Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FreeBSD Foundation Announces Java License for Free

Posted by timothy on from the nice-hot-cuppa-java dept.

nt2UNIX writes: "There is an article on Daily Daemon News that the FreeBSD Foundation has announced the inclusion of a FreeBSD native SUN Java SDK and RunTime Environment for the January 2002 release of FreeBSD 4.5 The whole announcement can be found here."

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Too bad the licensing blew it by freebsd+guy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As a former FreeBSD committer, I worked extensively with the team that produced the JRE/JDK project. Since programming languages can only be protected by patents (not copyrights), our original intention was to craft a clean-room version of Java that we could release under the BSD license, just like everything else in our distribution. Unfortunately, manpower was tight, and we were not able to do it all on our own. Hence, we discussed the matter with Sun and (IMHO) compromised our principles (unrestricted distribution in source and binary forms) in order to get the project done.

    Our experience should serve as an important lesson to open source developers who try to tackle too large a project by themselves: do not sell your soul to Corporate America. Sure, we have a native JRE/JDK, but the only advantage is that it is native - not Free in any stretch of the imagination. (Not even restricted-Free, e.g. GPL).

    All that aside, I have been testing several snapshots of the Java tools and they are very responsive and stable. More so, I am afraid, than Blackdown - although the ultimate test will be to see how it compares with the JRE running on a Solaris/SPARC machine.

    freebsd guy

    1. Re:Too bad the licensing blew it by Metrol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hence, we discussed the matter with Sun and (IMHO) compromised our principles (unrestricted distribution in source and binary forms) in order to get the project done.

      Certainly a fully open and free version of Java would have been preferrable and all. Even still, is this really that much different then having the Netscape 4.x browser included? For years this has gone along with both Linux and FreeBSD to provide what the community couldn't, a functioning browser.

      Just because Netscape provided a browser didn't mean that work wasn't done to produce a more open product. The folks over at KDE stepped up to the plate and knocked one outta the park with Konqueror. And of course we now have Mozilla going pretty nicely. Two great apps displacing the closed source version that preceded it.

      All I'm getting at here is that Sun need not displace any and all efforts that might look to go into a JVM for FreeBSD. Maybe it fills the role needed for a couple of years until interest in doing a fresh version as you described gets enough going to actually make it happen.

      --
      The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
  2. Re:Hm... don't know. by markj02 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    C# is an IEEE standard as well as the CLR. When mono is successful no one is going to want to use your proprietary JVM anymore.

    Well, first of all, AFAIK, C# is an ECMA standard, not IEEE. Now, I don't get your complaint. You say that there is a problem with Sun "dumping proprietary libraries" into the Java spec. But the Java language, JVM, and core libraries are as-well specified as C#/CLR, and they are stable. Beyond the core ECMA specs, Microsoft is completely proprietary, with NO free implementation at all and NO decent specs. And there is no guarantee that Microsoft will even stick to their spec--they will likely extend the hell out of what they submitted as a standard. Sun at least writes pretty good specs for what goes into new releases of the Java platform and they give you a free implementation.

    When mono is successful no one is going to want to use your proprietary JVM anymore.

    Why would anybody care about Mono? It's going to use non-standard APIs on a little-used platform.

    2. *WIN* Open Source license the JVM. Yes... I know it is scarry but this is you ONLY choice. Java still has a lot of great momentum. (*cough* Jakarta *cough*)

    That makes no sense either. Why do you care about open sourcing Sun's JDK? Implementing C#/CLR as part of Mono is at least as hard as implementing Java/JVM. Yet, you seem convinced that Mono will be successful. Well, if the Mono people can hack up C#/CLR, why does it matter whether Sun open sources Java/JVM? Why can't someone else just implement a high-performance Java/JVM? And what has Microsoft done for the open source community later? Ever?

    Sun makes available a great implementation under usable license terms. If you want something open source, rather than whining and stomping your foot that they aren't giving you more, go implement your own. Sun has already given you more than Microsoft likely ever will.

    And, in fact, the equivalent of C#/CLR/CLI already exists for Java in open source form in the form of several open source Java compilers, the Intel ORP, and open source libraries. If that functionality is what you or the Mono project are after, you could have had that years ago.