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Sun Agrees to Talk to IBM over Open Sourcing Java
comforteagle writes "Sun has agreed to meet with IBM to further discuss the issue of open sourcing Java with them. 'Sun is closely evaluating the effectiveness of the process.' Could Sun be coming around to actually doing this?"
In other words, there will be an open source java implementation, but you can bet your bottom dollar there will be better tools and IDEs for the closed version initially.
Then there will be enough libre programmers to make decent libre IDEs etc, and the proprietary Java will wither away (and Sun with it).
Though I hope Sun doesn't die, because they can stand up against Microsoft.
Exercise your right not to vote. thinkoutside.org
...Sun is attempting to buy some time and save face by stating that they will look into it with IBM, rather then ignore IBM and the OSS community by continuing their existing party-line.
What they may attempt is to persuade IBM to understand their side and perhaps even join them in keeping Java a closed environment.
It will be interesting to see how this will all turn out in the end.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
The question is not whether someone will or will not turn java down because it is not free, but how much more wildly adopted and improved the language and the VM can become.
While I hope that Sun does this someday, I really think that Eric and some others are out of line for beating up on Sun.
Sun is in trouble... nothing is really working for them. The Opteron is going to kill the Sparc, and they don't make much money off software. They need to figure out ways to make money from what they're doing or they're going to go under and take a lot of really cool stuff with them when they do.
I am personally an old fan of Sun. I think they're a great company. Their lukewarm support for SCO (I personally think they were just straddling the fence so they'd be on the winning side no matter what) is disturbing, but I understand their desire to stay out of the way of a litigous monstrosity like this. I want Sun to survive.
Sun has done a great job with Java so far. If they had opened it in the beginning, it would have been embraced, extended, and extinguished by you-know-who and we'd now have Microsoft Java.NET for Windows. Cross-platform Java would be dead. Sun did the right thing, and have been great stewards over this wonderful technology.
So, as we call for them to OSS Java, please keep their interests in mind. They deserve some reward for developing such a wonderful thing. We should not just blindly beat up on them for no reason, and we should keep in mind that IBM may have entirely selfish reasons for "leaning" on Sun here.
(IBM has done the community some great favors, but that doesn't entitle them to some kind of blind religious allegence.)
Neither company wants to release their own IP into an open source project. However, IBM providing the manpower, with Sun providing the specs, is a good combination for a new product.
It benefits Sun because A) it keeps Free Software advocates off their backs, and B) it promotes the continuance of Java, a flagship product, and one of the ways they as a company become known to many others.
It benefits IBM because it A) improves their image with the free software community, B) helps keep them in a leadership position for corporate attitude towards open source, C) it keeps investor opinion high.
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The problem is that open sourced java means something different to everyone, thus most people rants about different things. Many are shouting the "open source good" mantra, without stoping to think what to open source or how (a language, an implementation, a licence, a platform?).
"I think this line is mostly filler"
This could lead to some extremely good things.
Unfortunately, the only downside is that ESR is going to try to take credit for it, and he will be insufferable after this.
If its not given a BSD-style license, but one closer to GPL, there shouldn't be a problem. Microsoft won't touch the GPL since they can't make it their own like they can with BSD code. So I doubt Microsoft would do anything with Java provided its using an open-source license which prevents it from being hijacked.
The Java language specification is already avaliable in the open, just like the JVM spec. This means that anybody could write a complete java implementation, open source. The open source version could not evolve faster than the Sun spec(because it would not be a real JVM then), but the optimization and bug-tracking processes could go faster (if it gets the same kind of support Apache has).
What is interesting here is that Sun would participate directly.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Any fork from the Java specifications would simply not be Java anymore.
I would imagine Sun would act as a gatekeeper if Java went open source. Anything code that breaks compatibility would not be included in the "offical" Java feed.
As the grandfather post stated, this is more about portability than anything.
Really? Have you looked at a mobile phone recently? Every new phone comes with Java. That suggests almost every new phone means a royalty payment to Sun. Mobile phone sales are back on the up thanks to mobile multimedia content - mostly delivered through Java. I suspect Sun are raking it in.
The only way to guarantee the possibility of future support is to open source it.
That's not true. The API's are fully documented and there is nothing preventing their implementation. Those API's are decided on by the JCP which is a community process.
Open sourcing Java would give people an implementation, it would not significantly affect the characteristics of the language. I don't see the openness of Java being significantly different than that of C/C++/C#/Ada; the languages are tightly controlled by a small group with anyone free to implement the standard to whatever extent.
What is the difference between the relationship of Java to the JCP and C to ANSI? You and I can't directly influence either; but we are free to implement either language.
OOP is only as good as the designer. Any of the OOP languages (Java, C# , VB.NET (gasp) to name a few) can still have a clueless idiot make a God class. Conversely, you can "simulate" inheritance, polymorphism, etc. in procedural languages as well. U of Delaware has a Scheme class where this is often done.
Sure Sun's in trouble - they optimized their business for the dot-coms, took advantage of the hype, and now everyone's far more interested in cheap than sexy.
.net. And I suppose it's just about the only language being taken seriously for large application development on open systems today.
But even their sexy servers aren't all that attractive anymore as the intel line gains more ground on them. And really, the the only reason for buying 24+ way SMPs was due to limitations in oracle clustering. And now they're moving away from that.
Java's fine - if you like heavy, ponderous languages. A few years ago I worked at a system integrator and performed a study of our productivity - it actually took us longer to create an application in J2EE/Oracle in 2002 than it did in CICS/DB2 in 1987. The only good thing I can say about java is that I suppose it's better for large application development than c or c++, and it runs on more platforms than
So, now what's Sun left with? Overpriced hardware and cumbersome software. Should we be deferential with them because of all that they've done for us? Please - they spin so much hype it's disgusting, and their sales team is almost as sleazy as that of sybase or oracle.
Actually, this is VERY IMPORTANT! I think the big advantage(s) of "open sourcing" java will be seen when things such as the mess with the logging API's and the use of the assert keyword are avoided.
.02
It is still a mystery to me why Sun developed their own logging API's when LOG4J was widely used and accepted.
Hopefully a more open approach to Java would help projects that are housed at Jakarta and SourceForge actually make it into the JDK instead of sticking us with inferior rewrites.
The logging API is just one example. Imagine if the JUNIT implementation of assert was used, and if SWT could be combined with Swing/AWT to create better/superior user interfaces. I think Java could grow in leaps and bounds with an open approach.
Another good example of this would be the JDOM project. How long has it sat in the JCP? While in the meantime Sun implemented their own INFERIOR XML libraries.
The JCP is too political, and needs to modified/done away with. Let the people decide the direction of JAVA!
Just my
--Ryan
Probably too little, too late
When there are conventions of 25,000 Mono developers, ala JavaOne, you can talk about Java being "too little."
They have that.
It's called the "Java Compatability Kit", and is what JVM implementations are tested against in licensing to get that spiffy Java logo. IMHO, they should be more strict about how well an implementation performs against the JCK, and include more graphical tests ( though of course those are the hard ones to write ).
The key is you only see the JCK after you've agreed to license Java and paid some cash. That's the only *direct* way Sun makes money on Java. If you're asking them to give that up, I Sun's shareholders will have to ask you why, and what they're going to get in return... this will likely be what the IBM conversation consists of- how to give the JCK to one open-source implementation and still keep commercial ventures going to Sun for compatability certification.
IBM is urging Sun to create an open-source implementation of Java, not necessarily open source its current implementation. Sun's current Java implementation is loaded with tweaks and advanced features (generational garbage collection, HotSpot, etc) that would not be available in such a scenario. The open-source community developing this new implementation would have to develop these features on their own or hope that Sun will donate some or all of their work out the goodness of their heart.
As such, this move by IBM doesn't seem to have any short-term beneift. Furthermore, IBM isn't pushing this new open-source implementation to be the implementation of choice. Instead, they are saying that like the J2EE specs, there should be a free and open-source implementation of the J2SE specs. Whoopie.