Will Oracle Keep Funding Sun's Pet Java Projects? 234
gkunene writes "Oracle expects Sun to contribute to its operating profit right away. To make that happen, Oracle may pull funding and staff from projects such as JavaFX, Project Looking Glass, and Project GlassFish."
Re:Looking Glass (Score:5, Informative)
It's worse than you think.
I worked on the project 3 years ago and it was a horrible mess.
They don't have any sort of 3D desktop concept all they have is a 2D desktop with 3D windows.
The underlying 3D system is impossibly complex and non-nonsensical.
Mouse clicks go through so many layers of checks that response time is ridiculous.
They are using Java3D, which is incredibly slow anyway.
To top all this off it doesn't look like they have changed anything in the last three years.
I might have a slightly tainted view and I haven't looked at the code in three years, but I'm still highly unimpressed.
Java *IS* open source (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know what you're talking about.
Java is open source. Most of the source code for Java has been released under the GPL.
They started by releasing the JDK 7 code under an open source license. They then backported this code to OpenJDK 6 by removing some of the JDK 7 features and testing it under the JDK 6 TCK (testing kit).
The latest version of OpenJDK 6 is available for installation on Ubuntu and Fedora via their respective package managers.
The only parts of the proprietary Java 6 that are missing from OpenJDK 6 are:
1) SNMP code.
2) Applet/JavaWebStart code (although they're in the process of open sourcing it.
3) Latest bugfixes since JDK 6 Update 7 but these are slowly finding their way to OpenJDK 6.
Please do some basic research before posting your misconceptions as "facts".
Re:RIA's need more than HTML5/CSS/JavaScript (Score:2, Informative)
Which browsers have fully implemented these? And how many corporations do you think will deploy intranet webapps that specifically omit support for IE?
Re:Java isn't (really) open source (Score:5, Informative)
Java isn't really open source, that's why it's a huge pain in the ass under Linux.
It's in the standard repos on most distros now. It's not any different than installing python or perl or any other language/platform.
Yes, Sun released a version of Java under the GPL. It's the "next" version of Java, Java 7 or 1.7 or whatever they're deciding to call it.
They released the 1.6 JVM and libraries that it was legally allowed to.
The current version of Java, the one that everyone uses, is most definitely not open source. It's free, sure, but it's licensed in such a way that Linux distributions can't package it. (Easily - some have worked around it, but the bottom line is that installing Java 6 on Linux involves an interactive process. It can't be automated.)
Everyone should be using 1.6 because 1.7 isn't released yet. 1.6 is GPL and open source.
That "interactive" process was clicking on the EULA before it was open sourced. Not that big of a deal then, but it's not even an issue anymore.
The "open source" version of Java is missing large chunks of Java and is basically not at all ready.
Big chunks? The JVM and libs were almost complete. The small parts that couldn't be released were 3rd library implementations that Sun didn't have rights to release as GPL. The GNU Classpath project filled in the gaps almost from day.
So, Java isn't "really" open source. It's "going to be" at some point in the future - or at least it was. With Oracle in control, who knows.
It is open source. Really.
(Sure, Oracle can't un-open source what was released - but since that isn't enough for a full version of Java anyway, it's not like it really matters.)
No, it does matter. Billions of IT dollars are still being spent on projects using the java platform.
I'm sure Oracle would have rather had Sun's implemenation all to themselves, but then they should have bought Sun a couple of years ago.
Project Kenai (Score:5, Informative)
I just hope they don't go pulling the plug on Project Kenai [kenai.com].
Kenai is Sun's version of SourceForge/GitHub/Google Code. I'm hosting a project there and it works well enough, a few minor tweaks and it will be fantastic. I chose it because they had bugzilla, mercurial, forums with feeds and a rudimentary wiki with syntax I didn't hate. And a low-barrier to entry (I am more than capable of setting all that stuff up myself, but I'd rather spend the time hacking code).
Funny, though, I only just realized why I must have received that "please evangelize Kenai!" message in my inbox this morning...
Re:Glassfish is a Must-Have for Oracle (Score:5, Informative)
He was merely informing he would take a WebStart client over an AJAX client any day.
Well... I wouldn't.
Now, someone mod me um +5 informative.
Re:RIA's need more than HTML5/CSS/JavaScript (Score:1, Informative)
You mean 66% and dropping like a rock [cio.com]?
Microsoft made their choices. And the market is not happy.
Re:Glassfish is a Must-Have for Oracle (Score:3, Informative)
According to this blog post, Oracle is the biggest user of applets [andrejkoelewijn.com] in their Oracle Forms. The author thinks that moving oracle forms to javafx could be a big plus for Oracle and I think there are merits to what he says.
The popular alternative is Adobe Flash. It's been a while since I tried programming in actionscript but last time I did, I had lots of bumps and bruises from knocking my head against the wall.
The last release of Project Looking Glass was in January of 2007. I don't think there's been much going on with that. Since then, I think Sun has been contributing more to Compiz to get it working with Soliars.
I don't know if Orion was ever "the BEST" J2EE server, but it claims to have been the first fully J2EE compliant one.
Oracle didn't buy Orion, they licensed it and used it as the base of their Oracle Application Server. Don't know how that screwed it up since Orion still exists on it's own and isn't owned by Oracle.
Glassfish is the J2EE server reference implementation. It's important to keep it as a reference implementation and is becoming very popular.
I remember before Tomcat became the reference implementation for the Servlet spec, it was popular to use but hard to find hosting for. After it became the reference implementation (and performance improved) more hosts started offering it instead of (or in addition to) resin.
In the opensource J2EE server space, Glassfish is well behind JBoss, but more popular than Apache Geronimo and it is gaining. If they need to keep a reference implentation for the J2EE spec, it would likely be an open source project. JBoss I think is out because they can't get enough control of it, Geronimo is heavily backed by IBM, (who Oracle is competing with on the DB and middleware front) so that only leaves Glassfish.
Re:It all depends. (Score:3, Informative)
8. Solaris - I see all of the cool features of Solaris (dtrace) moved over to Oracles Linux (if possible). That Linux version will run on "standard" X86 hardware or for "full support" it will run on the Oracle hardware (Sparc). This process will probably take 5 or more years.
That contradicts your initial premise and sounds more like wishful thinking.
All the cool stuff in Solaris is already in Solaris and making money. Yes people still use Solaris on new machines. Last quarter Sun sold almost $1 billion worth of SPARC based servers.
Since Solaris/SPARC is the leading platform for Oracle deployments, it makes more financial sense for Oracle to keep Solaris competitive against Linux in addition to it being cheaper than trying to integrate things into Linux.
Now that Oracle will have ZFS, I would wonder what might happen to Btrfs, which is an Oracle project.
Re:It all depends. (Score:4, Informative)
Just a nitpick, but Glassfish already IS the reference implementation of J2EE.
Having said that, I don't disagree that Oracle will stop adding features to it to encourage the use of WebLogic or Application Server [oracle.com].