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uServ -- P2P Webserver from IBM
ryantate writes: "Some folks over at IBM have been working on the uServ Project, which provides "high availability web hosting ... using existing web and internet protocols", meaning you can serve a website from your desktop and people can get at it with a standard Web browser and without special software. They claim the system, which works from behind firewalls and when you are offline (provided you can convince other peers to 'replicate' your site), is in active use by about 900 people within IBM. Here's the white paper."
..what is the advantage of using "uServ" over Morpheus? Will I able to download songs, album covers, and lyrics?
only a resounding second.
Looks interesting. But well doesn't this undermine what admins are trying to do when they put up a firewall.
Damn Right!!
Only AOL Time Warner Turner, News Corp, Verizon and Oprah should be allowed to make Web pages.
Everyone else doing it will just mess stuff up!
tcd004
this is really really cool and interesting
A big company like IBM to back it up. IBM definitely has the funds to take on the RIAA and the MPAA. And if this is less of a pain to use than say gnutella/mojonation, it will prove to be a lot more popular.
I can't wait to see the RIAA try to sue IBM. God I love this industry ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Freenet already does all this, and in addition, provides for complete anonymity and encryption. It can also be tunneled over just about any other protocol (instead of being limited to HTTP like uServ). It is still under heavy development, but already contains a wealth of information. This is one of the few truly great open-source projects in development today.
Sounds a lot like Freenet.
Username taken, please choose another one.
This is really, really cool and interesting.
...
Seriously.
It's a neat idea, but realistically, I can't imagine personal "This is my Cat" webpages will be propagated far enough for it to be worthwhile (assuming I'm reading it correctly). Unfortunately, as with many "neat ideas", the only used that will become widespread are be warez/mp3/movie/iso/etc. sites, illegitimizing (to some) the whole idea.
On the other hand, it may make it just that much harder for the MPAA, RIAA and co. to stop the spread of their property.
... is that the system can only handle static content. I'm sorry ... but 90% of the sites I visit are dynamically generated.
The Raven.
The Raven
While debugging a nasty client issue, my co-worker said: "Well, I've got these 100 megs worth of logs..." Which would really help me out, but because of all sorts of internal networking issues they would be hard to get. Then he introduced me to uServ. "Here, try this..." And there the logs were. Saved my butt.
So we have a reputable, giant hardware/software/etc. company backing up a P2P filesharing system. Perhaps if the RIAA or MPAA persue IBM, a standard could be set against their futile attempts to stop filesharing (because we know P2P = piracy) on the Internet.
Do you like German cars?
How does this protect your privacy? While freenet uses encryption to protect your privacy, ibm uses it to grant or deny access; therein lies the rub, ie.. commerical entities only code for commercial and government interest, while non-commercial entities have better motivations and their code's functionality relfects it.
BTW, is this released under the GPL? If so, take the best of this or add a layer of encryption to it so that it provides the functionality of privacy as does freenet.
--turn on your freenet nodes, we've won the war!
One part of this that is an interesting idea is having your data replicated by local peers, so that when you are offline the data is still available. This would improve the availablity of files in any P2P, not only in the case where the person is offline, but would also help where a person has popular files: they could be replicated on "friendly" hosts to satisfy demand. This would be great if it were done automatically a group of co-operating users.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Wow, this is what the Internet really needs to become the force for social change that people originally thought it would be. It sucks about the Web that people with popular sites need to pay more for their bandwidth -- meaning that you don't want your personal site to get too many hits.
Freenet is nowhere near what this sounds like guys, much as we like the underdog. What is amazing about this is that it relies on already existing infrastructure. I don't want to have to be: running a Freenet node, wait 20 seconds for a 5 k html file to load, and then be dependent on the page being a frequently requested (and thus stored) page. Freenet works best for large, popular files, because the search time then becomes negligible and you are ensured that the file you want will be available. This sounds great for Bob to host his site without worrying that it will disappear if nobody but him reads it, but also if it turns into the next Hamster Dance, he doesn't have to shell out thousands of dollars for bandwidth costs.
I use Freenet, but I recognize its limitations. It unfortunately is not the tool for dissent that people hoped it would be, because unpopular files are hard to find.
Ceci n'est pas un post
So, let's see what the IBM thingy does... hmm, well, it serves web pages (check), provides dynamic DNS check (check), and it distributes the load to other boxes, after you manually set it up to do so (check).
Sure, the slick interface is a value-add, by I don't really think of this as Peer-To-Peer. It'd be a lot more interesting if it automatically distributed the load, replicated the most accessed content, etc.
Wasn't Sun developing a Java P2P thing (API, protocol, platform, infrastructre, whatever they called it) that was supposed to be the greatest thing ever, solve all humanities problems, erradicate evil from the face of the earth and cure cancer? What happened to that?
(On the bright side, P2P seems to be the only one of the stupid X2X acronyms to actually catch on - the combinations of Bs, Cs and 2s were getting pretty obnoxious)
sic transit gloria mundi
This sounds a lot like what MS gave us several years ago. Yawn.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
I am confusied. The "killer app" of the P2P server is getting around the fact that your company's intranet is not setup properly to do the one thing its there to do in the first place (allow you to share information with your co-workers)?
I could just as easily have said "well, I don't know how to run Apache, so this userve thing sure saved my ass!"
To me it just seems like one of those things that are kinda cool, but fairly useless. But then, what do I know?
sic transit gloria mundi
... but relevant
sic transit gloria mundi
If this were a freeware/shareware/open source P2P web hosting program, I'd be thrilled. In fact, I would already have a web page up on it, because I've been looking for just such a solution. But a closed source program that I have to pay a subscription fee for, with a larger fee if I want its fullest abilities? Compared to a hosting service that wants a subscription fee but doesn't take up my internet connection or bog down my computer with continuous server processes, this "P2P Web Hosting (Subscription) Service" is just reinventing the wheel by making it a triangle.
The whole thing just seems... kind of stupid.
Yay, the future of Slashdotting has just arrived! Now the Slashdot effect can cripple thousands of personal computers instead of just bringing down plain ol' ordinary servers like it's always done!
A p2p web mirroring system. Actually a bit different from this, my idea was of having a massive distributed 'cloud' of proxy servers, so that people in sucky countries (China, Saudi Arabia, Australia) could get past national firewalls.
/. :P
IMO, the web model of content distribution kind of sucks. Interesting sites that draw a lot of traffic die because they don't have enough bandwidth. or their content isn't 'profitable' enough.
But on the other hand, isn't this just a stripped down version of Freenet without the protection? Of course, giving how sluggish Freenet is on the current internet, maybe that's the only way to go.
The holy grail, I think would be a system that still allowed interactive/dynamic content. Imagine a distributed
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
(subject line spoken in a gruff voice like in the old Wendy's commercials)
I guess that "billion dollars spent on Linux" must be going towards buying IBM execs bigger leather chairs and fine art to decorate the hallways.
If they want the advantages of Open Source community, they ought to try being part of the community. Lameness.
so, did anyone else need these 100Megs of data? Is your network so slow that this wasn't at most an hour or so d/l, in any case, if it's just one source and one destination, mirroring is of little use. Don't you have 100Megs to store this on your local drive?
Why not any other program that just copies files (basically the first networking program everybody writes)?
I fail to see how this is a compelling application.
In the future, the Internet will be destroyed by what is known only as the Slashdot Effect®. The Second Dark Ages will begin and the world will be imitate the world of Dark Angel .
Luckily, a hero from the future has come to the past, obtained a job at IBM, and created uServ. Slashdot, you have met your match.
-Rufus
You die too easily.
This is slightly similar to my Reptile project which was covered a while back on slashdot
The major difference is that we are reusing existing P2P protocols and will provide bindings for JXTA, Freenet, Jabber, etc.
Content is syndicated in between nodes as XML (RSS, etc). An index is kept of all the content so you can run local searches. Actually we use Hypersonic SQL so you have a very FAST in-memory index of all this stuff.
Users publish information into the system by adding a item to their local weblog. Remote users can subscribe to this channel and will receive updates via the P2P layer.
We are also working on a reputation, and distributed public key authentication model. This is obviously very tough and we have been working at it for a while...
Hopefully we will have another release out soon.
Anyway.. check it out!
Which would really help me out, but because of all sorts of internal networking issues they would be hard to get.
So in other words, uServe is a fix for IBM's jacked up intranet? Wouldn't it have been better to put resources into fixing their network in the first place?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It was called JXTA, and really it's just a way to transfer XML around with java. It's useful, probably. It's still around, but no real visible apps have come about.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
For such a verbose description, I can't see too terribly much difference between a windows user running PWS (MS Flak: "It's so easy, you're probably ALREADY RUNNING IT!") and google cache, and you don't have to convince google cache to peer with you.
If I see one maggot, it all gets thrown away -- My Girlfriend
I like music
uServ only needs a central server to locate individual web servers and set up dynamic DNS accordingly - e.g. to find a replica when the master site is down, or to find a proxy that can accept incoming connections for a firewalled machine. The actual access to web servers is always done via dynamic DNS and HTTP, so there is virtually no cost to the central server (it's only used as machines log in and out of the system, or change proxying/replication relationships).
The central server (i.e. admin server and dynamic DNS service) could be very low cost - something like the cost of dynamic DNS, which can cost from $0 to $25 per year. Someone like TZO.com could easily offer this (they do a good dynDNS service already).
The reason this is better than a free hosting service is that you don't subject your readers to adverts, and you can host whatever content you want. The one thing that's missing from this is dynamic load balancing - if you could have 100 other sites replicating a popular open source software site, and have people automatically connect to a nearby low-load site, this would basically *solve the mirroring problem*. If you can make the creation and use of mirrors completely automatic, the non-corporate Web can easily scale to much higher volumes than today, without having to make mirrors visible to the user.
This does take up more of your bandwidth than central hosting, but that's the whole point of P2P - if this is a problem, apply rate limiting in the web server or the network. Most people use a lot more downstream bandwidth when surfing, so all you need to do is to reserve some bandwidth for upstream ACKs and upstream email - the remainder can be used for P2P serving without problems.
Open source hosting is very reliant on Sourceforge and on people paying for web hosting services - it would be great to see it scale through the application of standard protocols and some smart software. Freenet is a much more radical approach, of course, with some interesting features, but it requires a new client or that someone hosts an HTTP to Freenet gateway - probably both approaches will fit into different niches.
"What are they gonna do with the famous anus?"
Why, mount it, of course.
this story sounds like it came right out of the Slashdot Story Generator
A way to combat the /. effect! Yippie!!!
:-P
"Hey guys! I'm going to post a plug on slashdot -- wanna replocate me?" -- this I'm sure won't get a lot of "Sure!" responces...
Otherwise great way to set up mirrors in a hurry.
Karma whorin' since 1999
This will be a bit like freenet, but without the anonymity stuff, it will be much more reliable and faster. I think it will be quite a good system for the average people on dialup. As long as the AUP's don't kill it.
The real working business model is, well, web hosting: you pay someone to keep your content on-line. You get reasonably predictable uptime, bandwidth, and services (PHP, etc.). It's not very expensive, you know. You even get it for free if you accept advertising on your pages.
And the tools to support web hosting and migrate your data are already there: you can use "rsync" to keep your local site in sync with your web hosting service. For really high-end applications, you can replicate the data through a commercial service like Akamai.
Hmmm... I think it's been mentioned that this sounds like Freenet without all the extras thrown in.
Frankly, there are a few things inhibiting Freenet's popularity when compared to Gnutella and Fasttrack (Is that still running?).
1. High learning curve: Trying to figure out how to search for freenet keys is a bit of a challenge, especially compared to typing in "Matalika" in a Morpheus or Gnutella search window and getting dozens of relevent matches from Lars and co.. You don't have critical mass until you have the morons.
2. Difficult install: I have yet to see a Freenet implimentation that didn't require an attendant JRE install of some kind. Worse, it also frequently entails setting up Java class paths, a task that can confuse even Java developers from time to time. Then a user must understand that he usually has to use his or her browser to access Freenet. There is no 'Freenet' icon to point and click.
3. Difficulty of sharing: It's possible to make entire web pages available via Freenet, but if a Freenet user is firewalled for any reason, it really harms him in terms of being able to participate in the sharing.
4. Unpopular data doesn't propogate: Because the most popular data is shared and replicated most frequently. Warez and mp3s show up, but things like dissident and political theories, text files, and more personal data are lost... even to those who might be interested. (Oddly, Hotline is still a very good place to find these sorts of things. IRC fserves, as well.)
From what I read of the white-paper it looks like this project, or an open-source project very similar to it, could solve these problems and still acheive many of Freenet's goals.
Maybe the OSS community should look into something like this... a moron-safe, web-based file sharing project for the masses that ignores anonymization and encryption in order to gain a more critical mass. Better yet, because of the similarity between the two projects, once the sharing infrastructure was in place, it could accept a Freenet plugin, or vice-versa.
Just an idea...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Linux and some other OSs have good QoS features, particularly for upstream bandwidth - just allocate (say) half your bandwidth to upstream email (and the important TCP ACKs for your downstream traffic, and the P2P downloads from your machine can use the other half. In fact, you can even allocate 90% to your own traffic but let the P2P traffic 'burst' to use this when you are not using it. The only problem is that Linux QoS is quite hard to use, and most people aren't even aware of what it can do.
Hi. I work at IBM, and I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way (i.e. the Napster "gimme all your mp3s" perspective).
When your company has 300,000+ employees, communication can be difficult sometimes, especially when it comes to sharing files. uServ allows you to allocate a semi-permanent "address" for asyncronous access of data, which cuts through several layers of beurocracy (requesting webspace, etc). Lotus Notes doesn't quite cut it for this type of usage..
The point is not to anonymously share MP3s.
It sure does.
IT really is. A sun workstation rocks
In a standard corporate intranet, what is the preferred method to share files between end users? Far as I can tell, there isn't one. That's the point. Same goes with home users.
Well, everywhere I've worked we used SMB or NFS.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
IBM obviously didn't check Google before naming their project. GNU userv got there first (in 1996).
Almost the entire IBM workforce uses notebook computers. It creates some rather interesting problems.
I work in IBM development, I was dealing with a guy who works support in another state, who was at a customer's site in another country. Obviously, the powers that be don't want to have lots of nice free data sharing between all these segments. Especially since the product I work on is security related. (And before anyone jumps on me about the lack of security of uServ, I was up till 3 AM last night running back and forth between two sites in multiple cars do a key exchange ceremony using physical tokens for a bank. I understand when using a lightweight system like this is okay.)
Sure, in my earlier example we could have moved the data in question using existing channels, but you'd be going from three different platforms, three differnt OSes. Not only that, but a lot of people don't have things like SSH installed. SMB is kinda WinTel based, which doesn't help me much. NFS has lots of fun things like UDP. Add firewalls into the mix (because we're going between development, support, and customers) Did I mention dynamic IP's? And proxies?
Granted, I'm not a big Java supporter, and would prefer a SSH/SCP tunnel, BUT, when I needed the data fast, this was a HELL of a lot easier than setting up a more traditional method. Have you noticed the shift towards "Web Services" in the software world? It's not because doing everythin of HTTP/HTTPS ports is the best way, but because damn near everyone has a solution in place to allow that sort of traffic to flow. uServ simply exploits that.
Oh, about our "jacked up Intranet": Yes, it can be "jacked up" but it's a lot better thought out than any other place I've been. Even the parts running Token Ring. (ewww...)
She should be more careful with her web page. If she wants to advertise her Web Design expertise, it wouldn't hurt to test the site with Netscape. When I hire people I often go to the sites they mention on their resume and try them out. I imagine others do as well.
With Netscape 4.79 on Win98, the only thing that you see is the navigation buttons on most of the pages. A quick examination shows that she is improperly closing her table tags using <table> instead of </table>
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
and FTP too. In just a couple of clicks.
Does this run on FreeBSD?
Speaking of Freenet (a nice piece of software indeed!), does anyone remember what Cult of the Dead Cow said they were working on at last Defcon? A nice rundown is here [canadacomputes.com] and even better was discussion started right here [slashdot.org].
They called it Peekabooty and it technically does what this new software from IBM does.
Anyone know if it's still vapourware?
Perhaps uServe can't handle dynamic content, but it can handle a redirect to an Apache server on the same machine (or perhaps even combine the two more integrally: Apache handling the dynamic content, uSever sticking with the static). Anyone who could make dynamic content should be able to handle such a solution.
BlackGriffen
That's exactly the point. Did you read the whole paper at all, or just count on the rest of us to fill you in?
"Another challenge, which cannot be underestimated, is keeping the system simple...[Free web hosting sites] require technical expertise, such knowledge of FTP, not held by a typical web user."
For you or me, this is an absurd idea: not know FTP? C'mon! But try working on a helpdesk some time. I do, for a small ISP and webhosting company, and believe me it's really like that. It never ceases to amaze me how many people just don't know that "the Innernet" is more than Explorer and Outlook Express (or IE, OE and Front Page, if they've got a weg site). This program is for them (but useful for the rest of us too).
The other way that uServ helped in this particular situation was the not-having-to-use-email-to-send-100Mb-attachments part. I deal w/enough people who can't understand why a) they can't pick up their email because someone sent them a 5Mb attachment (remember, these are dialup users) or b) they're mad because we won't let them send attachments bigger than 5Mb. The last thing you want is for the company's email to be held up for half an hour because there's a 100Mb attachment coming through. Again, for the ordinary user, not you or I, this is the perfect solution.
Overall, I'm impressed -- this sounds wonderful. The only thing that I can see being a bottleneck to widespread adoption, by people like my dad on dialup, is the need for a subdomain: that's something that definitely requires a techie to set up, and to get a group going. That said, maybe this is something ISPs could offer as an additional service: userv.isp.net. Given limited bandwidth over dialup, this wouldn't be great as an always-on service, but it would be a great way, as the authors suggest, to share pix or similarly large files: "You can pick them up from 7 'til 9 tonight."
Carousel is a lie!
This program is for them (but useful for the rest of us too)
a) The comment wasn't from them it was from somone needing log files to do "debugging" (I am hoping its not your typical AOL user then). And there was no mention of email, the files came from a "co-worker" - meaning that their IT department was simply not doing their job.
b)How are they useful for us? I haven't seen any reason yet.
Anyway, my point was this - being easier to use (supposedly) doesn't make this "technology" better than a traditional HTTP server (or a free service), a service or server that's itself easier to use would fill this role. The usablity of this should be judged on it's technological merits, not how "drag and drop" the user interface is.
PS I am well aware that the majority of people cannot use an FTP program. I still do believe that the solution to this is not bypassing it, but teaching them to use bloody FTP. If the general population doesn't learn something about computers, then what you and I do is just for our own fun - which is completely fine with me. I do my job, if they (the infamous "user") want to benefit from it, they'll need to make an investment (however inisgificant it actually is). Its the 21st century, pointing and clicking should be a required skill. (a good example: the majority of people can't drive for shit - are car manufacturers to be blamed for that?)
sic transit gloria mundi
or Zope or anything esle?
I have yet to see a Freenet implimentation that didn't require an attendant JRE install of some kind.
How do you install an app designed for Java technology without first installing JRE? How do you install a Perl app without first installing Perl? How do you install a C app without first installing libc?
There is no 'Freenet' icon to point and click.
Unless your installer makes a shortcut to it on the desktop.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I found the most interesting part of the paper in the underyling Vinci component infrastructure. It focuses on speed and protocol extendability for distributed applications in a (trusted) Intranet environment.
mailto:frank@fraber.de, www.fraber.de
the files came from a "co-worker" - meaning that their IT department was simply not doing their job.
And how, exactly, is that relevant to the usefulness or otherwise of thsi product?
b)How are they useful for us? I haven't seen any reason yet.
I don't find PhotoShop useful either; makes you wonder why Adobe even bothers, doesn't it?
being easier to use (supposedly) doesn't make this "technology" better than a traditional HTTP server (or a free service), a service or server that's itself easier to use would fill this role.
Sigh...what the hell do you think this program is trying to do? As quoted above, easy-to-use was a big goal here.
I still do believe that the solution to this is not bypassing it, but teaching them to use bloody FTP....Its the 21st century, pointing and clicking should be a required skill.
Care to explain the contradiction, or, again, is it my fault for feeding the trolls? I should be able to write packets by hand, too, but I can't. There are lots of tools that we all depend on to make things easier, from point-'n'-click programs to keyboards (real men use punch cards, I'm sure). FWIW, I agree w/your first sentence -- but I also know how hard that would be, and how many people simply wouldn't be interested. As I said before, this is for them.
Carousel is a lie!
Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're trolling. My fault.
I am not sure if my regular posting habbits can be easily diferentiated from trolling, but either way, people seem to anwer - discussion ensues.
And how, exactly, is that relevant to the usefulness or otherwise of this product?
Very simple - the original poster presented this (and only this, btw) as a use for this product, I was pointing out, that a better solution for what they used it to accomplish already exists in companies, its called an "intranet" and the only reason that it didn't appear to accomplish the task in this case, is because their IT does not appear to be doing their job. Here it is more briefly - why do you need a distributed P2P network for two people in the same bloody company to share information? Shared drives? File servers?
Care to explain the contradiction
I should've probably been more clear and articulate, here's my point. P2P sharing systems can be easy to use, or not. HTTP servers, can be easy to use or not. The ease of use, is not an intrinsic feature of the P2P paradigm, nor is it something that necessarily lacks from a free hosting service.
On a rather unrelated note, I pointed out that using an FTP program, should be something people who interact with computers know how to do, HTTP servers or not. This isn't a case where we geeks came up with something outlandish and now need to create a solution that the common man can use. We require people to learn to read, they should be able to handle FTP. I disintergrate into these rants simply because I am sick of working with PhD level scientists, who bitch and whine when they can't, for example, use a new Oracle backed LIMS in the same way they used Excel sheets before it. Never mind if its more useful and powerful (not to mention preserving data integrity) by orders of magnitude (according not to me, but to other scientists who were involved in developing it), its not what they are used to. Its a simple return on investment kind of thing - people just don't want to learn. But because it has to do with computers, its somehow our, the geek's, fault.
To recap, what it sounded to me like someone was implying was that introducing this fundamentally different approach to publishing content, from a technological point of view, was the solution to replace traditional servers, because those weren't user friendly enough. Am I getting across with the difference between the technology and the UI here, or am I just ranting?
sic transit gloria mundi
Were you perhaps thinking of Napster? Gnutella is about as P2P as it gets; there's no central server, and once two nodes have been introduced (e.g., at least one of them has added the other to its host list) they can reconnect even if everyone else is shut down. Granted, it may take awhile if the original network was >> 2 nodes--but it doesn't take a very large fraction of the network to self-connect within a reasonable time.
-- MarkusQ
By installing a version that's been compiled to native code using a tool like the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ)? Truth is, I haven't tried this, but it has the potential to work, since it provides a libgcj which implements the runtime, which could presumably be statically linked if you really cared about one file more or less.
How do you install a C app without first installing libc?
By installing a version that's been statically linked to a version of libc? Besides, libc is present on "all" systems, and is only a single file, so doesn't quite present the issues that installing a JRE does. A JRE is an independent program that has to be configured correctly in order to be able to run, it's not simply a file that has to be present.
You can't reasonably deny that requiring a JRE to run on top of does create extra distribution hassle which can translate to a barrier to entry for users.
This is addressed directly in the paper: preserves content availability even after your machine is off the 'net, focus on ease of use / install (for mass appeal), built in dynDNS, works with firewalls or even if you run other webserver software, etc. Disadvantadges include no scripting / cgi support, but the target audience for this technology could care less. So if you have a 24/7 connection and have taken the time to set up apache and a dynDNS service to go with it, then there's not much advantage. But I would venture that most people would rather run a 5 minute uServ install to get all these features.
Ok,
Where do we download it now ?
Marcel
Free Web based FTP
Testing my link-check evader: http://www.yahoo.com/
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
By installing a version that's been compiled to native code using a tool like the GNU Compiler for Java [gnu.org] (GCJ)? ... it provides a libgcj which implements the runtime
It doesn't implement all of it. From the GCJ page: "AWT is currently unsupported". The Swing GUI calls AWT. And it probably doesn't work all that well on Windows or classic Mac OS.
Besides, libc is present on "all" systems, and is only a single file, so doesn't quite present the issues that installing a JRE does.
What issues? A C runtime has to be separately compiled for each platform, just like a JRE. In fact, because some platforms (e.g. wince, classic mac os) don't have stdin or stdout, the compiler must link a terminal emulator into the app in order to conform to ANSI. If the (freely-redistributable) JRE doesn't come with your OS distribution, that's solely between you and your OS distributor. I'll just point you to Sun's web site where you can get the JRE.
Will I retire or break 10K?