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Red Hat Plans Open Source Java
sthiyaga writes "According to a ComputerWire article, Red Hat is in discussions with Sun about launching an open source version of the Java platform. 'There's always been an interest in an open source implementation of Java developed in a clean room that adheres to the Java standards,' Szulik told ComputerWire. 'We're in discussions with Sun. We'd like to do this with their support.'"
With so many java API implementations being open source (JBoss, Tomcat), it only makes sense to create an open source version of the core platform. This would go a long way to combat .NET, which claims to be an open standard.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
About making their own Java not built to standards and without Sun's support. It looks like RedHat learned it, too.
Having a open-source version of Java should allow swing to be compiled via GCJ. There would no longer be anything holding natively compiled Java back.
This isn't any ordinary darkness. It's advanced darkness.
James Gosling, the creator of Java, recently mentioned that he favors an Open-Source Java. (See Infowork article).
Some people withing Sun seem to be scared though that an Open-Source Java standard could be "polluted" by Microsoft.
How long before SCO claims that Java is a derivative work of the Unix kernel?
'We're in discussions with Sun. We'd like to do this with their support.'
It'd be hard to do it without Sun's support since they have been known on occasion to get very mad about people making versions of Java without their support. Of course that was mainly about a non-standard version, so maybe it wouldn't matter as long as it followed the standard.
How far is RedHat into this? Planning, Writing, Compiling, Marketing? If they're only planning it, java may finally be dead before it gets done; of course java may outlive me, of course I may die this evening, we just don't know.
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
is already some source code available. :)
Why not open up the original sun platform?
Wasn't it originally a clean-room open source JDK for Linux that Sun adopted?
Java's source is really, really simple, actually.
Just take one pound of fresh, dry-roasted beans (I prefer Sumatra myself, though Peruvian and Venezuelan are nice, too). Grind these to the desired consistancy, depending on one's brewing method of choice (I'm a 'french press' kinda guy myself, but auto-drip is the norm). Next, load the beans into the appropriate container (filters for the drips, wire mesh baskets for us pressers). Apply nearly-boiling hot water, allow a moment for the beans to steep. Pour into your favorite cup and voila! Instant Java.
Jeesh. Why everyone makes such a big deal out of that, is just beyond me. No wonder all these tech companies go out of business - they can't even make a goddamn cup of coffee!
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/dev elopment/java/story/0,10801,82286,00.html?nas=AM-8 2286
'Should Java be made fully open-source? The problem with open-source is that [victory] goes to volume, and that's evident in the Linux community today where ISVs [independent software vendors] are qualifying to Red Hat and abandoning everyone else. Why? Because Red Hat has volume.
If Java were open-source, Microsoft could take it, deliver it as they saw fit and drive a definition of Java that was divergent from the one that the community wanted to be compatible. And to the victor would go the spoils of that nefarious action. '
www.underonesky.com
It would be a win-win situation for them, and they can use their trademark to protect the 'purity'. I.E. if it's not "Pure java" it can't be called "Pure java". And microsoft seems to have gotten out of the java game anyway, so their corruption isn't much of an issue. I doubt the open source maintainers would allow contributions that would violate sun's standards, and Microsoft would never fork a GPL project since they hate the GPL so much.
:P
And plus, sun wouldn't need to do any of the work themselves
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Does Blackdown have any role in this ?
I don't use java with mozilla because it's bloaty and not very open source friendly. This it sometimes a pain though, not having it available. And of course there are those java programs I can never try. Having an open source version with Sun's support will improve the current mess.
Somebody make a current open source shockwave plugin!
Recently Rawhide had Eclipse and Tomcat in it. I was pleasantly surpised to see Eclipse running on ppc Rawhide! It looked like they were running it against gcc's java, but after reading that article I was possibly mistaken. Did anyone else look at the Rawhide version of Eclipse?
would be for RH to partner with Blackdown (who would ultimately be the keepers of OpenSource Java). All the mechanisms are already in place, and they would ensure that itÂd run on any Linux distro, not just RH.
Sun has promised a lot in the past for Java and then gone back on their word. For example, Sun promised an open Java standard but then pulled out of two standardization efforts.
If this gets dragged into the JCP process or stays under Sun's "community source" umbrella, it will not be open source in the way that we know it. If people aren't free to "corrupt" the open source Java in any way they like, it will not be open source; for example, one project of key importance for Java on Linux would be native bindings to Gnome.
A closely related question to be answered is what the patent situation around any such "open source" version of Java will be; Sun currently holds several patents that effectively block fully compatible open source implementations. Will Sun dedicate those patents to the public domain? Or will the "open source Java" adopt a license that makes the code open source but lets Sun retain control over who gets to use it through patents?
To Sun, Linux is as much as a threat as Microsoft, and their strategy is the same: make the OS irrelevant by replacing it with a Sun-controlled platform that runs on top of the OS. The Linux community should be as paranoid about that occurring as Microsoft management is. Sun is, ultimately, not a friend of Linux.
Maybe Sun is serious about creating an "open source" version of Java in the sense we all use the term. But I will reserve my judgement until there is something concrete on the table. So far, every promise of opening up Java by Sun has turned out to be a smokescreen and a distraction.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of software at Sun Microsystems Inc., spoke with Computerworld during the recent JavaOne conference here about the possibility of Java becoming open-source, the potential market for Java in mobile devices and Java's relationship with IBM. Excerpts from that interview follow.
v elopment/story/0,10801,82286,00.html
Should Java be made fully open-source? The problem with open-source is that [victory] goes to volume, and that's evident in the Linux community today where ISVs [independent software vendors] are qualifying to Red Hat and abandoning everyone else. Why? Because Red Hat has volume. If Java were open-source, Microsoft could take it, deliver it as they saw fit and drive a definition of Java that was divergent from the one that the community wanted to be compatible. And to the victor would go the spoils of that nefarious action. To the extraordinary credit of the Java Community Process [JCP], we have a uniform compatible standard that now spans hundreds of millions of devices, hundreds of millions of smart cards, hundreds of millions of desktops and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of servers. So you have to really be careful in understanding the distinction between open-source and open standards.
More at http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/de
I'm hoping that this will happen. With projects like gnuclasspath and gcj, the java java language could really take off like a rocket if there were a fully compliant set of classes.
We are very serious about exploring the open-source route," said Alan Baratz, president of Sun's Java software division, in an interview with Wired News in 1998 !!!!
Also, an Open Source Java Project:
Ant: The Open Source Java Project
Ant: work in progress
the source for java is already available directly from sun. it isn't however liscenced in such a manner that modifications can be redistributed, etc etc.
I write code.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
That's right. The best thing about standards is there are so many to choose from.
According to the Kaffe website, it is a "a clean room implementation of the Java virtual machine, plus the associated class libraries needed to provide a Java runtime environment. The Kaffe virtual machine is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU Public License."
Well, much claims but I should back them up a little. Let's look at the problems of a Java port.
Why spend much effort only to follow the path of the true OSS aposteles ?
That might raise your karma but not your balance.
So really anything can happen including the collapse of space-time. But if SCO is successful with the strange "derivative works" claims then this has effect on all software produced in the US. Especially creating a clean room implementation won't help anymore, it will always be SUN's IP.
So RedHat would be working for SUN for free.
The only solution would be to outsource to coding to a country without IP laws like Bahamas, Nigeria, Somalia or Tibet.
Java has some good points, but its design is deeply fucked in some aspects. The creators ignored some important ideas of modern software engineering. A major (but not the only one) reason is that thay wanted to create a C++ derivate. But C++ is from an object-orientated perspective utter blasphemy, mainly due to its dreadful ancestor C (well, not many people have a psychotic axe-murderer as an ancestor).
SUN is trying to fix this with introducing generics and other modern stuff. But in my experience fucked designs won't get better with adding features. That's like adding a better engine to a car without wheels.
So why should RH brother with Java. There are much more modern approaches to networked programming than Java. Hey, even MS
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
So they already have source code that works... tell me again why someone has to start from scratch in a "clean room" to build something that validates against the API ? I must have slept through that part.
The guys over at GNU are already working on this. The project is called Classpath, it's distributed under a modified GPL so it doesn't contaminate projects it's only linked with, and it's far along already. Most Java 2 classes have been implemented, even though they only claim to be 1.1 compliant.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
If you're going to do it with Sun's support, then why do you need a clean room? Or, if you're going to do it in a clean room, why do you need Sun's support?
As a java programmer, I have never found java to be limited as a closed source language. The overall structure of the language is easily expandable and adaptable enough to fit my daily needs. And by introducing a new non-sun version of java leads to the same problems that M$ had with J++ where 100% pure sun java code is incompatible with other flavors. Sometimes I believe that certain things, especially programming languages, are better left untouched by multiple sources. It strengthens the language when it remains uniform.
-Cnik
I wonder how long it would take Oracle to turn an open source JVM into an Oracle product in much the same way as they turned Apache into 9iAS.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
I know some Red Hat/Sun folks are reading this. As a person who is learning Java in his spare time, I really want to say thanks -- I pray that this goes through. Combining Java and OSS with Red Hat and Sun support, in my mind, is enough to kill .NET and set Linux up for good.
This might be the final kick in the ass that gives Linux the momentum to move on top.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
isn't this Blackdown's Java?
How is this different from Blackdown?
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Sun Software VP Jonathan Schwartz seems to consider open standards more important than Open Source. See the CNet article from a couple of months ago.
Perhaps there's a sense that locking down more of the Java developer market is more important than keeping the intellectual property in the implementation of Java "hidden". Once you put the open source version out, you can hope yours will become the defacto standard. But why go to Red Hat to open the Java source? Couldn't you just open it up yourself?
Maybe Sun just needs a high-volume distributor to developers everywhere. Developers who might use Java more if they didn't have to download it, if it were just there. Who serves up more downloads? Red Hat when they release another version of their distro? Sun when they release another version of Solaris? If you want to reach developers and M$ doesn't want to help, wouldn't you go for the next largest crowd?
Ever hear of the JCP? That's the Java standards body.
.Net, but Java will again leapfrog them with 1.5. In the meantime there is marginal benefit and a lot of downside with using .Net for anything that matters.
And, it's not a puppet body like some other bodies you might be able to think of.
They added some nice features in
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It seems that Sun is recognising that Java in general was in danger of stagnation. Recently, we've had a major push into the mobile phone arena, the bundling of JREs with Dell and HP PCs, SDK 1.5, and now this.
This might well be in reaction to the threat posed by .NET, but it seems that Sun are actively seeking to innovate once again, before .NET has a chance to catch up
And that's, long-term, probably a good thing for the development community((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
If Java were open-source, Microsoft could take it, deliver it as they saw fit and drive a definition of Java that was divergent from the one that the community wanted to be compatible.
Assume that Microsoft would have called this divergent platform "J++".
If the Java platform were open-source and under a license similar to that of X11, what you quoted would be the case. On the other hand, if the Java platform were open-source and copylefted, Microsoft would have to publish the source code of its J++ platform.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Only the equivalent of "The C++ library" has been standardized for C#. No technology that's used in most apps today, like a web technologies or GUI apps has been standardized.
.NET will every be. Mono is dreaming if it think it can pull .NET way from being a Microsoft technology. When developers use .NET, they look at Microsoft's implementation first, ECMA standards next. If Mono is ECMA standardized and Microsoft does an "embrace and extend" so that it's not, then developers will choose Microsoft's .NET over Mono, even if Mono is "correct".
Meanwhile, Java's JCP process allows open source projects like Apache and JBoss to contribute to the standardization of Java. No part of Java is not standardized this way, and as a result, nearly all JCPs have open source implementations including Tomcat and JBoss. These implementations, more often than not, dominate the field over proprietary implementations.
In short, Java is more open than
With Ximian's Mono's project bringing the dot Net architecture to the Open Source arena, and Sun's failure to standardize Java, I wonder if Red Hat is making the right decision.
http://saveie6.com/
It would be so great if there was a open implmentation of java. I know there are groups working on it, but if only sun would get involved then it would have a greater chance of staying current. I've always thought it wouldn't hurt Sun to open up the Java SDK and classes a little, what exactly is the benifit they get from it being closed? The version they released would still be considered the standard regardless of its openess or of potention forks.
.net is a big threat.
Forget GCJ, just think of the advantages to Sun if there was a kernel driver to run plain java natively, if done right, and of course open enough to be compatible it could only bolster java greatly, especially now that
I have to admit I like java for some tasks but am apprehensive that the two biggest hyped technologies nowadays are both controlled by a single company each, and both have closed source reference implementations.
The Blackdown coders agreed to the SCSL, so (IIRC, IANAL) Sun owns their brains for life.
If people aren't free to "corrupt" the open source Java in any way they like, it will not be open source; for example, one project of key importance for Java on Linux would be native bindings to Gnome.
As long as Red Hat keeps additions out of the java.*, javax.*, sun.*, and com.sun.* namespaces, preferably limiting them to com.redhat.* and org.gnome.*, Sun would not consider Red Hat's additions to "corrupt" the platform.
Sun currently holds several patents that effectively block fully compatible open source implementations.
You mean these patents? Can you pick one out that doesn't have an extensive body of prior art?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I personally like this idea. I think that open sourcing Java would allow other projects to take off much easier (I'm thinking gcj, but I'm sure there are others).
However how is this effort different from:
Kaffe - Open Source, way behind the times, in general more annoying that useful, IMO.
Blackdown JVMs - Best Java JVM available for free on Linux (again IMO). Uses Sun's code, has valuable contributions, but isn't maintained by a large group. As far as I know, only a handful of dedicated people, and only one or two are very public.
Also, why would Sun suddenly be willing to Open Source Java now when they weren't before? Have any of the open issues changed?
As far as I know it's a compatibility/brand issue. If Java were open source, anyone could grab the source, tweak it and release their own JVM. If there are a zillion JVMs running around it's possible some won't be compliant.
What about the JCK? It works fine, but you still run into the embrace and extend issue. Someone takes Java 1.4 and builds custom enhancements to support his/her own Javaesque features. Programms written for this JVM now no longer work on a stock 1.4 VM. Is this VM now legal "Java". I think Sun would say no.
What about the Java Community Process? Many anti-fork advocates might suggest just contributing to Java via regular channels. Do these channels work? If not, should they be repaired instead of or in addition to Open Source Java?
if you're going to do it in a clean room, why do you need Sun's support?
If even one of these patents on Java technology does not have extensive prior art, then Red Hat needs Sun's authorization to work on the project.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Good luck running large, real-world Java apps on Kaffe.
Many people have asked why RedHat needs to enlist Sun's cooperation in order to implement a clean room Java. One important reason, is to gain access to the JCK (Java Compatibility Kit), that contains approximately 20,000 test cases that you need to pass in order to be certified as Java Compliant.
I suspect Microsoft will tolerate dotGNU, Mono, as long as they see it beneficial to do so. Also, the language and runtime is not much. The true power of .NET and Java is in the wide amount of libraries available to these languages. I really wish the Mono team good like to replicating that in a source compatible manner. It would be no small feat.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Please tell me you are not that stupid.
Why doesn't Aun open-source the technology and keep the rights to the name "Java" and the JCP standards? That, way, people could look at the code and even fork it. . . they just couldn't call it official JAVA. (Kinda like now, but they get a lot of cred and development help for open sourcing it)
If Sun's version is the best and its the only one that is Certified 100% Java, then great. If it isn't the best then everyone will use the better one, then great. Either way, Java wins.
Rock and Roll is no solution- my daughter singing AC/DC.
The Rock and Roll solution:
Next time you are in a difficult situation; remember: Just enjoy the OZZY and keep your mouth shut!
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Whoever uses Java for applets anymore? Mainly some sites with online games, that's who. Let's get out of this "Java == Applets" mindset, please. Java is excellent on the server side, it's pretty good for client side, and it's quite excellent in academia.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Redhat has never released a JRE, of their own, or anyone else's.
They are talking about doing it, and doing it the Right Way.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Perhaps by "native bindings to Gnome" you mean something along the lines of SWT in Eclipse,but it's interersting to note that the Java 2 SDK release 1.4.2 Beta does include preliminary support for a GTK+ 2.0 Swing look-and-feel. See this for details.
Ok, Open source java would be nice.
But the only thing java does is make linux vunrable to virusses. Last time my mozilla browser crashed i checked my home dir on virusses. I found one, it was a downloaded example.class lib from some company website(realy it was from a regular company!). Sorry but ill stick to C for now.
Oh yes, i used RAV antivirus for linux while i still can. Microsoft wil toast it soon i gues,
cheers,
Do you have any idea how to read? Microsoft screwed up and got slapped. RedHat saw this, and is doing it correctly. That's what the parent says.
Remember that GCJ was developed at Cygnus (starting in 1996), and that Red Hat bought Cygnus. While Red Hat has not put a lot of resources in GCJ, they still employ some of the early GCJ engineers, who are still active in GCJ in at least on a part-time volunteer basis. In Red Hat 8.0, what you get when you run "java" is the interpreter component of GCJ. And it looks like they are getting serious about Java, and GCJ.
My guess (as original "inventor" of GCJ, but no longer associated with Red Hat except as share holder): To the extent that Sun is willing to open-source parts of JDK, they'll use that; if Sun is unwilling, they will use GCJ.
Red Hat.. Is that a brand of condoms?
--Drunk as in Beer
shouda done this 6 years ago.
don't get me wrong. i love java, its the only thing on my resume, sole bread-n-butter for past 6 years, etc.
but the C# designers really know the market.
when i first read "C# = java done right" in a PR article, i said, "yeah right, what absolute BS".
but then, i attended my first c# training seminar last month, & having just completed a major java-to-c# porting project, i can say this much - C# has definitely won the windows-only-client-side battle. if you are developing an app that front-ends on a windows client ( that's pretty much ALL of wall street, given the heavy use of MS-Excel ), C# is simply the way to go.
6 years ago, i recall graduating from school & deciding to go into a Java-job. classmates were like - "what's java ? unproven stuff. use MFC. that's were the $$ is".
how wrong they were! C# is now in the same position - poised to skyrocket.
every single java concept has made it into C#.
furthermore C# has several useful notions ( delegates, boxed types, attribute annotations,assemblies etc ) not in Java.
finally, cross-language interop is a dead reality - i can write a C# class, my VB class can inherit from it, and my C++ class can inherit from my VB class, and call functions in Perl - the CLS & the common type system makes it easy for even a casual novice pgmmer.
once's the mono project attains fruition, c# on linux will be the defacto pgmming style - need i say more ?
from a reluctant C# convert
If you look at Sun's source code, you may be unable to work on any Java or Mono-related open source project in the future, as Sun may consider them derivative works. The Sun Community License is a death trap for open source developers. Don't touch any code covered by it.
Any open source version of Java must be either a clean-room implementation, or it must wait for Sun to release the JDK sources under the LGPL, GPL, or BSD licenses. And even then, you may still have to worry about Sun's patents in some cases.
As a java programmer, I have never found java to be limited as a closed source language.
Oh, but you have. For example, when the latest JDK didn't install on your Linux machine because of shared library incompatibilities. Or when Sun screwed up their Java2D implementation on X11, as they have several times.
The problem with closed source implementations like the JDK is that it gives Sun full control over what happens with Java on Linux. As long as Java is a side-show on Linux (as it is right now) that matters fairly little to Linux as a whole.
But if Java were to become an integral part of, say, the Linux desktop or Linux-based web services, then any screwup on the part of Sun would turn into a big problem for Linux releases. And such screw-ups would probably become deliberate and strategic tools for Sun, a means for making Solaris more attractive relative to Linux.
You might consider SWT. It's an open source Java widget toolkit (GUI API) that sits on top of native system widgets. I just started developing with it, so I can't speak for much, but it seems to be quite fast and is pretty easy to implement.
Some info:
The Eclipse project (of which SWT is a part of)
SWT Guide (good intro to SWT)
SWT API Specification
SWT Articles (many regarding topics internal to the API) -- scroll down to SWT
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Red Hat would have to make people click through the JVM license before they even downloaded the CD.
The practical reason for this is that people assume that Linux is all open source, so they can make copies of Red Hat CDs for friends, put Red Hat CDs up on P2P networks, etc.; closed source licenses may not permit that. (Java's license doesn't).
The legal reason for this is that some closed source licenses even try to take away rights that you would normally have under copyright law! The license on the J2RE 1.4.1 download at sun.com, in particular, includes this popular odious clause:
Unless enforcement is prohibited by applicable law, you may not modify, decompile, or reverse engineer Software.
That's the sort of thing you need to make people agree to before download, if you want it to be enforceable.
For one last practical reason behind Red Hat's policy, multiply this restriction by 20, as everybody has to click through the individual license for every single piece of non-free software on the CD. At least with Windows you usually buy your software one EULA at a time, so it's less annoying.
Bring Gnome (which is part of Sun's "Madhatter Project" for a modern unified desktop) back under Sun's direct control.
Effect number two:
A complete j2ee free-speech webserver installation online in under two hours.
Effect number three:
???
Effect number four: :D
PROFIT!
(or at least a major headache in Redmond).
+ + + + :)
Please note that the Java Community Process controls the standard. Of course Sun is a major player in it, but its standards are published, stable, and you know that your code is still going to work in three years or more. Something that doesn't happen when you code in some strange languages.
If anyone is going to make a virtual machine platform which takes the general design of Java, adds 3 opcodes to the platform, removes parts of the core libraries and replaces them with optional APIs and ships the platforms as "Java", Sun is going to sue his ass off.
Sun is already strong on the lawsuit against Microsoft.
Microsoft back then tried to replace java access to native machine features - jni - with a Microsoft proprietary library accessing activex objects, and java remote invocation process - rmi, based on Corba's IOOP - with another library based on COM+...
Sun demonstrated that Microsoft was wrong, and then won the lawsuit... the outcome however (barring the monetary reimbursement part) was ludicrous.
At least now we Java Programmers are programming in REAL JAVA, which works REALLY on different platforms, and not something that remembers unportable C/C++ for the splintering and fragmentation between platforms, compilers and coding styles.
+ + + +
No, I don't want to start a Java vs C/C++ flamewar.
Java is a tool suited for some works.
C/C++ are two other tools suited for other works.
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
Java may be able to run on hundreds of millions of desktops, but unfortunately it's very complicated and time-consuming for an end-user to download and run a Java app in the same way that they could download and run an executable. Schwartz makes a good point about the MS risk, but there is also the possibility that more open-source involvement will lead to a higher quality platform within the popular operating systems.
To take Java to the next stage, ie mass consumer usage, Sun needs to do all in its power to promote ease-of-install. Java Web Start just hasn't had that impact, to date. Open-source projects may help a lot.
IMHO, the most of people must require the most of features. That's how open-source "democracy" works. Microsoft might have most of sales, but in most (if any) existing OSS projects Microsoft does not have most of developer votes and thus does not control any project critical decisions.
I think that the real reason Sun keeps Java from open-sourcing is that Sun protect Java from OSS democracy, not from Microsoft as they want us to believe.
Less is more !
Why would I want to use Java, except for writing web applets, when I can use Python+Pyrex, Jython, or other more powerful and more expressive languages?
Just note that tomcat is NOT a *complete* j2ee server (i.e. it's "just" a webserver - more or less). Then whether you actually need a complete j2ee server is a different matter.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
over the direction of .Net?
Sounds like you don't need any more that what you've already got.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Netscape developed a fully open-source web browser. Microsoft, apparently (from what we publicly know, anyhow), didn't touch it.
Then again, with IE and Netscape under the spotlight of antitrust litigation, it's not likely they would've. Programming languages have no similar marketshare issues. Java would be a more likely target.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
When a standard is submitted through the JCP (Java Community Process) a condition of including that IP in the standard is that you allow others to use any IP embedded in the standard for free, in perpetuity. So whatever patents Sun has around Java can be used by others in the Java world.
There are already real, working Java implementations from third parties like GCJ and IBM's VM, which have been around for a while... Mono has not really been around long enough to see if they have really escaped a patent trap.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I think that's who said it 'first'.. whoever modded the original remark 'redundant' had the same thought in mind. :>
Score +3 Funny is one thing. The pro-Apple
moderators love to upscore their Apple buddies,
but where's the link? Show me the "faster
than a PC" apple, please.
Red Hat could do it without danger from Sun if they built it clean and didn't call it's Java.
How many innocent companies will this technology destroy before it's done?
-pyrrho
http://www.apple.com/powermac/
so why havn't they?
If they thought they were bound to lose to linux, Microsoft would have their own distro.
They would own linux in that their distribution could quickly become the dominant one, because of their brand and their OEM relationships (not to mention their ability to make a WINE that could be 99% compatible with Windows).
They think they a strategy with a better margin than what they would have owning Linux, that's the only reason.
-pyrrho
As mentioned before, Java is already headed to the land of fully open source native cross platform binaries. The fine GCJ folks have already implemented most of the 1.4 JDK with libjava. Throw in SWT and you have the holy grail of open source software applications development. A single code base that compiles to native binaries for Windows, Linux, MacOS, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc.
that's all, as you've said.
I want to suggest some names:
(1) Hot Flashes
(2) Avaj (pronounced "avaj")
(3) Bingo
(4) Engineer Assisted Suicide (alternately, just "Death")
(5) Deoptimized C++
oh, there's more.
As much as I love OSS, giving Java a license which will allow to change Java how ever anyone wants is a bad idea. Don't forget how much IBM wanted control of it and how M$ tried to strong-arm it. What is stopping M$ taking Java, modifying it to work in a certain way with the .NET CLR and distributing it with windows. This will effectively kill Java just due to shear numbers. M$ would not care if they have to release the source to their Java afterwards, it would already be too late for Java.
Even through Java is not OSS, it is open standards, and I like being able to (relatively) guarantee that it will work in different environments.
Java source is available, just not for re-distribution.
Free speech is getting expensive...
Why do we need an open source version of java? What does it gain us besides a lot of wasted effort once again reinventing the wheel? Java is already managed by the JCP which is suns stab at allowing other companies to have a say in java without actually releasing control of it. An open source version of java will not gain control over the java apis, which sun still rigidly controls. At best it will make a red hat vm that has red hat proprietary extensions in it, the same thing that microsoft was so roundly criticised for a few years back. There are all ready several high performane java vms out there that have friendly licenese, so what will an open source really accomplish?
As we all know, Microsoft have already gotten around this by simply coming up with their own, very similar language - they don't need to simply hijack another free one; and in any case, the GPL (which they hate) would make this difficult to do anyway.
This wouldn't really change anything about .Net. The people who are forking out the many thousands and thousands of dollars -- and that's no exagerration -- required to go .Net, wouldn't be swayed by open source Java. Moreover, Microsoft touts its ECMA standard really only to wave it in the face of Java proponents. The efforts to open up .Net to open source or alternative implementations, like Mono, have been hindered by Microsoft, not helped. Microsoft doesn't care about open this or standards that. They care about mucho buckolas.
Open Java might have a much more profound effect on the Java community itself. If an effective stewardship and administration of the project could be created, then the Java community might end up with a platform that could change to the well considered desires of its audience, rather than pandering to the business goals of Sun and IBM among others, and encourage some developers to have another look at a platform that has recently come under some careful criticism from its own advocates.
For example, Sun doesn't want macros? Well, you know what Sun, WE want macros, so Open Java implements macros and with a choice between no-macros Sun Java and cool-macros Open Java we see how the majority of developers decide.
Now THAT would be cool.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
And how should Sun solve this? By allowing anyone to use a Java conformant logo who conform to the Java standard. Now all Sun has to do is stop being dicks the way they were with JBoss J2EE conformance and call a conformant Java implementation what it is.
HTML and XML are examples of where this works. HTML has open source implementations, and despite Microsoft's attempts to deviate from the standard, W3C keeps churning out specs, and people keep implementing them. Yes, some people optimize to IE, but divergence in devices is making that impractical.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
As others have mentioned the Java source is already freely available. As someone who spends most of their time in Java I can already fix bugs if I need to - having a separate license (GPL) is meaningless to me.
It would be a much better use of time and talent to make Java work better on Linux wrt:
1. FUTEX support
2. NPTL threads
3. full screen and 2D graphics are horribly slow under Linux because for some reason Sun doesn't seem to use MIT-SHM, or their pixmap caching code is doing the wrong thing...
4. Why not even spend time helping with Sun's ALSA port for Java 1.4.2.
Heck, I'm sure the Blackdown team would have dozens of ideas on how to improve the existing code base.
Rewriting from scratch? Is working together so hard? It would be such a shame to have great Linux coders work to build something that didn't work perfectly and was never used.
Schedule your world with ScheduleWorld.com http://www.ScheduleWorld.com/ (Java Web Startable)
Interest in java seems to be going downhill. I think releasing it under the GPL might spur more interest and innovation with Java.
It is true I was mostly speaking of VM's.
.Net implementations hampered by patents? It would appear the potential is there. But all of the Java libraries are API's that can (and are being) implemented standalone.
You are wandering far afield of the main point though. Are potential open
The reason that effort has been slow is because it's pretty easy just to add features under your own structure, or extend what is there. So there has not been a big push for that so far. There has been more of a desire for different VM's, which is why you see more third party work in that area.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In software, what is the definition of a standards body then? If just about every company agrees to do something the same way, is that not a standard? And if you get a group together to write down what they are agreeing on, is that not a standards body?
When you can choose from multiple implementations that all have the same API, you are working with a standard.
So what is y6our definition of a standards body? Does it have to be ECMA or ISO? Even though the W3C stuff are labeled "reccoemndations" are they not really standards? Can there never be another standards body besides ISO? I guess it just can't be a real standards body if you actually let individuals contribute to the standards! That must be what you mean.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here's the link for the other condition he mentioned.
Let's say MS starts shipping some broken Java VM, and because it's copylefted they release the source. The bottom line is that if you want your app to run on MS's broken VM, you have to code for Windows; having the source doesn't change anything.
you heard me ... yawn.
Those that fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it.
RedHat has announced this before with Project JOLT. They even had a mailing list setup for the RedHat Java Open Language Toolkit. It didn't take long for them to give up on it. What is different about this time?
What's the benefit of using Java or C# in Linux instead of one of the already popular languages such as Perl, Python, or Ruby? Java programs seem to have a lot of overhead and seem to be more work to develop. I haven't tried C# but is it any better? I think Java may be slightly faster than Python (even with Psyco) but not a lot. (I haven't compared it to Perl or Ruby.) I'd rather see RedHat work on speeding up Python and other languages already in heavy use on Linux.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
what you forget is anyone can distribute the linux kernel, they don't have to ask linus to put it in, they can fork if they want to. That's the point, that's the idea... they would fork the open source and have control of what goes into it, and it'll instantly have 1000x the other forks.
PS: yeah, I remember being 16 and hating 12 year olds... well not really, but I remember people around me like that.
By the way, no moderators have moderated my post, they start off at 1, that's the way slashdot works. Yours start at 0 because you've been modded down a lot. Yes the mods are on crack, but that's not your problem here, you just don't understand how the GPL works.
-pyrrho
"IBM has a lot of weight and they don't like the JCP". According to an independent review (JavaOne 2003 session 3294), IBM is next to Sun for JCP participants (Sun 166, IBM 104) and 3rd (next only to the 'others' group) of leaders of new JSRs. Seems to me that if Gosling says it's ok, and 'The Schwartz' says it's not, then they themselves have a bit of an identity crisis not IBM.
My favorite language is Scheme, thanks. But I can recognize the practical reality that you can't use scheme for everything.
I called zealot in the sense that you just can't accept Java because it does not fit your definition of "Open", even though a lot of things around Java are in fact quite open. That said, "zealot" was a bit harsh and I apologize for that.
OK you are an X11 UI fan. But what are you really a fan of? I like networkable UI's, and I dislike UI guidelines in general - but as X11 has evolved over the years you now have a mishmash of UI "standards" in that world, and I hardly see that Java adding on yet another UI worldview is cause for alarm. Are you really a fan of GTK or the KDE libraries? What about X11 do you consider "correct"? There sure are a lot of options to choose from.
UI's that look like crap (especially in Java, but also in other languages) are simply the fault of the developer and no-one else. You can make a good UI with just about any toolkit and enough work, and any UI toolkit can produce stunningly bad UI's. What I like about Swing is that you can extend the built in components enough to produce really compact UI's (I'm in the club that advocates information density as a useful feature).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
but let's assume we're back to an honest disagreement. You understand and I understand but we disagree on interpretation and on our predictions.
My point is that it hardly matters how many slashdotters would buy an MS linux, but all the Microsoft customers that would.
Microsoft has decided to fight. I'm sure there is a line where they will go with it (originally they thought they would fight the internet too! (ps: I was an original MSN beta tester)), but up to that point they are fighting. I'm hoping they miscalculate their timing because if MS made a distribution and pushed it, other distro's would HAVE to be compatible.
But one other thing: Microsoft cannot destroy linux, that is what they are trying to do. But Microsoft COULD embrace and extend linux, or at least I think so. They havn't because it's much more lucrative to destroy it (except for the impossible part).
-pyrrho
the broken VM contains hundreds of calls to Windows specific functions
Then quit whining and start WINEing. That's what Mono's implementation of Windows Forms does.
Will I retire or break 10K?
And frankly, I wonder why they're not doing it already. Red Hat has always been fine with adding non-free CDs to their distribution (to the boxed sets, anyway, not available for download), and it seems like these would be good things they could add for no additional price.
you really nailed that one shut, you sure did!!
Congrats, guys. This may have been the most effective troll in the history of /.
All's true that is mistrusted
Mono is as many trillion miles away from dotNet as dotNet is trillions of lightyears away from java. Ximian would need a warp drive to catch up to Microsoft and Microsoft would need a wormhole to catch up to the Java2 Platform.
Just take a look at http://www.jpackage.org/ to have an idea at what could get into maintream linux distributions without Sun's licencing assles.
( and this is just the tip of the iceberg - the project has a very small core of maintainers, legalities scaring a lot of people )
I'd rather see the money going to mono (go-mono.org). C# is a better language and exists as an official standard. The patents Microsoft claims for the CLR are probably the kind that one can work around, since JIT itself has lots of prior art. Best of all .NET is lots of languages, not just C#. And if apps behaved like MSWindows apps, fine by me. Linux apps are a mishmash of whatever shortcut the programmer could take to get it to work. Did you notice that all the games console manufactures have strict definitions for what each button should do when it comes to common functionality? And they only have 10 buttons! They sell millions of copies to punters. Linux should take note. Am I off topic yet?
Is this some weird american thing I'm missing out on?
Surely what you need to make a nice cup of Java is...........Coffee beans from frickin' Java!
You're making a nice cup of Sumatran coffee! Or Peruvian!
And don't even start me on American "Champagne"........
Grrrrr.
a) Delegates are the equivalent of two method calls. You're realling going to pull out the "slow" card on that?
.NET should include some kind of equivalent, though I will note that Java's syntax for them is frustrating.
b) Delegates DO NOT break OO. They are the same concept interfaces at a method-level. They enable polymorphism at a method-level. It's different, not broken.
c) The benefits of anonymous inner classes are granted,
-Stu
But why should people volunteer to improve a proprietary implementation? I mean, we don't expect developers to develop better alternatives for Windows components and give them to Microsoft for free.
Why do people write for BSD then, when changes get folded into proprietery products?
You write for proprietary systems for the same reasons you write for open ones, because you want something better. How about the Blackdown effort, is that not exactly what they did?
Just because Sun folds doesn't mean you can do with that code whatever you like. Rather, the copyright would get transferred to Sun's creditors or whoever else snaps up the remnants of Sun, and they would try to make as much money out of it as they can. They might jack up the licensing fees they charge IBM and others, and they might come up with ways of revoking any rights that allow open source implementations. I think the end result would probably be an SCO-like melt-down, with lawyers claiming that everything and anything Java-related belongs to them.
Even if the code base was snapped up by someone else, I'm saying VM work would continiue because it has to - there are too many big players (IBM) to drop Java. Really what would happen is we would all be using IBM VM's as the standard after that point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> If you don't like swing... You might consider SWT.
Not so fast.
Sun blundered severely when they said WORA - Write Once Run Anywhere, because what they really should be saying is PODE - Package Once Deploy Everywhere.
That's the primary idea behind Java as far as i can see - make sure that all the platform specific stuff goes to runtime thus enabling applications to be pure 100% Java that can run anywhere.
Java WebStart almost got us there - you can add ONE link on your page that installs java app to ANY target platform out there. Also you can distribute pure Java apps and be sure that they will magically autoupgrade to any future GUI theme MS or Red Hat etc. will crack up (via swing upgrades that are responsibility of the Swing/JRE developers).
But here comes IBM and drops SWT... thus kicking Java down to the level Borland's CLX (Delphi/Kylix), Trolltech's QT, wxWindows, GTK, etc. - write once, package x times (once per target platform - win, mac, lin, etc...), litter your download page with multiple links (for every target platform) and go crazy with support, cause now it's yours - app developer's - responsibility to maintain your packages - upgrade for any future changes in GUI subsystems of any of your target OSes (YOU will have to repackege your software with the new versions of SWT, because Sun is not going to distrbute them).
So what do we do now? I think the only right way to solve this nasty downgrade problem is for IBM to work hard to make sure that SWT makes it into J2SE thus saving promise of Pure 100% Java Apps that can run anywhere. Until this happens anyone advocating SWT use should not forget to mention that it pollutes distributables with platform specific code thus essentially rendering those packages being platform-specific binaries rather that platform-independed java bytecodes thus pretty much killing the very point of those apps being Java rahter than say - Qt or wxWindows.