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James Gosling On The Sun/Microsoft Settlement
greg_barton writes "James Gosling has responded to the two previous commentaries cited on Slashdot about the Java Dilemma. Some interesting excerpts: "In Rick Ross's 'Where Is Java In This Settlement?' he worries that Sun may have sold out the Java community. We didn't. We have not sold our soul to the Dark Side." and "There's a long thread of discussion on Slashdot 'Two Takes on the Java Dilemma' that is pretty entertaining, from a wow, what are they smoking! point of view. There are voices of reason, and conspiracy nuts.""
We are supposed to "have a little faith" in a company that shifts direction almost as often as a political candidate? No thanks. Been there, done that, ain't ever trusting anything important to a product or service that is tied to any single entity. Sooner or later their goals and mine diverge and I get screwed.
Trust, but verify is a better way to go. Sun SAYS they will not screw over their Java development community but what concrete assurances do they offer to allow one to verify? Have they even made a Trolltech like promise that they will free the code if Sun pulls the plug on Java or, more likely, Sun itself is bought or broken up for spare parts?
Personally I prefer to deal with software under a DFSG compatible license since then I KNOW (as opposed to an act of faith) the software will continue to be available and so long as a few people care about it, updates will continue. I also prefer open hardware from multiple sources for the same reasons. No one corp's ever shifting plans will leave me high and dry.
Plus with Sun you get policies that are just insane. No other word really describes the behaviour. Example: It is obviously in Sun's interest to see a JVM on as many machines as possible. Their JVM is a free download. But you can't even redistribute unmodified copies of it, which is why no linux distro includes a JVM. To use Java under Linux requires a user to go search it out, download a non-trivial package and install it. Won't be holding my breath waiting for someone at Sun to drop into this thread and answer that one.
Democrat delenda est
Are any of those certified for production use? Would you trust your ecommerce site to them?
evil is as evil does
This will get modded down, but I've got to respond to your points.
a) what if you're a business that wants to sell software and not services? I believe in f/oss licenses, but I don't think a company doesn't have the right to implement something as proprietary (at least until there is an open-source cloned implementation of it).
b) as the article states, you are granted royalty-free patent rights to implement your own gpl version.
c) Sun controls Java so no competing corporation can dilute the standard. without platform compatibility, java is useless.
This might be tough for the fanboy crowd to hear, but without Java, Linux dies. I know slashdot generally hates sun because of the whole 'what have you done for me lately' crowd, but think about what made IBM embrace linux and spend a billion dollars of advertising on it.
Gosling says: "We're not a bunch of moronic secret subversive Microsoft lapdogs."
Uh huh...
So why do you sound like MS when discussing the GPL? Why do you attack the political premise of the GPL? I think the "viral infection" must be between your ears, Mr. Gosling.
RMS and the GPL will be precisely what you need when you needed it. The moment has not yet arrived for you if you do not yet fully understand that assertion or why it's true.
RMS' argument is basically one of not doing any kind of free development for what ends up being something with a non-free dependency. Smart guy. His almost autistic predictability in communicating the rigors of his philosophy is truly awesome (an overused word, I know). Someday he will be looked back on by history as one of the geniuses of our era - hell, it's already like honoring the corpse in the room. Why? Because he could die today and his message will not have changed.
I fucking love that about RMS! And so should you.