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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.""
Personally I'm surprised nobody is lobbing Big Blue's name around in all these discussions, because I think the Sun/Microsoft deal has a lot more to do with IBM than it does with Sun.
IBM is the only company in the world that could realistically engage in a multi-front competitive battle with Microsoft. And if they were capable of gaining more control of Java (perhaps by a cash investment in Sun, or perhaps even buying them) they would pose a far greater threat to Microsoft than Netscape ever did. IBM's e-business strategy coupled with Java control would be an unstoppable force.
People talk about Microsoft competitors yet they raise company names like Sun, Real, or Netscape. The threat they pose to Microsoft is a drop in the bucket compared to IBM and their e-business strategy. A strategy that is incredibly reliant on Java.
Taking it a logical step further lets assume Microsoft made this settlement not to take *Sun* out of the game, but rather to take *IBM* out of the game. Perhaps the silence on the Java front is because $2 billion is the price to get Sun to walk away from Java. Silently. Could this cause Rich Green to leave in disgust?
Personally I suspect this deal was all about dealing a terrible blow to IBM. I think the one thing Sun and Microsoft aren't talking about is the one thing they ever really cared about in this deal -- Java. I hope not, but the more I read the more sure I become that Sun has done a deal with the devil and Java was the bargaining chip.
Scott McNealy used to always say gravity was on his side. I used to wonder how he figured that since you had IBM, and all the other big iron makers dropping in from above and back then it was microsoft and intel setting up a rockhard floor for him to be squished on.
Sun is now in quite the pickle. Sparcstations arent a contender for the desktop. Their server sales are being trashed by Linux on Intel, and Linux on mainframe.
Their latest play MadHatter looks nice but so does lindows,suse, and redhat. The latter 3 have one great thing going for them, they are one time licenses not perpetual service contracts like mad hatter.
Its no wonder that they paid SCO a licenses fee and are now dissing Linux. Its also no wonder that Bill Joy left the company.
I think that there will be little meaningful technological change in either Microsoft's or Sun's products as a result of the settlement. Microsoft did not want to be barred from distributing the JVM while Sun did not want Microsoft to fork Java (like J++ originally tried to). The settlement ensures that both concerns are met. The major surprise to me was the magnitude and nature of the license payments to Sun. I would have thought Microsoft could structure the payments as an equity investment similar to their $100million investment in Apple so as to at least they receive something of more tangible value in return.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
There are Free open source implementations of Java already. Not quite up to the same level as the Sun's offerings yet, but it is difficult to hit a moving target...
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
i'm going to 'have a little faith' and trust gosling and mcnealy. we haven't even seen what Sun's next move is yet hoards of /.'ers are freaking out. lets give these guys a chance before we dismiss them.
smd4985
Do we hate Sun this week? Or was that next week?
Maybe they are afraid that James is going to dramaticically increase the amount he is charging them for radiant energy. Personally I think we should all boycott James Gosling as I don't believe he as actually laid claim to the sun by actually going there.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Unlike GPLd software, the Java sources don't come with a viral infection clause that requires you to apply the GPL to your own code
Didn't sell your soul, huh?
Is that a "Wow! What are they smoking? Since when were drugs for nerds?" point of view he's talking about or perhaps a "Wow! What are they smoking? Why is their English still mostly intact?" or (most probably) "Wow! What are they smoking? Can I get that here in the States?"
These Java supporters are really shady characters. Corrupting our youth's minds...
True story.
Art doesn't obey the first law of thermodynamics either. Some people put their whole life, unrecognized, into creating art, and when they are long gone, their work is still with us. COMPENSATION and BUSINESS obey the 1st law of thermodynamics, but that is by no means the only driving force behind people.
People think with their feelings and not with their head. My favorite "conspiracy theory" is that Sun sold out to Microsoft to defeat Linux. Right after they released one of the *best* Linux desktops on the market. Go figure.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So Java seems to be less encumbered than .Net at this point.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Not to mention the fact software compiled with gcj or linked with libgcj don't fall under the GPL. You can write proprietary software and compile with gcj and not be "infected" by the GPL. So this part of Gosling's anti-RMS rant is pure FUD.
The real problem is that after all of the work that Sun has put into making Java a platform in real life Java is currently splitting into a million different directions. gcj and GNU Classpath are picking up steam, IBM is pushing platform dependent SWT and Eclipse instead of Swing, etc. With Sun losing the hardware war to Intel and AMD, and the UNIX war to Linux, that leaves Sun with Java as its best hope for a recovery. However, it's a pretty slim hope. Java application servers are basically a comodity as are Java development tools.
Let's see. My first exposure to RMS was being told as an undergrad that if I wanted to, I could go log into his accounts at MIT because he didn't bother to keep a password. He has proceeded to rant and rave and rail against anything that is not his pure community of software technicians giving their every line for the greater good.
RMS is essentially a kook.
I couldn't have said it better myself. He has certainly done many great things with his efforts, but in the general scheme of things, he's a kook. If you weren't so hung up on taking the observation personally and finding people to label "Anti Free" perhaps you'd be better able to accept this.
Finally, and to the point, Gosling doesn't call him a kook; he comments that RMS has a peculiar (as in unique) definition of "Free". Some of his comments about GPL are less charitable, but they don't involve whether RMS is a kook or not.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
We have not sold our soul to the Dark Side. certainly not. oh by the way do you know any good ways to get the windows logos off of our foreheads?
The debate between the GPL folks and Java folks will go on for quite awhile, the big point here is that IBM has more people working on Java and Java based solutions that Sun. Sun has lost the momentum in the Java arena in some areas. Yes the JSR process does produce standards, but IMO If I look at technologies like J2ME, the industry is still fragmented. You may be able to build J2SE applications and run them on Windows, Linux, Solaris or what have you and have a reasonable expectation of WORA however J2ME isn't there, after 3 years. So, putting WORA aside the fragmentation in J2ME even with Palm demonstrates that Java becomes a utilitarian application delivery infrastructure that may or may not be ubiquitious.
Palm and Sun had differences of J2ME, Palm works with IBM and viola, J2ME for Palm the way palm wanted it, not Sun.
So, from a technology High Ground, Sun doesn't control Java explicitly, and that's a good thing. Sun's controls on Java do make sense as Gosling pointed out however let's not forget the J2EE 1.2 specification that was held up by a voting member because of EJB 2.0 compliance issues. In this case the JSR voting member had a conflict with voting on the spec while their product didn't adhere to it. So, EJB 2.0 gets held up, which holds up J2EE 1.2. That happened and the company's initials have a B in them, but it's not IBM.
So, while the JSR process isn't perfect, the thought that vendors are most of the JSR participants isn't all bad, unless a log jam occurs. Maybe someday J2ME will be as ubiquitious as J2SE, J2EE isn't quite there yet, but getting there. Let's also not forget the whole JBoss issue, but that's another thread.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
About a third to half of the article you're supposedly responding to consists of Mr. Gosling claiming the exact set of baseless allegations your post brings up to be false. In fact, attempting to refute such allegations appears to have been one of his primary reasons for writing said article.
Did you just not notice this? Or did you not read the article? I'm leaning toward the second, since first off it references nothing in this article whatsoever, and second that's an awful long and carefully-formed post to have gotten FP on. Either you read and type reeeal fast, or you wrote this beforehand and waited for another Sun story so you could grab an early post number and get up to Score:5.
So, at any rate, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you read the article. So is what you are implying by your post that you believe Mr. Gosling to be lying when he explicitly brings up the things you allege and says they are entirely untrue and without basis? Why?
In some ways, RMS is a kook. He's taken a basic word, "free" and redefined it. Free doesn't have to mean, free for anyony to get and use. Free can also mean, as gosling pointed out, free of charge. In some ways, the bsd license is "free-er" than GPL, as you owe no one anything other than a statement in the source. You can sell it in binary form, no hooks attached.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Not to mention the fact software compiled with gcj or linked with libgcj don't fall under the GPL. You can write proprietary software and compile with gcj and not be "infected" by the GPL. So this part of Gosling's anti-RMS rant is pure FUD.
While that bit was very confusing, what I believe Gosling was trying to do with his "viral license" paragraph was that he was simply trying to set up a comparison between the license on the Java materials and the GPL. I think he wasn't so much trying to say "the GPL is viral, and it's bad", as he was trying to say "the GPL has restrictions to reflect the agenda it's trying to push; the Java licenses have restrictions to reflect the agenda it's trying to push, and these restrictions aren't any more limiting from the developer perspective than what the GPL requires", as part of his defense of those restrictions.
This was of course just my interpretation and I could be wrong.
Companies are the wrong place to put trust. They are a nessisary evil that is to be watched carefully to ensure that they do not abuse their power. They are not God, their whitepapers are not to be followed religeously. As always do whats in the best interest of your particular company. Never fall in love with a company or technology, or you will be burned.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Sun's signing into Microsoft's Communications Protocol Program locks Sun and Sun customers into interoperating with any Microsoft system on Microsoft's strict terms, conditions and royalty rates. It also denies the possibility that the code using those Microsoft protocols will ever be open sourced.
This raises serous questions. For example, how much longer will Sun be free to distribute and integrate SAMBA with the Java Desktop? Will Sun's signing of the MCPP have a network affect on vendors who have access to Sun's source code -- will they also be forced to sign up to the MCPP?
I understand Sun's attempt to spin "Peace in our time" into "This Was Their Finest Hour"however, if you look where the quote originated from...
We can be truly thankful that Churchill's next action was not to sign a treaty with Hitler, accepting gold looted from occupied states as payment for damages done.Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't think Gosling understands Free Software at all.
He responds to Stallman by saying:
a) The GPL is not free, it has a strong political agenda.
b) Java is free in many respects (you don't pay to use the JVM, you can see the source). Java sources don't have a viral licence like the GPL.
c) Giving freedom to JVM 'implementors' would be damaging to JVM 'users' (Java developers).
I will tackle these in turn:
a) Gosling implies the FSF has a 'hidden' political agenda. Their agenda is about as far from hidden as I can imagine - I don't think he has read any of the documents on the FSF web site. If you don't think the GPL promotes more freedom than, say, the Java licence, you have an extremely simplistic view of freedom. The political agenda is that the GPL strongly tries to promote a whole world of free software - and if you don't necessarily always agree with that part of the agenda, you can do as I do and use the LGPL or BSD licences. The main point is, if you currently want to ship a product based on Sun's JVM code, you need to licence the code from them to do that. If that code were GPL, it would give all of us freedom to work with the code, but possibly mean many users would no longer need to pay to licence the code from Sun (their fear) - unless of course they didn't want to give away their modifications, in which case they would be in *exactly the same* position they are in now, and could continue to pay Sun for a licence with different terms.
b) Gosling switches from Free(dom) Software to free(beer) (Open Source) software. I can use Internet Explorer for free too, but it certainly isn't Free Software. Stallman is most definitely talking about Freedom. I don't care if I can *see* the source code, the issue is, what can I *do* with that code. The Java licence gives me a *lot* less Freedom than the GPL in that regard. Goslings response has no value for the many of us who don't care too much for the Open Source movement.
c) You already have a licensing program for the term "Java" and associated logos and trademarks - we aren't asking you to give those away. As a Java developer, I would still like to see the guarantees of a licensing program - do like every other industry does and say "if you don't see logo X, you aren't getting 'Java'". If you make the JVM implementation Free Software, it doesn't mean you have to let everyone label their products built on that code as 'Java'. And as for any protections for users/developers, this is a myth anyhow. Look at the SWT toolkit (used to build Eclipse) for an example - what happens if it takes off in popularity (it's going that way), what protections do you have then? None.
And although not mentioned, most developers from the Free Sofware world will also view Java Community Process as a farce as well. Look at the lobbying Apache had to do recently to be allowed to implement JCP specs for one example of how this process does nothing to guarantee our Freedom. (I also fail to understand the communities abhorrent reaction to the W3C patent policy discussions, yet the seeming acceptance of many for the JCP.)
Moving into the information age, it is my view that the foundation technology we build our word around should not ultimately be under the control of any single group or corporation. Using Free Software provides me with a number of guarantees that the programs/code I use will always be there for me, and that I will always have the freedom to use, modify, and rely on those for myself or my business. Java, as provided by Sun, does not have those guarantees.
Since RMS *is* a person who wrote an opinion, he should expect some to disagree with it. Gosling didn't make a personal attack on RMS, he just challenged some of his arguments and assumptions.
OK, I'm being redundant, as others have already pointed this out, but there are 22 definitions of free, plus subdefinitions, in the American Heritage Dictionary. We find RMS's within the first three:
free (P) Pronunciation Key (fr)
adj. freer, freest
1. Not imprisoned or enslaved; being at liberty.
2. Not controlled by obligation or the will of another: felt free to go.
3.a. Having political independence: "America... is the freest and wealthiest nation in the world" (Rudolph W. Giuliani).
3.b. Governed by consent and possessing or granting civil liberties: a free citizenry.
3.c. Not subject to arbitrary interference by a government: a free press.
RMS is using definition 3.b., "Governed by consent and possessing or granting civil liberties."
1. You make your own decision about whether you wish to become subject to the GPL license (by choosing whether you wish to distribute it or derivative works).
2. By accepting those terms, you agree to a set of civil liberties; namely, that the work and all derivative works, if distributed, must be made available for access and mutation.
This is identical to the concept of "free" used in the US government and the governments of many other nations. You are free to be a US citizen if you agree that you will not, for example, deny another the right to speak. You are also bound to certain courses of action by your freedom; for example, it is your personal duty to fix the government when it gets too far out of line. The GPL has a political agenda just like the US Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights do, and in both cases, they are in accord with one of the commonly accepted definitions of "free."
None of this makes RMS's definition "right", or Gosling's definition "wrong." The only objectively wrong thing would be to say that either of them is wrong. Both forms of "free" are encompassed in the definition of the term "free."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Some of you may know this already, but for those who don't, RMS and James Gosling had a feud in the 80s over Gosling's Emacs (which was a TECO Emacs workalike). Apparently, there were agreements between Gosling and several other developers to the effect that they could modify and redistribute the source to Gosling's Emacs. RMS decided to base the original GNU Emacs on Gosling's code. Apparently, this happened after Gosling decided to sell the rights to his Emacs clone to Unipress, and bitter legal threats ensued. This seems to have been one of the primary motivations for the GPL. I've never seen Gosling speak or write about the incident since. RMS gave a speech in 1986 where he recounted the incident, and he didn't have a lot of good things to say about Gosling:
That speech also has a few memorable quotes, and I highly recommend you read it. I haven't heard or read RMS referring to Gosling personally since, but I believe that the incident itself has been recalled by him a few times since.
Now for my part of the disclosure: I currently attend the University of Calgary, where James Gosling is the only persona anywhere near to fame that the Computer Science department has ever produced (Theo de Raadt doesn't count, unless your definition of "produce" involves scandal and legal threats).
The above is mostly just hearsay and speculation, and should not be taken as authoritative, except the excerpt from RMS's speech.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
I'm baffled by most of Gosling's comments about RMS and the GPL. The aspect of the GPL that he seems to be remarking on with his "viral infection clause" comment is that it permits you to modify and redistribute the software licensed under it, provided the new work is also licensed under the GPL. Apparently, this is a "catch" -- a restriction of the GPL -- in comparison to the license used by Sun for the Java source.
The implication, then, is that not only does Sun's license permit you to modify and restribute Java, it permits you to do so under any license of your chosing.
I find this highly suspect, though I don't know for sure that it's untrue. If this is the case, why doesn't the FSF regard it as a Free Software license (although, like BSD, obviously not a Copyleft license)? Why hasn't the OSI certified it as an Open Source license? Why isn't it included in Debian?
My impression was that Sun's Java implementations were distributed under a look-but-don't-touch license. That is, while the source is provided, you are not permitted to modify and redistribute it. If this impression is incorrect, I'd really like to know, but if it isn't, then I'd have to say that Gosling is either quite ignorant about the GPL, or he's being deliberately misleading in his characterization of it.
I mostly agree with this, and I'm hypersensitive to RMS bashing. The Gosling article did not include ad hominem attacks on Stallman.
However, it did contain stunningly misleading comparisons between the GPL and Java's licensing. He hides it all in a clever ruse- he accuses Stallman of redefining freedom to suit Stallman's agenda, then redefines freedom himself to suit Gosling's agenda. I'll leave as an exercise to the reader which license gives you more freedoms. Hint: it's the GPL.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
How disrespectful of Gosling to accuse us of smoking drugs for being concerned for the fate of our platform. We invest time and energy developing our skills in Java and we make personal calls on things at work in favour of their platform. Given Sun's poor decisions regarding how open the platform should be we have every right to be jumpy when they make a legal settlement with Microsoft and then fail to reiterate their support for the Microsoft's prime target (the java platform).
Some of the comments were extreme, but position papers like these should not need to be a reaction to community concern, they should anticipate it.
Believe with me, my saplings.
That's what they do.
That's why a patch set for Java's sources was in the FreeBSD ports forever, yet everyone says 'freebsd didn't have Java.' There was no binary distribution of that possible because it hadn't passed through Sun yet.
The Java specs are available for the most part. The only problem is no one knows what the tests for Java compliance are, but anyone with the cash can send software to take them and be able to be called 'Java.' Other then that, everything you asked for in your post is already true.
It is no surprise to see Gosling attack the GPL. He is personally responsible for it's creation, and I don't mean that as a compliment. If it wasn't for him, RMS would have continued releasing his work into the public domain, at least until the next Gosling came along and demonstrated that freedom needs to be protected.
See here, under the heading "The Historical Impact of the GPL", or google for Gosling RMS GPL.