Slashdot Mirror
IBM Offers to Help Sun Open Up Java
dave writes "ESR has opened the issue of
pressuring Sun to open source Java, and today IBM throws in their own
commitment toward this end. IBM has published an open letter to
Sun, proposing that the two companies collaborate on an independent project
to open source Java, saying that IBM is ready to provide technical resources
and code for the open source Java implementation while Sun provides the open
source community with Sun materials, including Java specifications, tests and
code."
First thing... what are the chances of a true first post getting modded UP!?! What has happened to the slashdot we all knew and loved?
:-)
Just playing Devil's Advocate here: IBM sounds touchy-feely about open source but how would they react if Sun were to offer to help IBM open up AIX?
Second thing... bad example, since IBM has already released stuff from AIX as OSS (see the whole SCO vs. IBM debacle)... and they could never open-source the whole thing, because of licensing issues for the base SysV stuff it's built on.
Unless IBM was to buy SCO... in which case, who knows, AIX might just get open-sourced.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
As much as I love open source and even openness in other forms (like letters), I can't help but think that open letters tend to be more about making news than actually seriously expecting things to work the proposed way.
maybe that's exactly what they would like to do?
*IBM is ready to provide technical resources and code*
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
IBM doesn't needs Sun's help/permission. Why don't they start to contribute to the already existing free java stuff like gjc and GNU Classpath?
Q: What's to stop Sun and IBM from open-sourcing the JDKs they have now? A: Third-party IP. Odds are, both Sun's and IBM's JDKs are chock full of third-party IP. Even the stuff that IBM implements in a "clean room way" probably contains IP that IBM licensed from somebody else. One could interpret IBM's gesture as offering to produce parts of the JDK that are free from IP encumbrances.
Finding God in a Dog
Could Sun license it under some terms like MySQL where you could deveople opensource projects with out buying a license. If you want to keep your product closed you would have to buy a license from Sun. I know they are very two different beasts so that is why I am asking.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
As the days and months go by, it really seems as though IBM is serious about its support of OSS. Is this truly the case? Most likely. If you examine the past, all the PC software IBM has produced has either failed miserably or been defeated in the market by other software.
Perhaps IBM has realized that an investment into OSS is more cost efficient than paying to develop their own closed source software.
Opening Java systematically would make it more appealing to a wider user base - No longer would it's major uses have to be confined to web, Sun, or CS classes at major universities.
Sun made a nice start on Java, but like most closed, standardized software, a better alternative could probably be written.
Kudos to IBM for their support. Hopefully Sun will accept their offer and a better, OSS version of Java will be released.
"Without a doubt. I can't help but smile at the whole thing. I am sure Sun would rather die than allow IBM to 'help' them."
I doubt shareholders feel this way... unless their goal is to be bought out.
sig
then perhaps you should take a look at experimentalstuff.com - sun's site for experimental code. lots of it is opensource including an entire operating system (chorus os).
looks like a committment to opensource to me.
2 1337 4 u!
One way IBM adapts to today's computing climate is by morphing into more of a service organization than merely a software vendor. So heterogeneous systems, multiple implementations based on open standards, and interoperability at the enterprise level all add up to more problems for IBM's professional services organization to fix, ergo more revenue.
Breakfast served all day!
IBM put JFS the AIX journaling filesystem into Linux. They might well respond by saying yes. I do admit that given IBMs long history of tweaking SUN (Eclipse anyone?) that this offer by IBM might not be taken that well. OTOH Sun has never seemed that hell bent on monetizing Java - the licensing and conformance testing fees probably don't begin to cover development costs.
.NOT.
They say are trying to build a community around Java and it seems to me that given those two points Sun really should release Java to the open source community.
I think this really would give Java a HUGE boost over
Besides, JBoss and Linux distros make money on packaging and supporting Free but hugely complex systems.
I think it's humility. I remember reading on here an article about the CEO of IBM chastising Microsoft for, essentially, being too big for its britches, and specifically saying that they themselves had learned from their own similar mistake. If John Nash was right, the best way to succeed is to succeed together. I think IBM feels empathically as well as intelligently that that is so. Microsoft may in the future, as well.
If the open development and open business models take hold, I think we may see a paradigm shift in industry (though possibly only in software) where no one makes a product, but each (company, community, individual) may add something or change something, and if it takes off well and the resources are there, they will be compensated.
People who say that this model won't work forget (or maybe never learned!) that people are often noticed for their abilities despite the fact that they may not be employed by a company in that field, or may not be particularly well-versed in it, but because they can still understand a particular problem and solve it well.
This is my hope, at least.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
The VM isn't the problem, it's the API code. Which is why the GNU Classpath project is so important.
McNealy addressed this issue year or so ago...
.NET and his vision, Java's there. Java's beating him, or right behind him, on almost every front, and for the better part of the last few years, he's been unable to combat this enemy with any major success. Now imagine someone hands him the source code and tells him he can fork it however it wants. What would he do?
The problem they're afraid of is Microsoft embracing & extending Java. The ability that Sun had to sue Microsoft and force them to cease their modifications would no longer exist.
Now imagine Bill Gates at home in his Medina mansion.. (only 10 minutes away from here actually... sad...). Everywhere he tries to push
I don't know. And for the time being, I'm fine not knowing...
But does IBM honestly think that open-source
is the best path to creating successful software?
If so, how about an open-source WebSphere & DB2?
It would be great if IBM could use its muscle
to move Java forward in the areas that need it,
like advocating for open-source J2EE servers,
and ideally more sensible ways to deploy J2EE.
Anyone here playing with Java 1.5?
Sun made things more sensible like
autoboxing and generics and loops--
how about making J2EE more sensible?
IMHO, Sun & IBM both need this to happen
before MS gets momentum on the big servers.
Cheers, Joel
Not true - GNU Classpath is JDK1.4 compatible in many areas, and pretty much complete at JDK1.2 level with the sole exception of CORBA (which has interesting license issues) and Swing, which is being actively worked on (there's a screenshot of Classpath running a Swing demo that's limited to buttons and checkboxes, and it actually works!).
Sure, cloning Swing and many of the other massive libraries in recent JDK versions is a mammoth undertaking and life would be a great deal easier for everyone if Sun would open up the reference implementation. But don't discount the work of the people who are already doing it - they're further along than you think!
(BTW, the reason those URLs point to kaffe.org is just because my own domain for them expired; kaffe.org graciously agreed to host the files, but the results are independently generated and not biased in favor or against any of kaffe's "competitors". Having said that, Kaffe is another project that's made leaps and bounds recently. There are, in fact, multiple completely Free/Open Source implementations of Java now that can run many high-profile Java apps, including Eclipse and Tomcat)
Brav-o. Good summary. One little thing - if Sun open-sources their own code, it's not duplicating the API - it's releasing it. Now, if there's IP in that code that's locked up somewhere, or licensed somehow, that's a problem - one that IBM should be able to help solve, given their library of IP rights.
If I were at Sun, one of my concerns would be which of their development projects to open, and when. "Java" isn't just Java 2 Standard Edition - the Enterprise Edition and Mobile/Wireless Edition have lives of their own; then there's (still) Jini and all their XML stuff. Sun is sinking cash into lots of different efforts, trying to establish Java in market niches (like mobile phones) and building in tool support, documentation, etc. Throwing the doors open and letting the world at their code base may not be the smartest thing at the moment (esp. if there's licensed IP in there somewhere that they need to go negotiate to open, or remove).
I'd like to see them phase in open-source. Give 'em six months or so for the 3 major "platforms", including all the java.* and javax.* packages, then another six months for the com.sun.* packages - with an expectation that other players would start working on them immediately. After that, every new thing they do should be opened no later than beta... and the JCP should allow participants to collaborate on implementations at the source-code level, so JCP members could work in semi-privacy until the code got fully opened at their beta release.
But that's just an idea....
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
Sun, has done a decent job of making Java as open as possible. I think people tend to forget that the Java language specification is posted on the web without charge. The Java language specification often goes through the Java Community process so the JLS isn't completely and inbred mess. So as far as company that has one goal to make money on something Sun is being as open as they can be.
... and on and on and on with the other JRocket, and even Apple
Sun's JVM is an implementation of that JLS
IBM's JVM is an implementation of that same JLS
BlackDown is an implementation of that same JLS
With most of the implementations not offically open source this seems to mean that java itself isn't 'open'.
I think IBM wants to take Sun's VM and expand on it and be in on the ground floor so they can reap any potential earnings from the join venture. They are being as civil as a business can be by saying they want to simply help and not take it over or back-stab them, since IBM has the size and capacity to make just about anything it needs.
But pack to the open-source debacle Java can be open sourced if someone is ambitious enough. I would imagine if they didn't spend as much time badgering Sun, they might have one by now. I think Sun's apprehension of opening Java up stems from the Microsoft mess where one JVM had significantly different behavior than the Sun JVM and caused Java appear to be a defunct technology that should be avoided in leiu of ActiveX
This is my view, right or wrong I at least have one.
And, open-source software would be inconsistent because.......?
.NET and other MS software, but you still have developers who make a choice that's (hopefully) informed about lock-in. But Java on the client would be back under total MS control.
You mention Apache, MySql, Perl, PHP, and so on, but none of these projects are at risk of a malicious fork the way Java is.
We all know what Microsoft did with Java the first time around -- added in a bunch of MS-only extensions and more subtle incompatibilities, then shipped their version with every version of Windows, and put out an IDE that encouraged the use of their proprietary extensions. They also put a lot of work into making their JVM the fastest one out there, which further encouraged its use (and misuse).
Why in the world wouldn't they do that again, given this golden opportunity? Dual licensing, GPL restrictions, etc., don't help from what I can see.
Okay, under the GPL they would have to distribute it for free -- no problem, that's what they were doing before. Ah, and they'd have to release the source -- again, no problem, since it's all Windows-only extensions that cannot be supported in a cross-platform Java (do you think Sun really wants to be playing catch-up with MS, anyway?).
Java on the server would still be safer than on the client. MS could add in extensions to encourange interaction with
It wouldn't matter if they couldn't call it "Java". It would simply be the same old jview.exe that ran when you hit a JNLP link, applet, or application JAR.
Am I missing something here? I'm not neccessarily against open-sourcing Java (because I'd feel slightly safer, and I think the GUI libs would get a boost), but I think this needs to be addressed first.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
You're almost right.
Not "any monkey" can write a VM. They're non-trivial (just ask the Kaffe folks), and IBM has several irons in the fire. As well as licensing Sun's VM (and improving it vastly for their customers) they also have their own VM under development, entirely free of Sun IP.
On the issue of class libraries, you're also nearly right. Swing would be hard work, and pointless. There's a reason that eclipse doesn't use Swing... IBM isn't interested in it - it sucks.
IBM also has their own set of class libraries under development - entirely free of Sun IP.
So, in my opinion, this is just a huge red herring. IBM has enough projects under heavy development to release a completely open-source VM and set of class libraries within 18 months if they want to.
Personally, I think it's going to happen, and this is them tapping on Sun's window going "if you don't do it, we will, and we'll do it without using your IP".
If Sun were to open Java sources, it would be trivial to introduce a license (EG: GPL) that would largely offset forking of the codebase.
It's not so much "forking" itself, but the goal of "Write Once, Run Anywhere".
What Microsoft did was add some language keywords that allowed one to call COM objects from Java -- which was damn useful if you only were targetting Windows. However, these keywords generated non-standard bytecodes, and non-standard bytecodes crash other JVMs.
So, none of your examples really address Sun's goals -- PHP and Perl come close, but they basically accept portability problems. It would be basically impossible to prevent divergance of the actual bytecode instructions even with a strong licence like GPL.
An Open Source class library would make much more sense than an Open Source JVM. (not GPL, and perhaps with some naming requirements for modified libs). It's not like there's any big secrets in there.