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For a number of years software was stuck using Java SE 1.4.2 - Large scale software projects tended to be fairly conservative when jumping to new 1.5 features such as generics and hence held back on using newer 1.5 and beyond APIs.

You can check the completeness here

So don't be surprised if coverage is best for 1.4.2. Classpath has been somewhat dormant for a year or so - many of the chief developers have been working on IcedTea.

I wouldn't be expecting Classpath to be passing the TCK any time soon, if ever. BrandWeg may help in substituting missing classes but for implementing specific methods like your missing constructor, probably not.

But then classpath's goal of "escaping the Java trap" by having a complete Java platform under the GPL has now been realised, so the need for anyone to 'finish' it is reduced.

There's Kaffe at http://www.kaffe.org./ It's an optimized version for embedded uses (either embedded in devices or embedded in a larger program). It's not 100% compatible, but I believe it's more than usable for many purposes.

Writing a voting app for the Java platform does not make the platform irrelevant. It makes the platform Java. If your JVM implementation is closed-source, you're left with the exact same problem, just abstracted a little more.

Of course, there are open-source JVMs and SDKs, with Sun's own not far behind. But you still have to make sure that the source of every layer between the JVM and the hardware is also open, or else there's nothing stopping it from waylaying data on its way to the filesystem or something. If it's GNU/Linux, then you're probably okay. But just to be safe, better make sure the firmware/BIOS is also open source, because sneaky changes to data at that level would be awfully hard to track down.

Oh, and while you're at it, don't just compile all of this fresh. Make sure you recompile the compiler first, using a trusted compiler that you compiled from a trusted compiler, etc., so that there's no chance of a hack like the one Ken Thompson put into UNIX. The moral of his story bears repeating here: "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)"

Sorry. I like Java and the notion of write once, run anywhere. But don't think that adding an extra layer between OS and application makes the platform irrelevant in such a mission-critical sense. There's no substitute for full transparency, and even the definition of "full transparency" is not always as simple as it should be.

I think Linus is right and you are wrong on Java:

1. Sun still retains "control" over Java-the-platform through the JSR/committee process. GPL'ing the reference implementation doesn't affect their control of the trademark.

2. The Microsoft lawsuit was settled for a LONG time before Sun started talking seriously about GPL. In the meantime MS was committed to .Net and won't touch Java with a ten-foot pole.

3. The 'it factor' was in danger of permanently moving away from Java. F/OSS was picking up Mono, Ruby, and Python instead.

4. Once Kaffe/Sabre/Classpath/etc. were about to run Eclipse, Sun got very serious about GPL'ing the JDK.

Java's reputation as "the new COBOL" was turning it into a platform that pays the bills but is otherwise very uninteresting.

Yes, let's all have our cake and eat it too.

In the "free software realm" why does this not have it's place as well? For that matter, I'd rather not bring Open Office into the free software realm because Microsoft is obviously going to sue everybody for using a quasi-MS-Office clone...

Please tell me how this isn't acceptable, but kaffe is? By virtue of your reasoning the entire Mono project is moot since they're obviously in cahoots with Microsoft to forbid non-Novell distros to use their open source system. Mono helps lots of people bring .NET code over to Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and mobile devices, places Microsoft won't touch, so having VB.NET on that variety of platforms is also a good win for developers and users.

Using Microsoft's likelihood to sue people for any and every reason isn't enough to discredit an interesting project that offers options to developers and users, but then again, I must not get the whole "open source" ideal just yet.

Sun opensourcing Solaris made sod all difference because we already had a viable open source operating system which ran on commodity platforms. Linux. Linux has what some management people call the first mover advantage. Solaris would have to be an order of magnitude better than Linux to displace it and it is not. Open sourcing Solaris was too little, too late. Hate it or love it, Linux is the one with the most apps, drivers, not to mention easier to get and well known of the two.

You are belittling the community. Yet I believe Sun is open sourcing Java precisely because the open source alternatives were, for a change, getting close to being Java 5.0 compatible. See the implementation status of GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony if you do not take my word for it. The fact is, the community has the resources to not only make one reimplementation of Java, but several concurrently.

Sun opensourcing Solaris made sod all difference because we already had a viable open source operating system which ran on commodity platforms. Linux. Linux has what some management people call the first mover advantage. Solaris would have to be an order of magnitude better than Linux to displace it and it is not. Open sourcing Solaris was too little, too late. Hate it or love it, Linux is the one with the most apps, drivers, not to mention easier to get and well known of the two.

You are belittling the community. Yet I believe Sun is open sourcing Java precisely because the open source alternatives were, for a change, getting close to being Java 5.0 compatible. See the implementation status of GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony if you do not take my word for it. The fact is, the community has the resources to not only make one reimplementation of Java, but several concurrently.

Kaffe will survive because it's BSD licensed.

Kaffe is GPL.

As somebody who's worked on a fork of it, I beg to differ. Some versions of Kaffe are GPL; the original Kaffe is BSD licensed. See explanation of the history here.

Is that why Apache has such a disinterest in an open source JVM that they started their own Project Harmony? Which within a year mostly implements J2SE 1.4 and 1.5. And they are getting block code donations from IBM and Intel.

Ohhh RIGHT. Nobody uses Apache projects for Java. And IBM? I've never used their stuff! What do they make with Java?

Hmm. Now what projects even work with GCJ? Eclipse. Is that like TextPad? Open Office. Is that what includes Word Perfect now? Face it. Soon GCJ will fully support SWT and Swing and open source users will have no reason to load the Sun JVM. From there it's just a performance game.

Is that why Apache has such a disinterest in an open source JVM that they started their own Project Harmony? Which within a year mostly implements J2SE 1.4 and 1.5. And they are getting block code donations from IBM and Intel.

Ohhh RIGHT. Nobody uses Apache projects for Java. And IBM? I've never used their stuff! What do they make with Java?

Hmm. Now what projects even work with GCJ? Eclipse. Is that like TextPad? Open Office. Is that what includes Word Perfect now? Face it. Soon GCJ will fully support SWT and Swing and open source users will have no reason to load the Sun JVM. From there it's just a performance game.

I think you give Sun a little more credit than they deserve. Sun is just panicking, not being enlightened.

Sun needs, desperately, to make their implementation of Java the defacto standard with Linux distributions. Their problem is Java is becoming open source right now. That's a comparison between a cleanroom, GPL implementation of Java and Sun's JDK 1.4. That's approximately 99% compatible aside from the swing api. And for a Tomcat or Jboss, that's all you need. Debian already distributes this in the main repository with SableVM. Red Hat favors GCJ.

Right now Sun is on the cusp of becoming irrelevant. They wanted so badly to prevent a fork of Java but it is already forked right under their noses. They need to dump a superior, complete, open source version of Java on the market RIGHT NOW and sweep support out from under these other projects and kill them with extreme prejudice. Lets face it, Solaris has no takers outside hardcore enterprise customers because we open sourced around them. In another year Sun's JDK will be just "that JDK that comes with Solaris" if they don't do something really soon. Then Java is forked and Sun has lost the standards battle with Microsoft in their eyes.

Personally, I think an independent Java Foundation needs to get spun off. That way IBM, Sun, Oracle, Red Hat, Intel, HP, and Apple can dump research money into Java without all the discomfort of working with a direct competitor. And finally, fast VM technology will enter the public domain and we can get rid of all this slow ass interpreted shit.

Sun's Java specifications are available only under restrictive licenses

No, they are freely downloadable from java.sun.com (unlike, say, the ISO-9899 C standard which ISO charge 340 Swiss Francs for). The license states that any independent implementation cannot make proprietary extensions/subtractions and needs to pass a test. How is that a bad thing? Do you enjoy that the multitude of SQL implementations do most small things in their own different way?

Other specifications are provided by the JCP where Sun is one member of many - but with extra powers.

Anyway: Some of us are satisfied with Sun's free-as-in-beer implemenation, as are most other developers, which is reflected in the slow progress of the OSS implementations (since OSS developers generally make software for their own use).

IKVM, Kaffe, Classpath, and others have been laboriously reverse engineered from third party sources, and Sun has to this day refused to help in their creation.

"Kaffe is a clean room implementation of the Java virtual machine, plus the associated class libraries needed to provide a Java runtime environment." - clean room does not necessarily mean reverse engineered. Anyway, Kaffe now has merged in parts of GNU Classpath, so perhaps the NIH-istic multitude of implementations could merge into one so that an OSS project actually got somewhere? It's not like GCC depended on AT&T to make progress.

This Kaffe project slideshow is a very interesting read.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

Well, no matter what Sun will do, we are wery close to a free software Java implementation anyway. There are free JVMs and compilers. All that is missing is the class libary, but the gerics branch of GNU Classpath are at 95.13% on JAPI tests. After all Sun did keep their word about opening Solaris and they are talking to the developers behind the free Java implementations, so I think we can trust them.

There are already free JVMs and free Java compilers. The problem is the class libraries. Java's standard libraries are huge, and free reimplementations are having a hard time keeping up. Without the libraries, open source versions of javac and the JVM won't bring us significantly closer to the goal of a completely free Java platform.

There's not a lot of tolerace for criticism of corporations, is there?
I think that most coders feel the same way.

No, it took me 10 mins (max) to paste from here. If, however, everyone uses Sun JDK, then why should anyone be afraid of forks? (Which in turn just prooves my point.)

Java is already fragmented. The result of open sourcing Java will actually be consolidation, i.e. killing of competing VMs. And a huge open source test suite will greatly benefit all surviving JVMs, which is a good thing.

How can you not see this?

Javas problem is not that it might get fragmented, the problem is that it IS fragmented. Do something about it! Let Java free!

Unfortunately for Sun, Java will be Open Source with or without them. GNU Classpath is already mostly Java 1.4 compliant.

They basically have a choice. They can either make the Sun JVM the defacto JVM now by complying with open source demands, or they can be the stodgy corporate-only JVM while everyone else uses GNU Classpath. Even by fixing the Sun JVM license the people working on GNU Classpath aren't going to stop. They want a GNU, true open source alternative. Do we need any reminder on how the UNIX / Linux battle played out?

So like the Sun execs have said, it is not whether the JVM will be open source. It is HOW it will be. Will it be Sun or GNU Classpath in 5 years? Clearly, Sun realized this and is scrambling to make it happen before it is too late and a thriving community leaves them in the dust like with Solaris v Linux.

So, after resisting for years, let's see what is happening in the GNU world to change Jonathan Schwartz mind

Java is not the Java Development Kit, or any other specific peice of software. To Sun, "Java" is a trademark, so they can't even use it as a noun. But the rest of us can get by with thinking of Java as a collection of specifications: the Java language, the Java class libraries, and the Java VM spec. None of these is software — software can only be a implementation of Java.

That might seem like a silly distinction, until you remember that Sun is not the only vendor for Java implementations. Not only are there commercial implementations, but there are open source implementations of all three, specs. Of course, these all lag way behind commercial implementations, as open source clones are wont to do.

Anyway, when people say "Sun should open-source Java" what they really mean is "Sun should open-source their implementation of Java."

Which brings us to:

"Open source" is not software where the source code is freely available. It software where you can obtain the source code provided you agree to a license. That license specifies that you must make any changes to that source code available to anybody else who agrees to the same license.

And here's a non-legal issue: if you're serious about making your product open-source, you don't just throw the source code over the wall and say "go crazy!" You make a serious attempt to fold contributed code back into your main source tree. That's a serious administrative cost, and a big reason so many companies are unwilling to OS their products.

It is, but GNU Classpath is almost there (for J2SE 1.4 at least). For 1.5, there is a little more work to do:

http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/htmlout/h-jdk15- classpath-generics.html

2: most java developers don't give a fuck about runtime environments other than suns and some of the platform isn't very well documented (just go and have a look at some of the stuff in javax.swing.plaf).

I work on the javax.swing.* packages in GNU Classpath, and Sun's "spec" here truly is woeful. We're trying hard to make sure the API documentation for GNU Classpath is more...informative.

In spite of the poor specification, GNU Classpath's javax.swing implementation is looking relatively good. The major missing piece (being worked on now) is a decent Graphics2D implementation (not strictly part of Swing, but a lot of Swing apps, and look-and-feels, need it). The text/HTML code still needs work too, but good progress is being made.

It is, but GNU Classpath is almost there (for J2SE 1.4 at least). For 1.5, there is a little more work to do:

http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/htmlout/h-jdk15- classpath-generics.html

2: most java developers don't give a fuck about runtime environments other than suns and some of the platform isn't very well documented (just go and have a look at some of the stuff in javax.swing.plaf).

I work on the javax.swing.* packages in GNU Classpath, and Sun's "spec" here truly is woeful. We're trying hard to make sure the API documentation for GNU Classpath is more...informative.

In spite of the poor specification, GNU Classpath's javax.swing implementation is looking relatively good. The major missing piece (being worked on now) is a decent Graphics2D implementation (not strictly part of Swing, but a lot of Swing apps, and look-and-feels, need it). The text/HTML code still needs work too, but good progress is being made.

Interesting find. Imagine running Quercus within Kaffe, which would be comparable to Phalanger within Mono as both would be using GNU Classpath for Java support. GNU Classpath's development is moving along fast. Now that Linux distributions are incorporating Mono and GCJ, the .NET vs Java camps are beginning to merge, which is fascinating.

Since when is borrowing potentially patented technology from Microsoft can be considered free-ish? Not to mention that the whole .NET is a copy of Java (it really is). And how can Mono be uniform if it must keep pace with Microsoft's spec changes?

Honestly, how can someone be that silly to even put the terms .NET and free in the same sentence? I suppose Microsoft might have a special fund for this kind of misinformation.

I'm not sure how could it be easier to write "platform independent" applications in .NET than in "partially" implemented open-source Java implementations. Just look at the comparison between GNU Classpath and the JDK 1.4 API (http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/htmlout/h-jdk14 -classpath.html) and see it for yourself.

but nothing yet for #B until GNU Classpath is finished.

GNU Classpath is pretty close to complete, relative to JDK 1.4. Take a look and see. Most of the remaining problems are in pretty obscure or seldom used areas.

That's the "Java trap" RMS is talking about: java.* and javax.* are not yet open, and until they are all Java code is pinned to the Sun implementation.

Many java apps, including large, complex applications like Eclipse, JBoss, etc., have been shown to run using Classpath. Kaffe + Classpath or SableVM + Classpath is pretty dang close to a complete JDK 1.4 environment and will run many (maybe most) Java programs.

You might want to take a look at GNU Classpath: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

According to http://www.kaffe.org/~stuart/japi/htmlout/h-jdk14- classpath.html, it's about ~97% complete with respect to the standard JDK spec (version 1.4).

Big things like OpenOffice.org run just fine on the Free Java stack as well: http://peter.ramshacklestudios.com/images/openoffi ce.org-free-java-stack.png

Also, the Sun JRE does not provide the source, whereas the GCC does.

Sun provides the source for the JDK (the compiler), same as GCC does, though not under the same licence obviously.

Since the specs are open, there are open source implemenations of the JRE available.

Nope, there isn't, in fact the Harmony project is building an implementation of J2SE 5.

And Kaffe has been around for years, an open-source vm.

Java isn't

That's right, there's no open source Java solutions. You also can't download the source code.

Oh wait...

Java: price: free, well it is free Sure, but not as in beer. Can I independently create my own JVM and distribute it?

Well, actually, yes you can. Theres nothing stopping you reimplimenting a JVM to the released specifications, infact Kaffe is one such reimplementation. Go get a book detailing the VM specifications and how to implement a good VM from Sun!

So that basically supports my thesis that the reason AJAX is being used is that a better solution isn't available, on of those better solutions being Java, because Microsoft has torpedoed anything that could threaten their hegemony of the desktop. Look for IE7 to add "compelling new features" that, if you use them, make you incompatible with anyone else, and also subtly start changing things so that developers without a clue will "fix" AJAX applications the easy way, breaking them totally for any other browser.

Why would Java on Mac be so much faster than anything else? I just can't fathom a JVM that is so slow that a Javascript interpreter can be faster. 165K of Javascript (Google Maps) does parse and execute "fast enough" on a fast enough computer, but I'm reminded of the saying that with enough power, even a brick can fly.

As for "what do you fall back to", I'm saying that the existence of a JRE on a machine "ought to be" as ubiquitous as "a browser". I mean, what's your fallback if the user doesn't have a browser? I'm tired of having my choices limited by what Microsoft chooses to support. It's great that Firefox is complete enough to be mostly compatible with IE, but as long as Microsoft holds a lock, Firefox won't be able to introduce any new features (at least not any that will be widely used), and will have to track whatever Microsoft does. How is that less proprietary than Sun? And where the heck is Kaffe (I mean that figuratively, I know literally where it is).

I don't recall the exact terms of the agreement between Microsoft and Sun regarding Java - why wouldn't Sun allow Microsoft to include a stock (unmodified by Microsoft) version of Java with a Windows install? I thought the disagreement was with Microsoft making unauthorized changes to the base classes.

What is the relationship between Harmony and Kaffe? Anybody know?

a) Java was DESIGNED for embedded systems, first and foremost. That's why it is hardware-agnostic; because it allows the hardware makers to throw in whatever chips are cheap in bulk at the time, change on a whim, and still push out the same upgrade to everyone. Being cross-platform in the MacOS/Linux/Windows way was just sort of a side-effect. Think about how much this will benefit set-top manufacturers!!

You can argue it was designed for embedded, but I won't. That was its original intention- I don't know about saying it was designed for embedded. Because Java is not open, "your slap Java on any chip" sounds great until you need a VM. Sure, there are nice free attempts, but you still have problems without your slow, memory hogging VM. Might as well screw deterministic memory- something more than necessary with realtime embedded systems. There are some nice attempts though- I've seen a theoretical maximum of 300 ms in some places for "sitting around" which isn't half bad. Show me a embedded device with a Java device driver. What about an unlaughable scheduler? Directly interfacing with interrupts? Anyhow, it's fun to go back and see how Sun at least had an embedded link compared to now. Where's it going?

b) Java isn't interpreted anymore... its just-in-time compiled and then executed as native code. A bit of a start-up pause while the classes compile, that's all.

Maybe JIT moved Java from being fully interpreted, but it's still interpreted and "compiled" at runtime making it theoretically (a.k.a Javaly) and realistically on average always slower and more of a memory hog than unnamed alternatives, that's all. But, sometimes that's ok right? Look at how Java has taken over the desktop application market where that least matters. How many Java desktop applications do you run? Can you tell it's Java? If programming will always be hard, one might wonder what skeletons in the closets Java fanatics have at the price of conformity to an interface. Java version incompatibilities, buggy VMs, oh my.

there's a good chance that the Apache JVM will quickly exceed Kaffe and GCJ

For some facts please read The Apache Harmony Blog

Java: One Step Closer To Open Source

*sigh* Sun is already as open as they're going to go with Java by releasing it under the Java Research License. Now Sun has never complained about or hawked Open Source JVMs, but neither have they been too keen on helping out projects who bite their hands. As a result, the project to watch is the Apache Harmony Project. Given that Apache maintains a close relationship with Sun, hasn't burned their bridges, and has a good track record for completing very complex software, there's a good chance that the Apache JVM will quickly exceed Kaffe and GCJ.

"This is one of the attitudes that a lot of people have in the oss community that disturbs me the most. Not only between contributors of the same project but on things that came before."

When scientists publish their ideas which are formed based on the accumulated knowledge of others, are they asked to give up their copyright? I honestly don't know, that's a question not a statement. I know many publishing companies take copyright from book authors, but I don't know how academic journals work. Please notice I didn't say that it was any less significant either. That word "symbiosis" is the key.

"He wants people to buy his product from him not someone else that also has his code. He needs to make money to pay his mortgage, send his kids to college etc."

He should change his business model, because someone else may very well come along and offer a competing product at no cost, and with more freedom. He will simply be obsolete, living in a cardboard box, and starving with dumb kids. ;)

"how do you make money from open source software?"

I make money by charging for my time, not other people's products. Typically I hear about someone or some company that needs some piece of software, or I think it would be beneficial to them. I push as much free software that I am familiar with on him as I possibly can, and hope that he will need some revision to it with the understanding that he can go anywhere he likes to get those changes. Very often he comes to me to get them, because I have earned his trust. End users give me my bread and butter.

"I see Linus having a different view from RMS"

As with you and I, I see Linus as having a variation of the same idea that RMS has. Not a different one entirely. I'm not talking about hobbyists exclusively when I say that copyright assignments will discourage contributions. I'm also thinking of people who work at companies that compete with Sun. Think of IBM contributing code to OpenSolaris in the same magnitude that they have with Linux. They undoubtedly will make some contributions to OpenSolaris, but the assignment issue would keep them from adopting it as their main strategy. Put that in perspective of their current battle with SCO. Where would we be if Sun (or worse, SCO themselves) owned the copyright to JFS, NUMA, RCU, etc? Watching Linux be ripped to shreds by the vultures is where. The very fact that IBM still owns the copyright on those items is what gives them the right to relicense them under the GPL.

"I think Sun is doing pretty well adapting."

Me too, but they are by no means fully adapted, that's all I'm saying.

"If open source is so much better, where are the complete free javas?"

Up and coming. Sun's Java is not completely unfree either. The community source license has its problems, but it does also permit a great deal of freedom. It is less free than the two I mentioned though, and I believe they or some other project will make Sun's obsolete. Perhaps IBM will open their JRE, if they have the right to do so, who knows.

"Don't even get me started with IBM and open source though."

Hahahah, I'm very mistrustful of them too, but they have been a good citizen of the free software community thus far. That is very much my observation.

P.S. Very interesting points you bring up. I have to say this is one of the most pleasant discussions I've ever had on Slashdot. Thanks for that.

Hey ASSHOLES, the current Java source code can be downloaded here, and the latest development version can be downloaded here. And if that's not enough for you, your precious Kaffe, gcj, GNU Classpath, and other "Open Source" projects are working on reimplementing the JVM. I don't particularly care if you like Java or not, but I've had enough of this bullshit about Java being open or not. It's a God damn language/platform with thousands of successful Open Source projects under it, and has been opened up six ways to sunday. Comparing the issue to Linus's predicament is disingenuous at best, is not outright dishonest!

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.

GNU Classpath and JamVM are smaller and faster than Suns JRE but they may not run Azureus yet.

No, JamVM (although extremly small ~200kB) isn't anywhere near as fast as the Sun JRE. JamVM is an interpreter, not a JIT VM. But it's fast as far as VMs go.

If you want a Classpath-based VM which is fast you should look at Jikes RVM or Kaffe, or perhaps consider compiling to native with GCJ.

Azureus uses native GUI widgets by way of the Eclipse SWT so if JamVM supports the required communication methods between VM and System alright, then it won't be too hard to run.

JamVM handles native calls without problems. I've run Eclipse and other SWT apps on it myself.

However, Azureus doesn't run on Classpath yet. It's very close to it.. But there's still one or two small issues with the Classpath libraries. If someone wants to help out with this, email the classpath list (classpath@gnu.org) or drop in on #classpath on FreeNode. You'll be 'liberating' Azureus and helping free java at the same time.

The only real problem Java has is that there is no good Free JVM. But I expect that will change in the future.

I too expect it will change, but the JVM and class libraries are very tightly coupled, meaning one can't really be complete without the other. Thus, I strongly encourage anyone who can to support Free (as in Freedom) Java efforts like GCJ, Kaffe, Jikes, and probably most importantly GNU Classpath.

Not that long, really :) The whole thing really started to take off one or two years ago, when free software written in the Java programming language started to become interesting to people outside the 'Java-only' community. In the last two years we've seen a massive improvement on both the class libraries and on the runtimes themselves. For example, this graph shows how quickly Kaffe alone developped in the last two years. The progress is certainly similar for gcj and other free runtimes.

GNU Classpath is already in many ways superior to Sun's implementation, and in those where it's still lacking behind, it could of course use a bit of help to get there faster. Jump on the lists and join in the fun. :)

cheers, dalibor topic

The JVM source code IS AVAILABLE under the Sun Community Source Licensing. You can try it for yourself.

The SCSL is NOT an open source license (it doesn't give you the right to redistribute modified versions), but still it is much better than closed source. J2SE 5.0 is also available under the JRL (Java Research License) that allows sharing binary-based research distributions of Java.

Sun is preparing a tweaked license for J2SE 6.0 called JIUL (Java Internal Use License), in an effort to show that "the company wants to make Java as open source as possible while maintaining platform compatibility". You can read two recent articles on this topic in infoworld and news.com .

As for the GPL-compatibility, I remind you that most open source licenses are NOT GPL-compatible. Neither the Apache License nor the Mozilla Public License are GPL-compatible and this has not stopped the Apache httpd nor the Firefox widespread adoption in the open source community. Expecting Sun to release its JVM source code under a GPL-compatible license is nonsense. What we can realistically expect in the near future is a license scheme that would allow free redistribution in a company. They make this to please large companies like IBM, that has been complaining for some time now that the Sun JVM is not open source.

However, nobody is forced to use the Sun JVM. GCJ and Kaffe are GPL, aren't they?

With all the developers bitching about Java and the fact that it's not free, and considering the fact that there is a massive base of Java users and developers that are friendly to the idea of a *nix system to be won over, they sure do seem to be dragging their feet at getting an up to date free JVM.

Java is one of those things that you CONSTANTLY see ppl in the free software camp bitching about. Why don't they bloody well put their heads together, through their weight behind one of the many free software projects out there that are working on the problem and clean-room reimplement the damn thing if it's such an issue?

Even if they couldn't make a free JVM and call it Java, they could still include it all the distributions configured to drive things like OOo. I can't imagine that an OpenOffice 2.0 Kaffe Edition (or whatever the JVM clone turns out to be called) would be such a big task if everyone stepped up to the plate where the JVM was concerned.

It's not that we hate Java. In fact, I like the language; I play with it using Kaffe

It's the licensing of the official JDK that we hate.

Read my post if you want to have a feel for how difficult it is to install Sun's JDK on FreeBSD. There are so many twists and turns here that when I reinstalled FreeBSD, I decided to install Kaffe instead to learn Java with (needed for future classes; language use not under my control).

This may be flamebait, but one of the main reasons why I haven't used OpenOffice on my computer is due to these Java dependencies. OpenOffice not only requires Java, but it specifically requires the Sun JDK. Some users may be asking me, "What's the problem?" The problem with that is that there is no binaries for the JDK for FreeBSD 5.x, and that I must agree to a very restrictive license in order to download the sources. Next, I can't compile the sources into a redistributable package (because Sun says so, meaning that for every FreeBSD machine that I have I must compile Java manually, nor give Java packages to others), and I can't even look at the sources without being tainted for life. Finally, the compilation takes an extremely long time to finish.

Don't get me wrong. I like what I've heard about OpenOffice. But as long as OpenOffice is encumbered with Java code that requires the Sun JDK, I'm not using it. How many of you know the BSD story when the BSD developers got tired of AT&T due to its licensing (for those of you who don't know, BSD was originally based on AT&T Unix) and started rewriting the "encumbered" portions of their operating system? It would be great if some developers would do the same with the Java portions in OpenOffice.

To elaborate further, I feel that Sun's handling of Java is a nuisance. Java may be a nice language, but as long as its only really complete implementation of it remains licensed the way that it is, I won't code any open source projects with the Java language, and Java is never going to be a primary open source development language. Why should the code that I write be tied to a non-free, restrictively licensed runtime environment that only runs on the platforms that Sun says that it should run on? Python, Ruby, and even Microsoft's own C# (in the form of Mono) isn't encumbered by such restrictive licensing. Sun's slogan for Java was "write once, run everywhere." Well, it depends on what Sun consists of "everywhere." Since the operating system that I choose to use is considered "nowhere" by Sun, well, I guess that Sun's JDK is going to be "nowhere" near my machines again, and for all of the projects that require this JDK, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not installing them, either.

Java is many things. It is a programming language. It is also a runtime environment in the form of a protable virtual machine. It also comes with a huge class library.

For some reason, that monkey Miguel went and decided to write his own version of M$'s Java clone, C#/.NET, for "Linux" (i.e. Unix-like OSes) to undermine everyone else's work.

Now, you can get branded Java from people other than Sun e.g. IBM. IBM is currently a great favourite of the slashdot peanut gallery.

In addition, gcc comes with a Java-language to native code compiler as well as byte code (to run on the evil, nasty closed-soure Sun (or IBM or whoever's) JVM).

If you don't like Sun, or IBM, or Blackdown or kaffe's JVM, including their JIT compilers which can optimise to exceed the efficiency of statically-compiled code, then you can always revert to gcc's Java language compiler.

However, I'm sure these facts will be conventiently ignored for the sake of a good, heated argument, and many rants.