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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?"
For my needs and preferences, Java is "free enough". Anyone who ever has turned Java down in favor of something else, because it is not free?
Wait... an .. implementation?
Rick Ross, president of Javalobby Inc., of Cary, N.C., an association of Java developers with more than 100,000 members, said, "On the surface, Rod's reply indicates a clear willingness on IBM's behalf to invest in an independent, open-source Java implementation that would benefit everyone"
What? Two Javas? This sounds weird. Obviously an open source implementation will grow and respond to demand rapidly and outpace something proprietary, yet it sounds like there will still be a proprietary version. Can anyone shed light on this? I'm confused.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As Sun has already stated (in response to criticisms) that they have no problem with someone working up an Open Source version, as long as the spec is adhered to. Now someone with serious manpower is offering to do exactly that.
I'm not surprised at all. Quite pleased, actually.
Don't hate me, but has anyone ever thought that this might not be a *good* thing? As irrational as it sounds there are probably a number of companies out there who are using Java just because the PHB's have decided that since it's "owned" by a major company like Sun, it must be good/stable/etc... These same cover your arse PHB's may not like the fact that the language they depend on has no "official support"... I'm thinking of the type of boss who would deploy RH or SuSE but not Debian...
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
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
Wow... despite my skepticism in previous posts, I do think this CAN be done and done right. I think it would be VERY smart to get IBM and Sun to work *extremely* closely on this. In much the same way IBM is defending Linux currently, Java would still need that corporate support to defend it against outside challenges.
But, it could work...
...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?
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.)
I wonder if this will have any impact on the development and direction of Mad Hatter, with IBM's ongoing journey to bring linux to a wider audience. These two companies in bed, in marriage, could produce some interesting offspring for Java and ultimately could very well trickle down to Mad Hatter.
Could this venture open up doors for Mad Hatter to become a part of IBM's fleet of products? Any thoughts?
This, aside from Sun withering away, is what I see, too. Or possibly worse, a fork. Anything added to the OSS that finds its way into Suns would likely fall under the GPL, how's Sun feel about that? Clearly Sun and IBM have some things to sort out.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From the article - "Sun officials planned to meet with IBM as early as Thursday to discuss the merits of whether the company should work with IBM on an independent project to create an open-source implementation of Java."
Well...perhaps they've seen the benefit of the OpenOffice project.
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.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It is NOT free enough because it cannot come by default with linux distros. License states that third parties cannot distribute java development kit. It will be free enough for me when I can do:
apt-get install j2sdk-1.4.2
Now it is not. Of course having source available and having the right to mofify and distribute your own version (f.e. optimized for athlon or modified to conform to debian-standards) of java would be a HUGE bonus, but it is not THAT necessary.
--Coder
I use Debian, and generally speaking, if it isn't free enough for Debian, it isn't free enough for me. Beyond my hatred for the lack of JRE in the main unstable tree (which is really annoying), there is also an ethical ideal of truly free software that is being violated by Java.
Many people believe RMS is too hardcore about sticking to his guns on this issue, but I do believe he has a good point. Many programs are "free" for temporary use, and Java is one of them. Other examples of superficially free software are Windows Media Player and Adobe Acrobat, for which there are no guarantees of future freedom. These programs, like Java, introduce standards and structure that other people build on. If the freedom of these platforms was to be compromised, many poeple could stand to lose a great deal of work. The only way to guarantee the possibility of future support is to open source it.
<offtopic>
Does anyone know if there are implementations of NeWS available as open source now? Has anyone working on one of the "X Is Icky - I have a Better Way" window systems looked at NeWS for a model? Enquiring minds (however enfeebled) want to know.
</offtopic>
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.
Well, the best Java IDE is already free (in all senses).
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
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.
It si very interesting to listen how one company talks with another in order to achieve the liberation of a technology and asking to release it as opensource. I think it is a revolution, years ago one company made a deal with another under propiertary licenses.
Do they arrive to a private deal? Or they arrive to a deal with the benefit of everyone, in opensource-way?
Damia
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.
I really hope this works out. Not because "free as in beer" isn't good enough for me (it is), but because it'll help focus the Java community.
We want Java's greatest supporters on one line, so they can face the growing competition of C# instead of bickering among themselves about whose VM/Gui toolkit/IDE/Compiler is the best.
Getting an OSS Java is just a nice bonus.
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.
Probably too little, too late
When there are conventions of 25,000 Mono developers, ala JavaOne, you can talk about Java being "too little."
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.
From a financial standpoint, and let's face it, that is from where IBM is talking, IBM stand to gain everything from an open source Java.
Fair's fair IBM. If Sun offers Java then perhaps you should volunteer WebSphere!
Believe it or not, there are corporate IT shops that shy away from anything open-source---even if you can show a support contract. In a place like that, any movement of Java to open-source is a negative, not a positive. And since those shops are exactly where Java is popular, Sun is not stupid to go slow.
These corporate IT shops think they have leverage over the big-$$ vendors by virtue of the fat checks that they can hold back (sometimes true, sometimes not). No check, no leverage, no support.
The reality is that much of IT is about budgets, not technology. Senior managers still work with money long after whatever technical skills they had are gone, so that's the club they use on vendors.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
I work at IBM. I've been authorized to say the following to clear up a few misconceptions:
. html
IBM has 3 systems that can execute Java programs:
- The oldest JVM is the base for the current generation of products and is derived from Sun code, but contains significant changes to the JIT and garbage collector. See
https://www6.software.ibm.com/dl/lxdk/lxdk-p
- A newer product JVM (internally called J9) was developed from an IBM code base. See http://www.ibm.com/software/wireless/wme/features
- A third (Jikes RVM) has been developed principally for research use and is written in Java. It is an existing open source project that uses GNU Classpath libraries and is popular with JVM researchers. It is not complete, mostly because Classpath is not complete. It is capable, with only the Classpath libraries, of running substantial programs such as Eclipse. See http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/jikesrvm/