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The Apache/Sun Relationship Worsens
d6y writes "Over on the O'Reilly weblogs there's an entry on the relationship between Sun's Java Community Process and Apache. Sun have been rubbing people up with wrong way (the problems of licensing open source J2EE containers; stuts v. JavaFaces; log4j v. JDK 1.4 logging....) and I hope this gets sorted out real soon.
See also the original VNUNet article and Apache's position paper."
While it does matter in the aesthetic that Sun is restricting certification of open-source J2EE platforms, fortunately Sun has not taken drastic positions of 'shutting down' JBoss or anything like that. This letter from Marc Fleury seems to clarify the exact issue with JBoss.
This seeming 'rivalry' between Sun & Apache is not as clear-cut; Many of the Jakarta contributors are Sun employees and engineers. (Tomcat/Catalina is used as the 'reference implementation' for the Servlet/JSP specifications.) For more on this, check out the former 'open source guy' at Sun: James Duncan Davidson
If the java engine works, and works to such a degree that you could swipe Sun's stuff away and replace it with the one you've written, then is there _really_ any point in getting Sun to give you a little "Sun Approved" sticker on your product?
here's a thread (J2EE considered harmful) on the jakarta-general list that precipitated the Apache statement.
People who write to and use these platforms get what they deserve, and, presumably, what they want.
One thing I don't understand, but I'm sure that many people in the \. community do:
Is there any point to non-certified but highly compliant implementations? I'm sure the lack of certification would scare away commercial users, but what about others? Are they worth the trouble? Would they even want to use the stuff?
Sun's relationship to the OSS community is extremely difficult. Within Sun there is a lively corporate culture and a will to produce a high quality, performant and comfortable UNIX system. Unfortunately, the very same culture also fosters a special kind of NIH syndrome - what pain it was to get Sun to include current popular OSS tools like Perl, Bash and the like into their standard OS distribution!
From a strategic POV, Sun is being increasingly cannibalized in the low end market by Linux and BSD solutions, and at the same time forced to include stuff for free that is differentiating them from Linux like SDS, Sunscreen, ACLs and similar because Microsoft offers such features in their OS for free as well.
At the same time, Sun is not ready to embrace the OSS movement like, for example, IBM does. They fear that giving away code and ideas that they see as differentiation and advantage in an increasingly difficult market would harm their position and they would like to have some security and control, which the OSS process inherently cannot offer at all.
So basically what we have here is a corporation with a fear to "let go" coming under more and more pressure in a difficult economic situation.
Oreilly Weblog is real slow. This text does not include picture of the nerd who wrote the article, which is a good thing.
.NET DevCenter for O'Reilly & Associates' Online Publishing Group (OPG).
-Commienst
"Apache on warpath over Java license"
by Steve Anglin
Feb. 20, 2002
According to vnunet.com, "The Apache Software Foundation's battle with Sun Microsystems stepped up gear
last week as the open source community struggled to loosen Sun's cast iron grip on the Java platform." This is in response to, first, Lutris being turned-down for J2EE certification, and then JBoss, which is J2EE compliant from a technical standpoint, but apparently not J2EE compliant enough for Sun certification.
Last week, ONJava.com published O'Reilly editor Mike Loukides' follow-up on the possibility of open source J2EE from Sun: Will You See Open Source J2EE Implementations? Not Likely. TheServerSide.com also published an interview with one of Sun's J2EE principles, Karen Tegan. While Sun essentially says it supports open source efforts, it does not want those efforts to impact the J2EE certification process, a process that clearly is closed source at best. See the conflict.
As a high ranking member in the Java Community Process (JCP), Apache is part of the JSPA (Java Specification Participation Agreement). In this capacity, Apache can actively propose new and revised Java API specifications as well as integrate a particular specification under Jakarta, Apache's open source Java projects. Apache's reply is here in Apache's JSPA Position. According to Apache, "...Sun doesn't give a hoot about whether J2EE licensing restricts open source J2EE products (in case you missed it, it does)."
Sun benefits from its relationship with Apache. Apache gives Sun "...an advertising statement...to claim that it (Sun) has a 'vision which uses open standards and non-proprietary interfaces'." If Apache's reply and suggestions go unanswered, Apache can put pressure on Sun in other, more severe ways. Without Apache, Sun could lose many of its Java developers as Jakarta projects would be affected. The impact could be quite severe, certainly in terms of publicity. Financially, who knows?
Steve Anglin is Managing Editor of ONJava.com and O'Reilly Network's
I am into the copy and paste.
Sun has always been most standoffish towards the Opensource crowd. I've never understood why so many of the Open source advocates keep putting them up on a pedastal.
They have a long history of claiming other's works as their own--Which in my opinion is the worst crime you can do against open source people, take away the credit!
1. They claimed that the blackdown port of Java to linux was theirs!
2. They "adopted" the free and entirely non-sun code base for Java Servlets (Jakarta) and claimed it was the "Sun Reference Platform"
3. They "adopted" and FSCKED UP ROYALLY the XML4J/LotusXSL stuff that IBM had created and mangled out that god-forsaken peice of crap known as JAXP.
4. At one time, Scott McNealy admitted that Sun had indeed been the brainchild behind XML.
5. They ask ECMA to rubber-stamp their Java Language as an offical standard, but allow SUN to keep all rights for licensing and changing the language as they wish. ECMA tells them to "get bent" and SUN goes off sulking to anyone who will listen. Java still remains in the hands of the nutters who thought it up.
It seems that from a cursory glance, SUN has done many things to piss off the Java and the Opensource crowds. It's a mystery to me why people attack Microsoft for crimes very similar to these, but always praise Sun for their benevolence.
At LEAST Microsoft took their language and VM to ECMA, and said standardize it, and we'll accept it. (It doesn't hurt that ECMA is pretty MS friendly, and the chairman of the TC39 committee is a MS employee, but at least they took the right steps)
Heh
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
This is really odd considering JBoss (open source) is the best J2EE webcontainer out there. Granted, it isn't part of the apache group, but is mostly used with apache webserver and the jakarta (apache subproject) tomcat servlet container.
Maybe the "big wig" J2EE containers (IBM's Websphere, and BEA's WebLogic) are getting on Sun's back because of this??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
That's a really good point, however I must stress that when dealing with customers, (at least the ones i've dealt with) that it definitely matters. Most resellers and larger companies only deal with certified software for customers. While the "Sun Approved" stamp doesn't mean much to you or I, it does to that big corporation that has a lot invested in Sun products. From the POV of a large company, knowing that some software is going to be compatible with your large investment gives both a sense of union and a place to turn to in case something goes wrong. Usually this same thing holds true for hardware vendors...
For large organizations who (like mine) made a $50mil investment in moving to J2EE applications as a corporate standard, the Sun stamp of approval is absolutely necessary.
Personally, I'll take Tomcat/Catalina + MySQL + Velocity + PoolMan over most Java app servers, and only feel that J2EE benefits extremely large apps with the need to connect to legacy systems.
If the open source community starts to shun Java because of what Sun is doing, it will leave a huge hole and kill the momentum that has built up over the past 5 years or so.
How many of us Java developers began web-development by downloading Tomcat? How many of us love Struts and Velocity and don't want to lock our skillsets into proprietary solutions from BEA or IBM?
Sun needs to draw then walk a fine line between keeping the major app server purveyors happy while keeping the playing field open for those of us who want to use the technology, but don't have $50K handy for a single CPU license.
Mind the gap...
The presenter talked about Struts and Tiles.
Among his throwaway statements was "If you work on an open source project that becomes popular, you might get a job at Sun."
Enough said.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Only if your customers care. Certification is a way of convincing people that something is compliant without making them find out for themselves whether it's really compliant. It's like the difference between having a diploma, and having a transcript that lists all the classes necessery for graduation with passing grades. The diploma is a simple way to show, "Yes, I've graduated".
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Why not ask JBoss?
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Sun! Get with the program here. One of your most successful technologies is being directly targeted for destruction by the Evil Empire ... and you're fighting with the open source community? This is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. You've got to have allies somewhere.
Sun's problem is that they want to be a big monopoly like Microsoft, but they aren't one. It may be totallty obvious to Slashdot readers that the only way to successfully complete with Microsoft is to be allied with the open source community, but some players (Sun, Oracle, and even Apple to some extent) still think they can "win."
The problem with the computer industry is that most of the companies involved act like spoiled children. The only exception is IBM, which is a mature company and acts like one.
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So it's completely impossible that Java is a proprietary platform, because only MS makes proprietary software.
And if it is, it's completely impossible that Sun would ever abuse their control over that platform, because only MS does that.
And if they did, it's completely impossible that they are doing it for any reason other than defeating the evil Microsoft!
>> 2. They "adopted" the free and entirely non-sun code base for Java Servlets (Jakarta) and claimed it was the "Sun Reference Platform"
Yeah, they never did anything for Tomcat did they? (sarcasm) A few of the developers for Tomcat were Sun employees until recently. Did you bother to check any of your other rants?
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
I work for a company that has chosen to deploy J2EE applications using JBoss, and has seen substantial success from doing so. The applications running in JBoss bring in hundred of thousands of dollars for us, and support multi-million-dollar vendor/customer data exchanges.
As for the certification, more and more it comes with too high a cost. The price tag on the other "compliant" packages is way, way out of scope, and returns only minor additional results for us. You must also view certification from Sun's point - how much have they charged other major players for certification? How would those companies react if Sun now certified *for free* an open-source J2EE container given away *for free*. Where, for example , would BEA's pricing put them? Grossly overpriced, perhaps?
Sun is caught in a rough position. If they reverse their position and certify JBoss, they run the risk of alienating current partners. If they don't certify them, open source communities will continue to take jabs at their so-called support for open projects.
In the end, we don't really care. By our analysis, JBoss returns the best ROI of any of the J2EE containers. Certification is just a respectful (and expensive) nod from Sun. It doesn't define the real-world value of a product.
Sun should watch what they're doing with Apache or people may leave the Java train in favour of C# which may be perceived to be more open with the Mono project. It is really easy to port Java code to C#. Mono is getting better and better every single day. People have already independently ported Ant (NAnt), JUnit (NUnit) and Log4J (Log4Net) to .NET.
I use VI as well. I've programmed in C/C++ for years and am currently working on a Java project today.
I don't think you can relate the number of books on bookstore shelves to the popularity of the language directly. Java has just come out (compared to C and the older languages) and so like any other new thing, tons of worthless books were written to take advantage of the "Newness factor". Those worthless books are being weeded out and only the worthy will survive, thus the numbers of "Java for Dummys" type books will go down and we'll be left with the few quality books that are really out there, same as it is with most of the C/C++ text today.
I'd say that I am equally experienced with both Java and C and C++. I'd go with C++ any day for most projects, and I wouldn't be sad if I didn't have to do any Java anymore. But I do think it has a purpose, mostly related to serverside web based stuff and web based stuff in general. But it's just another choice, you can do the same with PHP or Perl etc.
So why is sun fighting with Apache? Who knows, but I appriciate all the work the Apache group has done for us and I think Sun is way off base here. They should concerntrate on building up the fortifications for the oncoming .NET vs. Java war. Better to hava Apache as a friend than a foe in that battle.
-T
I currently building a few applications using the Struts framework (I assume that's what was intended in the original post "stuts") and I've been really happy with the Jakarta efforts (including ant and log4j).
I have not read about JavaFaces, nor could I find anything obvious on java.sun.com. If anyone has a bookmark for a good summary page or two, would you mind posting them?
There are a fair amount of Open Source enthusiasts inside the company. Many of them used to be OS/2 enthusiasts, and you remember what happened with that product the moment some marketroid thought it might be inconvienent to keep producing it...
What I'm saying here is IBMs advocacy of Open Source Solutions is not in the least bit altruistic. They will continue to be our "friend" as long as they can make money off what we do. The minute that is no longer the case, they will drop us like a lead balloon. If things get really tough, don't expect them to stand by us.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The open source community needs to release a GPL version of Java. There are innumerable projects out there all of which have struggled independently to get to partial JDK 1.1 capability.
Until there is a highly competitive GPL java compiler with a full set of foundation classes, nobody should be happy about using Java because it is essentially proprietary technology.
Between GNU Classpath, gcj, jikes, KOPI, Kaffe, Japhar, and a dozen others, its amazing that Sun is so far ahead of what you can do with pure GPL.
Hmm, so you don't see any need for a programming language between those extremes? I would infer your position is that people who aren't creating operating systems (by that I mean the software that sit between the iron and everything else) are amateurs?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dad: 'cause they're a Java monopoly, Sally. Apache's truly open software threatens to hurt Sun's bottom line.
Sally: Sun are mean bullies! They should leave Apache alone!
Dad: Heh heh, yes they should Sally, yes they should.
Marc Fleury of JBoss (at an informal session in Boston last month) said that he is in constant contact with developers and management at Sun, and that Sun secretly loves JBoss, because grass-roots projects like that are just what Sun needs in their fight against M$.
I also remember him actually defending Sun's charging so much for J2EE certification, but I can't remember what his reasoning was.
Why flamebait, when you can throw fresh chum with no nasty hooks in it? :}
"From what I've seen, Java sucks". Does this mean you've never actually programmed in it?
ALL high-level computer languages, even C, are "hand holding". That's the point! I want my language to make my life easier by hiding the gory details, and i will use the highest-level language that can possibly work well for whatever i'm doing. In many cases, that will be Java.
If you want language-bashing, C++ is a horror. Someone please tell them that you can't solve every problem by adding a new keyword. And if you want to bring up yacc (and by extension, LALR parsing), Java is as clean as C. C itself isn't pure here... try this statement: 'if(a) if (b) something(); else something_else();' Legal C, with a shift-reduce conflict. Does the else apply to if(a), or if(b)? You DID read about LALR parsing in detail, didn't you? But that pales in comparison to C++, which simply cannot be parsed without dynamic type information in the parser. See Knuth's one-line crushing criticism of in in DDJ a few years back. But i digress.
Counting books on the shelf for a language is NO measure of its success, because most computer books are crap. The bad ones are dying off. I keep exactly two C books on my shelf - K&R and Plauger. Does this mean C is dying? No, it means those two books are so effective i don't need anything else.
As for VB... it's not a language for programmers who need hand-holding, because it's saddled with that horrible BASIC grammar that will do nothing but get in their way. If you want a language for beginners, check out Python. The worst thing about using it for a student language is that the students will be grossed out the moment they have to learn a bloated monster like C++ or Perl (not knocking Perl, it's my favorite language, but Python is better).
Java reminds me a lot of Unix... it's not perfect by any stretch, but it's so dang good that there is little point in trying to do better. Its utility as a lingua franca outweighs its minor shortcomings. The nicest thing i can say about Java is that i hardly ever come up against limitations of the language itself - if i have a language-level problem in Java, it is usually due to my own ignorance, especially ignorance of its excellent libraries.
Okay, i'll stop now.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
The number of C books is slightly more than there were 10 years ago. we have the classics of K&R C, The C answer book, The Unix programming env and a large number of other worthless titles. Compare that to Pascal books. There are now 3 at the local Borders. How about Ada, also less than 5 but a decade ago ranked more shelf space than java and C# combined. Most of the Java space has been reallocated to C#. To me that means its as trendy as the wrong color skirt at a fassion show.
Bill Joy might be James Goslings boss considering Bill is a founding member of Sun and Chief Scientist and Corporate Executive Officer while James can't even seem to mention his title on his Sun Labs web page
This isn't a Sun problem specifically - all of the companies that were using OSS to gain marketshare are wrestling with it now. Some of them have blamed Sun (Lutris) for their own inability to make OpenSource work for them. The simple fact remains that no company that needs to make profit in order to stay in business can cater to open source in the same spaces where they are trying to make money. Sun has open sourced Star Office, no biggie - doesn't make them any money really. Sun won't give away or disrupt J2EE license revenue to cater to open source because they make money from this. Anyone who doesn't understand this and thinks that Sun or any other company can just give this stuff away really needs a good class in economics and finance.
For all of the conspiracy theorists creating ludicrous examples of why Sun doesn't like Apache, let me put this into simple, obvious terms:
Now that AOL has given up on selling iplanet as a webserver (Apart from other things.), Sun is still trying to make money off of it.
Apache is iplanet's biggest competitor. Apache is free, more popular than iplanet, and considered by many people to be better than iplanet.
Every time someone runs apache on Solaris, Sun sees that as another iplanet sale lost.
Need any more details?
Tomcat is not a J2EE implementation so there's no direct implication. In addition, it is promoted (by Sun) as a reference implementation for servlets.
If apache decides to abandon their Jakarta projects that doesn't mean these projects die. It just means that they will continue under a different flag (and there are enough interested parties to make this happen).
IMHO it would be bad for the apache foundation since most of its showcase projects (excluding the webserver) are the Jakarta projects. No doubt a significant part of their funding is related to these projects.
Jilles
Yes, the compatibility test suite is a really good one being allowed to say you passed it (by carying the compatibility logo) is quite different from spreading the rumor that software package is generally believed to be compatible.
Effectively SUN is using their monopoly position (regarding the compatibility tests) to selectively grant licenses to market partners. IMHO the market should be open and anybody (including MS) should be allowed to attempt to pass the requirements (not necessarily for free).
Jilles
Linux is peeling away their low end (notwithstanding their effort to derail the linux rack market by buying and then effectively scuttling Cobalt), and IBM is shaking down their top end.
Microsoft continues to confound Sun, even as McNealy turns up the vitriol. Scott - let me make this brief - you cannot beat Microsoft. Stop trying. Take a lesson from Steve Jobs - play nice or route around them, but don't try to take them on directly. They're tougher and wealthier and more influential than you.
Hardware is getting cheaper, and software is becoming a commodity. Services are the last high margin business left, and Sun isn't a big player.
I think, that lot of people are unjust casting curses to Sun. It was sun who donated most of Netscape (Mozilla), most of StarOffice (OpenOffice)and other things such as OpenLook even before Linux begun.
Whether it would happen or not, they have the right to be careful about Java spec incompatibility. Perhaps it really does cost $50k to certify it. While $50k might be a lot for Apache, it is only some 0.005% of what IBM pledged to invest to Linux. Why do not some commercilal vendors team up with IBM to foot the bill for the Apache Java?
Disclaimer:
I have no afiliation with Sun whatsoever. I jst watch what is happening. Sun just gives out great software and reaps wrath. IBM is all promisses and is praised all over Linux "community".
Oh, i like pointers. I like high-powered handguns too, but i wouldn't use them to settle ALL my social problems! Pointers are fantastic where precise memory control is required. Precise memory control is NEVER required, except for systems programming. Something like the Linux kernel should absolutely be written in C. Something like the typical business app has no business whatsoever using C. And yes, C is the mother tongue. Any professional programmer that doesn't at least understand it is severely ignorant, even if they never use it.
I wouldn't even say VB is for dabblers. I'd say it's for morons, and the poor victims who are forced to use that wretched excuse for a language. The only decent part at all is the IDE, and there are better ones.
I don't even think much about the language anymore... my programming these days is abstracted away at the problem and architecture level, and the language is just a side point, as it should be. That's why i want my language to get in the way as little as possible. C often gets in the way, due to its crude libraries. I find Java, Python, Perl, SQL, and Unix shell to be my languages of choice.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
If Sun's antics are making you ill, why not help out the folks at Ximian on Mono? It is backed by a REAL ECMA standard and not controlled by one company. Sure it's based on an MS product, but at least MS had the balls to submit it to a standards body and NOT retract it.
We see companies who promise open source (as sun did for years) or open souce friendliness (as they still do) without actually changing anything in terms of licensing. This has happened to tons of projects, not just with Java. The fact is, listening to the Java Lobby claim something will be an open standard does not make it so. We have standards bodies and the OSI for a reason. Unless it is submitted to one of them or licensed with an OSI license, caveat emptor.
This comes as absolutly no suprise to me, and I actually don't have huge amounts of sympathy for Apache, after all, Sun appears to be well within their legal rights.
Despite the anti-microsoft zealots out there, Sun is not the knight in shining armor, but a company that has very cleverly exploited open souce development without being open source, and one which I am convinced would pull every closed source trick in the book in a hot minute if they thought it would benefit them.
It is staggering, the Apache group has been doing huge amounts of work to make Java a standard, ignoring the fact that the only J2EE Java standard comes from Sun.
I for one have steared clear of Java for precisely this reason, if it is not a standard there are some clear business reasons why you want to avoid it unless you like having the rug pulled out from under you periodically.
...the organization that created many projects and librarties that have become the de facto standards in the Web and software industry (Apache Web Server etc) WITHOUT any 'certification' is whinning that Sun won't give away free certifications to open source projects like JBoss?
/. and cause of many flames. Guarranteed to generate posts - especially from the C/C++/PERL/ groupies
/.'s favorite issues an excuse to rant and flame, and nothing else.
This is a tempest in a teapot.
The crew at JBoss don't seem to think the lack of certification is a big deal and they are in constant contact with Sun. I don't think that is the problem. I wonder what is really bothering Apache? I wish some one would post the REAL reason and not a misinformed link to "J2EE considered harmful" - if you check some of the more java focused sites, you can see that the person who started this rant at Apache doesn't know what they are talking about when it comes to J2EE (because, I suspect, the haven't used it).
My guess is that this is causing "contraversy" here because it is a great story involving:
1) Apache, everyone's favorite Open Source organization.
2) Sun - a corporate Behemoth out to make profits, that is not as bad as but in the same league as, MS.
3) Java - a favorite target here on
4) Because of 2) and 3) we also get a bunch of ".Net Vs Java" or "MS Vs Open Source" tangents generated, especially when people bring up the Mono project as an alternative to J2EE.
In other words, this story gives anybody on anyside of any of
There really isn't a story here. Let Apache and Sun solve their differences like adults without all this sensationalism.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
No wonder I think they're evil.