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.'"

Comments

Wasted effort ?

[Krapangor]

I doubt that RedHats decision makes any sense at all. There is a package of reasons why they shouldn't brother in touching Java. Especially with the fucked IT economics these days a major failed investment like useless and obsolete language fork might seriously cripple or even kill a small company. RedHat is gambling with their very lives for gaining nothing. That's contradicting sense at it's best. Perhaps they were inspired by SCO.

Well, much claims but I should back them up a little. Let's look at the problems of a Java port.

• Java is already relatively free. SUN's license doesn't compile with the EFF's open source criteria, but that's more a philosophical issue. It's free enough for the uses of almost all users and that should be enough for everyone.
  Why spend much effort only to follow the path of the true OSS aposteles ?
  That might raise your karma but not your balance.
• They should take into account the effects of potentially success of SCO attacks on IBM and Linux. While this might be extremely unlikely from a logical point of view, one should always keep in mind that the US legal system is relative fucked in that respect.
  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.
• Why spend any effort on Java at all ?
  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 .NET is more wisely designed that SUN's stuff and from Microsoft we usually won't see the state of art in modern programming.

4 effects of official (L)GPL JVM implementation

[ihatesco]

Effect number one:
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:
PROFIT! :D
(or at least a major headache in Redmond).

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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.