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Then why did Sun push anti-AIX SCO FUD with their Wall Street Journal ad saying "Unfortunately, our friends in Blue have a problem with licensing contracts that could make things very expensive for anyone running AIX"?

Heck, a PDF of the ad is still up on Sun's web site here.

Wasn't Sun one of the SCO licensees? Maybe they're just reaping some karma here.

After getting hammered by the PC market, the comparison of Sun to DEC is a good one. They both were competing with Intel. DEC ended up selling the alpha to intel and having them produce it, ending the competition and settling a lawsuit over IP. The alpha was a great chip, too, but it's dead now.

Sun is also competing with intel and it's hurting them just like it hurt Apple. Businesses realize that they can buy 5 PC's for the price of one Sun, so even the awesome support sun offers pales when compared to the bottom line (provided you're saavy enough to swap a DIMM).

There is one hardware product that they will continue selling, IMHO. Sunrays. These machines rock. I'm using one right now. The footprint and lack of fans are awesome... my office is so quiet I can hear the fans in the machines across the hall and I barely even notice the space it takes up (about 12" x 6"). But this is not going to be enough to keep their thousands of employees.

Guess McNealy will be choking since this will allow your Ultrasparc based workstation run Windows. Amazing.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you should read up on Sun's products before you rant. Note the use of DDR RAM. Blade 2500 Workstation

McNealy would rather choke than see a Ultrasparc run Windows, but he would rather see an Ultrasparc run Windows than see his company die at the hands of Linux, a piece of software created by many of his own customers (former at least).

Huh. That's funny. Because last I checked, Ultrasparcs can't run windows, but Sun is selling a linux distribution... ohh, but the linux distribution doesn't run on the UltraSPARCs. I get it now.

Which really has nothing much to do with JDS but is none the less, very cool

OK. We agree that there are proprietary standards, and Java is one of them.

Sun kept promising to submit Java to an open standards body
Sun did not submit Java to an existing standards-approving organization, but they did set up the JCP. Java (excl. J2ME, which has its own list) is controlled by Apache, Apple, BEA Systems, Borland, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, IONA, Macromedia, Nokia, Oracle, SAP, SCO, Sun Microsystems, and 2 private citizens. Thay have approved all of Sun's recent releases and direct the roadmap for new enhancements. Why is this not good enough?

The APIs are defined at java.sun.com. You do not like them? I would hate to write a compiler from them, but it should be possible.

You complain that Java does not have a specification for a system that permits independent implementation. I thought IBM's JVM fit that description. If having the specification is important, why is the JCP not writing one? It is difficult to recommend changes to a system with no description of how it currently exists.

The JCP does have tools to verify that an implementation fits the standard. I could not find a document that states what is tested, but that may exist in the member-only area. (Individuals can join for free, but I have not joined.)

It has different collectors, which you can select according to the needs of your application. Currently there are two, the default collector (generational) and an incremental collector which is slower but less likely to pause.

Also, the default collector is a 3-generation one, not 2, at least as of Java 1.4.1. More details here.

For the destructor remark, the documentation of Object.finalize() is pretty clear that is can be overriden for cleanup needs. And it specifically states :
For example, the finalize method for an object that represents an input/output connection might perform explicit I/O transactions to break the connection before the object is permanently discarded.

From http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/ System.exit:
This method calls the exit method in class Runtime. This method never returns normally.

And from the Runtime.exit documentation :
The virtual machine's shutdown sequence consists of two phases. In the first phase all registered shutdown hooks, if any, are started in some unspecified order and allowed to run concurrently until they finish. In the second phase all uninvoked finalizers are run if finalization-on-exit has been enabled. Once this is done the virtual machine halts.
you _can_ enable finalization on exit if you need it. Of course you have to be careful with what you do in finalizers, just as you have to be careful with the destructors.

A language that lacks the tools necessary to implement such a regime needs GC, so the presence of GC may actually (as in the case of Java) indicate a fundamental weakness in the language.

Please explain to me exactly how you can implement a resource management system (or regime as you call it) in C++ for, lets say, managing socket connections, that has no equivlent in Java. You are aware of this method, right?

Then, please, further explain to me how a task performed by a software platform, in this case the Java Virtual Machine, can show a weakness in a programming language. Do you mean to imply that If I use Jython or Groovy that I won't have this problem? Or are you just making the rookie mistake of confusing the Java 2 platform with the Java language?

"Despite some of our peers in the industry who hire people with titles like evangelist, our folks have titles like developer and architect, and they go work with the open-source community to build technologies and solutions that solve customers' problems."

Looks like he has some clean-up to do. Getting rid of those guys should help with the 3300 layoffs. I certainly am glad to hear they aren't hiring any of those evangelist people or anything.

So if you read the Datasheet marketing stuff here and it says it is a Suse Linux Desktop 1.0 variant, what does that tell you about what runs JDS?

Yeah, its about Sun claiming to be supporting the open source community, while simultaneously refusing to do anything for said community.

Try again please.

Try again please.

Hey, Sun really does have the rings!
http://java.sun.com/features/1998/07/ring-project. html

I would not forget an essential for all browser and some network apps, the J2SE Jave Runtime Engine J2SE-1.4.2_04

Try downloading the software_companion cd - has all those compiled and ready to install in both pkgadd format - and with a webstart installer - u dont even need to burn a cd - just use lofiadm Also check http://www.sunfreeware.com

I install these programs first on new Windows machines.

• firefox
• cygwin (including emacs, ncftp, wget, openssh, grep, sed, and other favorites)
• putty
• ntfilemon/ntregmon
• Java2 SDK
• winamp
• VideoLAN Client
• wget
• WinPT/gpg
• Filzip

VNC, Emacs for Windows, VMWare, CDEx, Vorbis Tools, DaemonTools follow. I like Photoshop but as long as it's crippled (currency watermarks) and activated I'll never buy another license for it.

• it's hard to notice when something is not there.
• people tend to push these farther and farther away from the actual usage, so they get confused about what has been escaped. It's hard to maintain clear contracts between functions about something like this.
• even if you're diligent when writing the initial code, it's easy to slip when applying patches

So I think a new approach is needed. One where you don't mix instructions and data so easily, or flag them more readily.

With SQL, this has been around for a while: bind variables. Your SQL queries tend to be static with ? thrown in (or :foo for named bind variables). In Perl, it looks like:

my $sth = $dbh->prepare('select * from mytable where foo = ?');
$sth->execute($foo);

Not everyone is using bind variables, and I don't know why. One reason may be that positional bind variables can be confusing: they require you to correlate two lists in your head to position the correct variables in the correct spots. Not all language/database combos support named bind variables. (JDBC doesn't!) But they can be emulated - that's one reason I made xmldb.

For HTML, it's more rare to find something that does this. Apache Cocoon does, but it's grotesquely complex. I'm working on a simpler system, though it's not ready for production. Here's the idea: my files (XFP) are to a SAX ContentHandler as JSP is to a byte stream.

I like SAX because it's a way of making XML that does things right. Instead of doing something like:

out.println("<elem a=\"" + foo + "\" b="blah">Blah: " + bar + "</elem>");

AttributesImpl attribs = new AttributesImpl();
a.add("a", foo);
a.add("b", "blah");
out.startElement("elem", a);
out.characters("Blah: " + bar);
out.endElement("elem");

<elem b="blah">
<xfp:attribute name="a">foo</xfp:attribute>
Blah: <xfp:expr>bar</xfp:expr>
</elem>

<elem a="{foo}" b="blah">Blah: {bar}</elem>

My code is all Java. But the concepts should apply to PHP, Perl, Python, anything.

Anyone else working on a system to solve this problem? I'd be interested to share ideas.

Why pay for OOo (even at a discount) when I can get Star Office for free (Educational Use Only)?

But migration is a one time cost. And Sun (see the last line) does provide migration services. Not sure how cheap or expensive they are. I am sure managers have figured out by now how M$ will continue to hold companies on ransom by forcing an upgrade every couple of years.

I see XAML mentioned over and over again. I don't know about it in detail, but I do know there is a new Java technology that may come to compete with XAML: JavaServer Faces. It is a markup-agnostic server technology to ease web development.

I know it is not the same thing as XAML - but I think it may develop into an attractive solution when the problem you need to solve is : how do I create a thin user interface that does not need deployment.

I don't know about that. If you believe what Sun says, there are 1.5 billion devices out in the field that run Java. I don't know if that's just embedded devices or if that includes web browsers, PeeCees, servers etc. but that's a heck of a large install-base.

Imagine delivering an app via website that used native widgets and looked and felt like part of your OS, all while safely sandboxed.

This capability has been available with Java WebStart for a while now. Like many Sun and Apple products, they are consciously ignored until Microsoft "invents" them and the fanboys come running into my office to show this "new" technology on MSDN. Yawn. Trying to keep up with Mono is a Microsoft-sponsored hamster wheel, IMHO. If we really wanted .Net functionality on Linux, we would make peace with Sun and pull Java into the OSS world.

You can make really good Java Swing desktop or browser apps that look every bit as good or better than .Net apps. The Pluggable Look and Feels allow this; this site has a gallery of some. We've benchmarked real apps with Java and .Net, and the execution times are within 10% of each other. They both suck about the same. :)

Actually, the URL for PHP5 is http://java.sun.com. Please fix.

very simple example of 15 servers in 3U. Many vendors are also offering a "dual dual" system in 1U... that is a two dual CPU motherboards that fit in one case.

No, you're right. I was replying to a poster whom I'm now certain is some sort of anti-OSS troll (and is thus now on my foes list, grrr). He was trying to be whitty and criticize a "Linux user" for using KDE and the MS-isms therein. I made a simple parody of his post but at least two people seem to have missed my point. Maybe because the original post was soon modded as troll, maybe because my post was so short and I didn't qualify it with an explaination. I simply tried to come up with some "features" of Windows that were developed outside of MS (which isn't hard, really).

An anonymous post got the general gyst though.

• Multitasking - Multics, Unix, VMS. This feature goes way back to time-sharing mainframes. It's probably difficult nowadays to ascertain who really did it first.
• GUI - Xerox PARC, Apple, MIT (X), Acorn RiscOS.
• Mouse - Stanford, Xerox PARC, Apple.
• Audio hardware - erm, not really sure. Apple macs and Amigas had built-in sound hardware long before the x86 PC did.
• Accelerated graphics hardware (2D/3D) - Silicon Graphics, Sun, HP, Apollo, Evans and Sutherland.
• 3D API's - IrisGL/OpenGL, PEX.
• LANs and the Internet - Xerox PARC (LAN concept), 3Com (ethernet), Apple (Appleshare?), Unix (TCP/IP), Novell (IPX/SPX).

Show some respect for your elders, or at least know them ;)

How long should I stare at it ?

This could be changed. Technologies have gone from public (non-private) to private and protected before. Consider the switch from party lines to private lines in the telephone system. Now that we live in the 21st century shouldn't we demand a similar switch for email?

Because privacy is, at its core, a fundamental human right. Every communication system we use should have privacy built in: if its not, there should be a very good reason why not. "Oh dear, it will take extra computational cycles" is not a good reason, not with the small footprint crypto already here. "Oh, Ashcroft doesn't want it" is even a worse reason.

Why is privacy a basic right? From the well-written essay by Canada's former privacy Czar

"If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered.

But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being."

" ...A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

"By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.

"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will -- indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves -- is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

"If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy...

"...The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society..."

"The key to deploying encrypted mail is to make it happen with close to zero involvement by the user. This is hard, and requires some security compromises that have made cryptographers uneasy in the past.

However, I have come down to the view that getting encryption widely deployed, even with some minor flaws, is better than getting perfectly designed encryption (if that's even possible) that hardly anybody uses.

The reason is that I exchange mail with tons of people, not just my closest linux-using nerd friends. If I want my mail to be private, I have to get the general public encrypting. This is a particular concern with new laws just passed granting U.S. law enforcment the power to read the "header" of a message -- including the subject lines of E-mails without a warrant. In addition, other nations have always had such powers, and on top of it all, most ISP backbones and mail servers are poorly secured from snooping by almost any system cracker trying to invade your privacy...

Current use of encryption for email is terribly low: I remember when Whitfield Diffie was asked at a Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference a few years back how many emails sent to him were encrypted. Because you'd expect him to be way up at the top of the list of people who get encrypted email... under 10% was his reply. Oh, and Zimmerman was also in the audience... same answer.

> Actually I am a developer that switched to Windows from Linux.

It was recently estimated that there are over 1 million Open Source developers in North America alone.

It's only logical that some of them are going to decide to switch to Windows.

And you're one of them. Good for you.

> Bullshit you switched because of all the hype and bull that accompanies the regular Linux religous preachers.

You're calling me a liar. That's mature.

> You wanna know why I switchd to Windows? It was to get away from the whiney, immature and the "Open Source it or you are a peice of crap" mentality.

So let me see if I have this straight...

I switched to Linux for rational business reasons. The platform APIs are relatively stable, so I don't have to keep changing my applications to match changes in the platform. All the interfaces are open and documented, plus I have the source code, so my development and debugging is faster and more accurate. And I know the owner of the platform is not going to try to undercut my product, and steal my business. All of thse things contribute to my bottom line.

You, on the other hand, switched to Windows because some people -- people who aren't even your customers -- are whining. You're not even doing it on principle, in fact you're bothered that _they_ have principles. That seems like a pretty poor way to run a business to me.

> Funny, all my favorite apps from Linux are available for Windows and they work flawlessly, can you say full of crap? Yes we know you are. . . . All my Windows apps work on all versions of Windows and not just the newer ones, hmmmmmmmmmmm

Wow, I am amazed. Can you possibly be that ignorant of Microsoft's history?

Here was Microsoft's plan for Java:

"Strategic Objective [is to] kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."

Here is what Bill Gates said about Intel's multimedia support for Java:

"If Intel has a real problem with us supporting [AMD's 3DX technology] then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they are. I would gladly give up supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA..."

Here is Microsoft's strategy to stop Open Source:

OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

I could go on, but you get the point. Microsoft's entire history revolves around sabotaging competitors' products. Some Microsoft officials should probably be in jail. But, hey, if you're happy working with them, then that's your choice.

> When you show me some code then and only then will I be a little impressed, until then since you posted anonymously I put you at 14? 15? maybe 16

Not worthy of a response.

2) Solaris 10 with N1 Grid containers should give Solaris the finer grain control that users want.

2) Solaris 10 with N1 Grid containers should give Solaris the finer grain control that users want.

I'm not sure about #1, but I always thought Sun had a much more vast throughput than Intels. I'm also not sure what you mean by "backplane", a quick wikipedia seems to suggest that it a simple bus of 1-1 pin mapping. Where is this used? Why does it matter? Even Mid-range Sun servers have a 9.6 GB/sec sustained throughput (Sun Fire Interplane Connect),

2. As with all things, there are cost/benefits to every feature. I'm sure there are applications that are better suited with greater hardware independance. Still I'm not sure what you mean here, are you advocating more manageability between CPU's and different domains (which is good for managing severals VM's?)? With a processor that has eight cores, you'd assume that one would be able to put a vm on each one with that vm, having four hardware threads available. How is IBM/HP's offering different?

No, I'm planning on shipping generic i586 binaries and giving the user the option to compile the source code during the Setup Wizard.

OK, fine. I will concede that in cases where your userbase is intelligent enough to actually know what CPU architecture they are running, and they won't be scared away when an installer says the word "compile," then C can be as fast as Java. :)

Besides, I often work with small hardware. Does a JIT JVM plus a program both 1. fit into 256 KB of RAM and 2. allow for garbage collection without noticeably interrupting the flow of events that occur at 60 Hz?

Though I've never used it, and can only quote the whitepapers, it appears Java 2, Micro Edition does in fact meet those criteria, with the possible exception of the JIT compilation.

java 1.5 spec

it's clear the author hasn't looked at Java since 1.4

Well, since 1.5 is still in beta , I don't see how this is an invalid comparison.

Is this the one you can't remember?

Everyone is right here. There is no one language which is best for everyone. Perl 5, Perl 6, Ruby, Python, Lisp, Scheme... They are all going to target Parrot so we will be able to choose our favourite language and still work together instantiating our objects and even inheriting from each other's classes crossing the cross-language boundaries.

Wow! What a wonderful and innovative idea, totally unlike anything anyone has done before!

JVM is not exactly language-independent. It is not very well suited for dynamically typed languages such as Perl 5, Perl 6, Ruby, Python and in fact even for languages like Lisp and Scheme. Thought, with few exceptions like immutable strings or some uninheritable base classes, JVM is quite a nice environment for statically typed languages with simple single-inheritance object models like Java.

The Microsoft .Net on the other hand is not very platform-independent and I don't think it ever will be, while still supporting mostly statically typed languages. Besides, it didn't even exist at the beginning of Parrot project...

In any case, none of them runs Perl 5, Perl 6, Ruby, Python, Lisp and Scheme which I was talking about. So yes, Parrot is in fact totally unlike anything anyone has done before. Very true.

As long as you only want to write in slow interpreted languages, it's not a bad idea. Personally when I use Lisp I compile it to native code, and it runs FAST. When I use ML I compile it to native code, and it runs FAST. When I use Perl... I spend several minutes twiddling my thumbs. No thanks.

There is no such a thing as slow language. The only way in which a language per se can be slow is the parsing time. Of course Perl 6 having unprecedentedly rich (and even self-modifying) syntax will always be much harder to parse than Lisp which is basically a manually written parsed tree. However, you will always be able to compile it once and store Parrot bytecode or native binary. Even without compiling it to a native binary, there is JIT engine which can run critical parts of the bytecode as single assembly instructions on harware registers if you give enough hints to the compiler. See the files in parrot/jit directory in the CVS. It is really worth reading.

Everyone is right here. There is no one language which is best for everyone. Perl 5, Perl 6, Ruby, Python, Lisp, Scheme... They are all going to target Parrot so we will be able to choose our favourite language and still work together instantiating our objects and even inheriting from each other's classes crossing the cross-language boundaries.

Wow! What a wonderful and innovative idea, totally unlike anything anyone has done before!

As long as you only want to write in slow interpreted languages, it's not a bad idea. Personally when I use Lisp I compile it to native code, and it runs FAST. When I use ML I compile it to native code, and it runs FAST. When I use Perl... I spend several minutes twiddling my thumbs. No thanks.

Sun has a simmelar project in the works. Codenamed Project Looking Glass. They have a nifty Vid. Based on their Java Desktop.....

Sun has a simmelar project in the works. Codenamed Project Looking Glass. They have a nifty Vid. Based on their Java Desktop.....

About Sun's attempt (Project Looking Glass), you can find a demo video here and the project's site here.

About Sun's attempt (Project Looking Glass), you can find a demo video here and the project's site here.

Much like anything else I've seen Microsoft make / do, this is NOT their original idea. I saw this feature demoed on a Linux machine at Comdex last winter.
Here's a link to a story about the linux feature.

Ah! Can't post!: "Database maintenance is currently taking place. Some items such as comment posting and moderation are currently unavailable."
Oh well, I'll keep trying.
"And the monkey flips the switch."

What about Sun's Project Looking Glass that's on their Java Desktop System?

Here's a link

Go read the Sun and IBM JRE EULAs. They explicitly forbid redistribution.

B.License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
Agreement, including, but not limited to the Java Technology Restrictions of
these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable,
limited license without fees to reproduce and distribute the Software, provided
that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified (unless otherwise
specified in the applicable README file) and only bundled as part of, and for
the sole purpose of running, your Programs, (ii) the Programs add significant
and primary functionality to the Software, (iii) you do not distribute
additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software (unless
otherwise specified in the applicable README file), (iv) you do not remove or
alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in the Software, (v) you only
distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun's
interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement, and (vi) you
agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any
damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including
attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any
third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all
Programs and/or Software.

Sun wanted a new computer language. Why? BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD WRITE AN OS IN IT! An OS based on an interpreted bytecode language! Was this moronic or what?

To be fair, Sun's plans included executing those bytecodes natively, on Java CPUs. So from that perspective, they were simply inventing a new reduced-instruction-set stack machine architecture, using knowledge gained from 50 years of CPU evolution. The plan was to create and market Javastations running the JavaOS natively on those Java CPUs, providing cheap dumb terminal remote access to central application servers.

Nothing moronic about that.

They abandoned plans for the Java OS around the same time they realized the dumb terminal market wasn't coming back. They still make and sell Java chips for embedded devices though.

From the April 2, 2004 Sun Press Releases

The agreements signed today include the following elements:

Microsoft Communications Protocol Program: Sun has agreed to sign a license for the Windows desktop operating system communications protocols under Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program, established pursuant to Microsoft's consent decree and final judgment with the U.S. Department of Justice and 18 state attorneys general.