so great. They've achieved almost all Java 1.4 important features and there's work ongoing to support 1.5.
And GCJ does support, in fact, MORE architectures and operative systems than Sun's propietary offerings - yes, more. It's what will make java truly palataform-independent. GCJ is part of GCC, so it supports the platforms that gcc supports - much more than Sun's VM or other propietary VMs
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Funny)
He's an imposter! A bad one at that. This has got to be microsoft FUD designed to scare people away from free solutions and back to their lovely products......(Microsoft Access-like database management program?)
Don't believe any of it. MS fud machine must have been freshly greased just for this one.
AGHHHHHHHH! WHERE'S MY TINFOIL HAT?????
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe, they would prefer to wait (Score:3, Insightful)
There's HypersonicSQL, that would have to be removed from its dev team, forked, and ported to a non java language. Then all of the code that uses it. I'm sure there's lots of other stuff.
So, we could add a year or more to the release and get the exact same features with the same performance, the same license (OOo license), and more bugs.
Yes, we could wait and get noth
Re:Maybe, they would prefer to wait (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty lame comment, given how much code RMS has actually written and given away over the years.
Re:It's not GPL'ed either! (Score:5, Interesting)
If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that OpenOffice is Sun's baby. They PAID MONEY FOR IT. (I know that's a foreign concept here, since the entire fraking world is supposed to be FREE for the fraking taking.) If you don't like the direction OpenOffice has taken, then go play with KOffice. Oh wait, you alreay pissed them off too. Is there anyone you people won't make an enemy of in your Quixotic quests of stupidity?
Apologies for the abrasiveness of this post, but crap like this deserves it. You've been given a gift and all you can do is look it in the mouth.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Insightful)
End of story. Would it be nice if it was based on an open source stuff? Yes. Is the open source stuff up to par in this case? no.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Interesting)
There's nothing wrong with wanting a completely free software stack, and I think there's generally less animosity out there than people are making it seem.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not that it uses Java, the problem is that it uses a bunch of classes that in the com.sun hierarchy - classes that are NOT part of the standard Java library, and that bind it explicitely to Sun's proprietary (source code available does not make it Free - many people have the source code for Windows) JVM. The developers have made zero effort to try to make it possible for Kaffe, GCJ, or the upcoming Harmony to be used for OpenOffice.
And yes, this is their right. If they wanted to drop everything but the Windows version, that would be their right too. If they wanted to stop development all together, or decide that future versions would be entirely proprietary, that would be their right too.
But you know what, it is perfectly reasonable to try to bring up that this is a glaring problem in the presentation of OpenOffice as a non-prorietary open office suite. The people who do so are not whining, or demanding, and they aren't being rude ASSHOLES (that would be you). They are simply putting light on a rather crucial issue.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, you mean developers working for free, have made zero effort to make their task more difficult?
Those jerks.
Why didn't they consult with us before giving us free software?
Don't they know that we care more about the choice of development language than functionality and bugs.
You can't seriously trust a developer to chose the implementation language for his or her project. Isn't it more appropriate for the users of software to decide the deveopment language. They are the ones who will get the binaries.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Insightful)
It is if they are spreading FUD, and a lot of people here are. "Undocumented Sun only Java libraries" my ass. The code is open for anyone to look at. See what Kaffe, GCJ or Harmony is missing and implement that instead of wasting time bashing Sun.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Point of order... (Score:5, Informative)
Whether they say it in the article or not, it happens to be the case. Here [debian.org] is a post by the main Kaffe developer about it. I quote:
>import sun.security.provider.*;
>import sun.security.provider.SystemIdentity;
>import sun.security.provider.SystemSigner;
Not implemented and most probably won't be. These are
the JDK 1.1 undocumented (actually sun mentions them
in an example in the java security architecture paper,
but explicitely recommends staying away from it) key
management apis. Sun has deprecated the corresponding
classes in java.security with java 1.2, and uses
different key management facilities. Open office
developers should know better, as they are supposed to
be using java 1.3, right?
[lots of other imports of sun.* and sunw.* classes]
Anyone using sun.* classes doesn't _want_ to be
portable accross VM releases/implementations. Someone
(either the open office developers, or the debian
developers wanting to build open office using free
software) should clean up the sun.* mess. I wouldn't
want to implement sun.* classes just to suit someone
else's bad programming style, and I don't know anyone
who does
Re:Point of order... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Si vous pardon mon Français (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe SUN _truly_ believes as you do: That they're doing the world a favor. That SUN is doing the virtuous thing with SUN JAVA.
However, I would hope that someone at SUN- and others like yourself- would notice that maybe, JUST MAYBE, there's a motivation behind all this mistrust, and a reason why Free Software advocates feel threatened by SUN JAVA.
And while we're mak
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that there can be no criticism of Sun because they've provided a "gift" is silly. If you make a gift of pork to someone whose beliefs say "don't eat pork," should they thank you and chow down? Granted, the analogy doesn't hold in the end, because in this case, Free Software types can try to turn the pork into chicken (Kaffe, gcj, etc.). That doesn't make them ASSHOLES either.
As for what you falsely label "abrasiveness" (it's actually something much deeper), if you have this level of intolerance for opposing views, well, there are words to describe people like you. You already seem to know one of them. Remember to turn the caps lock on.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Insightful)
If it offends your sensiblities that Sun gives the product of years of its effort and millions of it's dollars away in ways which are "free" in many different senses except for your special definition of "free", then be my guest and don't use it.
You ARE an asshole for suggesting that something you get for free isn't exactly the way you want it. FFS - it's free! If you don't like it, don't use it.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Insightful)
I did RTFA, and it mentions NOTHING about "undocumented sun-only features". It DOES mention that there were problems running it on GCJ, because GCJ doesn't yet support the full spec. Well, I'm sorry, but that's a problem for GCJ not Sun. Stallman even says as much in his document "The Java Trap" - he uses the words "sun only feature" to mean things which the free implementations don't yet support.
Really - there's no conspiracy here. The only significant stuff that the source isn't available for from Sun is the JVM itself and stuff under sun.* packages. The JVM is a free spec which others are welcome to implement (s.g. GCJ etc al), and no app in it's right mind should be directly calling sun.*, for obvious reasons. If you find code in OO which does, then maybe there will be cause for complaint.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Informative)
There is code in OOo which uses com.sun classes. Quite a lot of it.
Caolan McNamara [linux.ie] is working on building OOo on GCJ. Right on his blog there you can see several examples listed, e.g:
Ok? Noone is saying it's all Sun's fault here. But part of it is.
OpenOffice just works (Score:3, Interesting)
OpenOffice just works.
I use it for my busiess, at home and for my campaign staff.
I'm not even sure how your points are relevant to the use of StarOffice and the purpose sun is trying to fill with this application.
So? Implement the "proprietary" stuff! (Score:3, Insightful)
Since everyone has access to the OO sources, nothing can stop Kaffe, Apache J2SE, GNU Classpath or any other project to implement these "proprietary" features, as they are called from the source code.
It is most unlikely that sun would actually take legal action for the "unauthorised" use of these non-standard API extensions required for OO support, since they would t
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Informative)
2. Seeing how the source code is available, I don't see how you can say they are using undocumented features and keep a straight face.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny I could swear I cut and pasted this from the SUN site.
"Modified source code cannot be distributed without the express written permission of Sun Microsystems, Inc."
So basically you can read the code to find out how it works, but you can't distribute bug fixes, or enhancements, you can't port useful bits of the code to other Java implementations or other software (indeed writing your own version after you've read the source code might be legally risky I suspect). It makes no mention of whether you charge for it.
Indeed the licence attempts to risk redistribution of modified binaries "internally", so modifying the code for your companies own private use may be a licence infringement.
"Here is the source code, look and admire, but don't touch it."
Compare and contrast the licence with the other 16,000 odd packages in Debian.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the ones that are fully [sun.com] and openly [jcp.org] documented, and have source code available in both the JDK binary download and the full SCSL source downloads?
This has everything to do with runtime libraries -- not the same thing as compilers, Bonzo.
That's "Bozo", bozo.
Re:If you'll pardon my French (Score:4, Informative)
Covered before (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Covered before (Score:5, Insightful)
Use of Java (Score:3, Insightful)
At a future point in time, there could very well be complete open source java implementations. But even if there aren't, the code is still open source.
Re:Use of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Use of Java (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true. The features are documented, but the free Java implementations haven't caught up yet. Everyone is so quick to prove some sort of malicious intent that they're ignoring the facts. The article doesn't say anything about undocumented features, it talks about unimplemented features.
Re:Use of Java (Score:3)
Re:Use of Java (Score:5, Insightful)
Read RMS's The Java Trap [gnu.org]. He isn't complaining about undocumented features, he was complaining about using features that haven't been implemented in a 'free' version of Java yet. In essence, he's complaining that GNU Classpath isn't developing fast enough (although he would never word it that way). Once GNU Classpath catches up to Sun (if it happens), then Open Office will work just fine with it.
And this wasn't what Sun was criticizing MS for. MS was adding very well documented (and thoughtful) features to Java. New features like delegates. Sun just didn't want to loose control of Java. They didn't say no one should advance Java past version 1.1. They said only Sun should make changes to the language.
Re:Use of Java (Score:3, Informative)
The problem Sun had with Microsoft's Java was that Microsoft was giving access to Win32-only API's, so that the source that used them would run only on a platform that supported Win32. Sun accused them of attempting to take a language they had worked hard to make platform independent, and tie it directly to Win32.
If Microsoft was making extensions that were useful and didn't n
Re:Use of Java (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't do any good to have open source software if it requires a closed source VM to run. You're still at the mercy of whoever controls the VM. If they decide to pull your license (as Sun did to FreeBSD [slashdot.org]) then you're no longer allowed to use your own software. You can't build Free Software on a non-Free foundation.
Re:Use of Java (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course you can. Stallman himself points out that that's how free software was developed. If the first free software had had to wait for the first free user to toggle the first free monitor and free assembler into memory one byte at a time, there wouldn't be any free software. Free software was built on back of unliberated software.
Please ignore that last sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone could explain how this relates to OO.o's use of Java, I'd appreciate it :P Otherwise I'll just assume the submitter is trying to be a little more sensational about things.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
GCJ Anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
How OO.o and BK connect (Score:4, Informative)
As I say in the story--in a one sentence remark--it's because in both cases, some people are objecting to the use of proprietary software in an open source project.
It's not like this is a new battle between free software advocates and open-source supporters. The one most people probably know best is the use of TrollTech's QT in KDE. For more on that, see:
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/books/kde-
For the original version of the OO.o story see:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1813986,00.a
Steven
I agree...sort of. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I agree...sort of. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun still ultimately controls Java, and how Java is licensed. They also have a history of viewing colleagues _solely_ as competitors - something to be destroyed, not a person to share ideas with. This makes some in the OSS community nervous, since we can't guarantee that any Java components will remain Free Software in perpetuity.
Sun may actually want to play nice with the OSS community (I'm beginning to think that they do, but I'm still not sure), but I think they have a problem
Sun NO LONGER controls Java (Score:4, Insightful)
Java already has a community. It's up to Sun to try and mesh the two communities but if you just pretend Java = Sun then you will never understand the results of anything that happens, as the reality is far more complex.
Personally I'd like to see the focus be on catching up GCJ with the standards, and having a first-class Open Source Free VM. Then this whole debate is moot.
Re:Sun NO LONGER controls Java (Score:4, Interesting)
Regardless of this however , of the 14 Expert Groups that have been formed, eight are led by Sun employees. Which means Sun controls Java in practice. Now of course the same can be send for Open Office (which is basically a Sun product) so I'm not sure what to say about the original complaint.
Don't like it? Fork it! (Score:3, Insightful)
While some OO.o supporters claim that the opposition is primarily the result of misinformed free-software zealots, Microsoft, or astroturfing (the use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement) by OO.o opponents, there does seem to be some concrete opposition to OO.o by the free software community.
The most visible evidence of that is that the FSF (Free Software Foundation) is "is looking for volunteers to maintain a version of OpenOffice that doesn't require a non-free Java platform."
Volunteers to lead this project are requested to contact the FSF's founder, Richard M. Stallman
Re:Don't like it? Fork it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't like it? Fork it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is precisely what the Free Software Foundation is doing. The FSF people are hoping that the folks at Sun will want to prevent a fork bad enough that they will work at little harder at making OO.org work with gcj. If Sun doesn't play ball then the FSF will fork OO.org and their gcj version will undoubtedly become the version that gets shipped with at least the Debian and Red Hat (and Fedora) distributions (and very probably others as well). And don't think these organizations are bluffing either. Gnome got its start in almost exactly the same way. The FSF, Red Hat, and Debian didn't like the licensing for KDE and so they did something about it.
The real question is whether or not Sun wants a large chunk of its current OO.org's user base to use someone else's fork of OO.org because that's what is currently shaping up to happen. If Sun's execs think that these organizations (especially the FSF) are likely to be "reasonable" about the use of non-free software then they are clearly delusional. Sun has been dealing with GNU software and the FSF forever, and they have never seen them back down once.
The worst part is that Sun really needs the Free Software faction of the Open Source community. After all, it really does take a zealot to propose replacing MS Office with some other piece of software. The pragmatists in the crowd are more than happy to wait and see if MS Office can really be replaced. The people that are currently considering replacing MS Office with OO.org are doing so because they believe in Free Software. Without enough zealots to take that first step OO.org is never going to have serious market penetration.
Stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid, stupid, stupid...Free Software people will keep grumbling as long as we aren't building everything from a completely "Free as in Free-as-long-as-you-play-by-OUR-rules" standpoint. And what the hell is that about Linus, he rolled his own solution because he needed to do more than any of the available FOSS solutions could, but what bearing that has on OOo is beyond me....
This is nonsense, there are some reasons, most highly contentious, not to rely heavily on Java but this argument isn't one of them...
Idiots!
Sun is dogfooding (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun controls OpenOffice/StarOffice, and Sun controls Java. Both have been opened more than your typical commercial holding. What's the problem?
Java = write once, run everywhere = good for OOo (Score:4, Insightful)
But anyway...
What better language should they pick? VB? csh? Perl? Python? Mono? Java has relatively point-n-click installers for many popular OSes, has a remarkable amount of functionality, and will smooth their development wrinkles because of its universality. Remember, this is a desktop app, it needs to largely 'just work' from an installation perspective, you don't want Joe Windows User going to ActiveState and getting some Perl package, or needing some cygwin-esque environment to run Python or something else.
Re:Java = write once, run everywhere = good for OO (Score:4, Informative)
What cygwin-esque environment is needed to run python apps? Links and resources, please...
Normally, I just install python's win32 installer, and run my apps. If I need some third-party extension, I just install it, and go. No need for any cygwin-esque environment.
-gus
Straining at GNats (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether OO.o is built using a Free language or just a free language is not important to me. The source code of the suite (in the [Ff]ree language) is available.
Having the source is all I really care about. Would it be better if Sun GPLd Java? Maybe. Would it be better if OO.o were developed using only Free tools? Maybe.
Would any of that change my ability, in the real world, to use Open Office instead of MS Office? Probably not.
Technical Merits of Java (Score:3, Insightful)
And what would be better? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perl whose readability for many coders is next to nothing?
C++ because we all know that more buffer overflows and random craziness is what OpenOffice needs to compete with Microsoft Office?
C# since 93-95% of the desktop users out there use Windows, why bother with the minority of others? (I actually quite like C# and am hopeful about Mono)
Ruby because a language that most coders have never even seen before is clearly the best way for a fresh start?
Objective-C because when Steve Jobs takes over the world, we'll need to be on his good side?
C, since objects really are overrated for anything that normal developers might want to maintain?
So seriously, of all of the major language choices, which would be better?
Re:And what would be better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And what would be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And what would be better? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that such a huge page of OOo is already written in C++, adding a bit of Java into the mix doesn't make much of a difference in terms of reliability.
It does make a difference in terms of introducing a dependency on a 50M install and a proprietary runtime that exists on only a limited range of platforms.
So seriously, of all of the major language choices, which would be better?
C++ plus a scripting language. C++ is and will always be primarily a C++-based implementation.
I do agree that getting rid of C++ would be nice, but adding a few percent of Java code to OOo is not going to accomplish that.
Re:And what would be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, I would like a chicken sandwich and a girlfriend.
Re:And what would be better? (Score:4, Insightful)
Python which is slow, has a much smaller user base and far less consistent and well-documented standard library?
Python which is not all that slow next to Java, is nowhere near as big a resource hog as Java, is completely Free, and is a standard part of most distros already.
Besides, just haw fast does a document wizard or access like interface need to be? It'll spend most of it's time waiting for user input anyway.
As it stands, I'd rather skip the wizards and access to avoid the dependancy on Java. Does anyone know if there's a proper config option for that or is it a hack and slash? If the latter, I* guess bI won't be upgrading for a good while.
Re:And what would be better? (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually, have no qualms with using Java, I just prefer to see rational, complete arguements on Slashdot. Something seldom posted.
However, I fail to see the issue with using a proprietary language. The project is open source and will remain that way, and Sun cannot change that. Sun could change Java to spite it, but why would they deliberately harm a free, almost acceptable alternative to a rival's application?
I use Apple's OSX, I don't use BSD's, NeXT's, Apple's OSX, and I don't use GNU Linux, I use Linux. I dislike the standard open-source, free-software bigotry, on licences. I imagine the majority of coders are working to create a decent alternative because they want just that, not out of some need for a jihad against an evil enemy. Why create such a fight. If that effort went into coding the results would be considerably better free software.
Bit of a rant, sorry.
Re:And what would be better? (Score:4, Interesting)
How is total lack of data hiding in an OO language an advantage?
Jesus people, get a grip (Score:5, Insightful)
Now all the name calling that is currently going on here will not change this simple fact and all this "I don't give a f*** as long as it works" won't change the fact that java not being free software poses a problem.
Look for example at Debian, or Fedora, or Ubuntu, they all ship without Java because of licensing problems. Having one of the most important apps for desktop linux rely heavily on Java sure poses a problem for these distributions and their users.
That said, I get the feeling that something good will eventually come off this situation, as said distributions (and especiall RedHat) are now working even harder on providing a true free Java environment and make OO2 run with it.
As someone who prefers free software and someone who runs linux on non-x86 (ppc, therefor no current Java + firefox plugin available) I can only welcome this development.
Re:Jesus people, get a grip (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
So, "relying so heavily on Java" isn't the case at all. Next point!
Oh, they shouldn't use Sun stuff at all? From Caolán McNamara's blog [linux.ie]:
So, it doesn't use Sun-specific stuff, and the only gcj problem is something that gcj doesn't support... and it runs fine without a JVM in the first place...
Why are we still talking about this?
Doug
Re:Jesus people, get a grip - call to arms (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're the one who needs to get a grip.
Free Software isn't about taking down Microsoft and other big corporations. I don't use FreeBSD because I want to "stick it to the man." Free software is about being able to use software unencumbered by licensing restrictions. And what do you mean that nerds have no vision? Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, the BSD developers, and hundreds of other nerds have the vision of creating completely free software for everyone. Yes, we still have some things to work on (like that Swedish thesaurus and spell checker that you mentioned), but it's getting there.
Nobody in the "real world" (boy I hate that phrase; I'll change it to "non-geek world") cares about Debian and Fedora shipping Java because the non-geek world uses Mac OS X and Windows. The last thing on the average Mac user's or Windows user's mind is the licensing of Java; it either comes with their computer or it is a quick download away. But Linux and BSD users are in a different realm, the "surreal world" as you probably call it, and they aren't generally going to put up with the licensing. Besides, Sun Java isn't available for many platforms. What if I'm using NetBSD on an Alpha machine? Too bad, I can't use Sun Java even if I wanted to.
The point is, free software isn't about "sticking it to the man." It is about using unencumbered software. If you have a problem with this, you can always return to your Mac or Windows box, along with your Java. Nobody's stopping you from using that, and nobody's stopping geeks like myself from forking OpenOffice.
I predict... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't take the bait.
This doesn't sound like a problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
-- from the article --
Still others have suggested that instead of using an open-source Java, these components be rewritten in an entirely different language such as Ruby or Python.
However, some programmers have just gone ahead and found fixes for OO.o, which enables it to run with GCJ.
Caolán McNamara, a programmer with Red Hat who specializes in word processing, has created one such set of fixes.
A source at Sun said, "OO.o 2 works OK with GCJ" and that "Red Hat has been tremendously helpful in the effort to make that so, filing bug reports etc."
In addition, while OO.o will run without a JVM (Java Virtual Machine), it will use one if it's available, and its performance has been found to be much better if Sun's 5.0 JVM is used.
But, as Scott Carr, OO.o's quality assurance project co-lead pointed out, "OO.o will run perfectly well without any JVM, but if there is a JVM then it has to do checks to make sure what features are supported in the JVM as well as run various functions. These are only run in the presence of a JVM."
-- end FTA --
So... if there is a JVM, [something] runs better/faster than if there wasn't. For starters, the app works without Java. Secondly, it's been fixed to compile with an open-source Java compiler. Thirdly, what kind of code runs this way? The article didn't specify.
How odd.
Regardless, this is still a big deal about nothing, as per usual.
FireOffice (Score:3, Insightful)
Open office is already huge and somewhat slow. Java will only make this worse.
I remember when Mozilla was feature rich (kitchen sink), slow and huge. I stuck with old Netscape4 until Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox came fixed the Mozilla problems.
After OO2 is released, probably someone will fork it, replacing all the java, and call it FireOffice, then OpenOffice will adopt the changes.
Sun Java has to go from OOo (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, none of this is particularly surprising: Sun is trying to introduce dependencies on their proprietary software in many pieces of software. It's an evil master plan, and it won't work, but that won't stop Schwartz and McNealy from trying until their company is bankrupt.
Umm, it's been fixed to compile under GCJ... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that people are getting upset at looking at the imports in the code without realizing that THEY ARE NEVER USED!!! Again, I refer you to the blog entry, but for those of you too lazy:
This gcj request [gnu.org] asks for the addition of java.awt.Frame.createBufferStrategy which is all that is missing from gcj to build the java canvas stuff. (Though the canvas module contains a pile of spurious imports of sun.awt which are unnecessary and can be removed, not that there's much point right now, if a createBufferStrategy becomes available then removing the sun.awt from the canvas/java .javas is all that's outstanding)
Nothing to see here, just move along. More jumping the gun rather than investigating things to completion.
WTF is the Linus reference about? (Score:3)
"The US invaded Iraq today. In other news, Tom Cruise was seen using a porta-potty."
Militant Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
I got into Linux because I wanted Unix at home. Not to rape and pillage the unbelievers. If we're getting to a point where I have to live by the Purer Faith, so to speak, just to use software, I'll head to BSD land. Because while I think the open source method is very, very cool, and will revolutionize software (in truth, it already has), I'm getting tired of the militants lecturing me about what I choose to put on my computer. I didn't sign up for that.
Stallman - what a nut job (Score:4, Informative)
Sun's implementation of Java is non-free. Blackdown is also non-free; it is an adaptation of Sun's proprietary code. The standard Java libraries are non-free also. We do have free implementations of Java, such as the GNU Java Compiler and GNU Classpath, but they don't support all the features yet. We are still catching up.
So the "free" version of Java is incomplete.
The reliable way to avoid the Java Trap is to have only a free implementation of Java on your system. Then if you use a Java feature or library that free software does not yet support, you will find out straightaway, and you can rewrite that code immediately.
And he wants developers to write Java targetting this crippled "free" version instead of the official Sun compiler.
Here's an idea FIX THE DAMN "FREE" COMPILER. There's nothing wrong with the Java code people are writing - it's the incomplete "free" compiler that's the problem.