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Gosling on Opening Java
An anonymous reader writes "It sounds like James Gosling's nudging Sun closer and closer toward open-sourcing Java, as requested variously by IBM,
Eric S. Raymond, and Richard Stallman, though not by JBoss's Marc Fleury. 'Developers value Java's cross platform interoperability and reliability,' Gosling writes, adding 'If we do something to make Java even more open-source than it is already, having safeguards to protect the developer community will be something we pay a lot of attention to.' Surprisingly, 'the creator of the Java programming language,' as Sun usually calls him, seems to be at odds on this issue with his own CEO, Scott McNealy. So, who should have custody of the child, the father...or the boss?"
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I don't like programming in Java, but having a free Java (as in speech) would be really great !
There is a very good free java implementaiton. GCJ (GNU Compiler for Java). The library lacks a few things (e.g. AWT/Swing), though, but other than that it is a great implementation. And it is not based on a JVM, but is a traditional ahead of time compiler, so the related disadvantages (as well as the advantages, if any) dissapear. It uses the same (or at least a very similar) object model as C++, so interoperation with it is much easier.
Think about how it can be easy to include Java in a Linux Distro.
Sun's Java JVM can be included in linux distributions without problems. Knoppix, SuSE and SoL include it. Don't know about others. The reason some distributions don't include Sun's Java implementation is because they don't want to include it.
If Java becomes free, I can imagine a lot of thing. Why not bindings with GTK for example They already exist. Check Java-GNOME. It includes GTK and GNOME bindings for Java.
There are also bindings for Qt and KDE.
You can also use GTK via the SWT toolkit .
Java is NOT a proprietary language (despite some ignorant people who say so), you can find many open source libraries for it, and there is at least a high quality free (as in speech) implementation of it.
My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
When you download java, you get the source files along with it. GPL is not the only license that makes something open source.
Actually, the source code you get is for the standard library, not the JVM source code. That one is a separate download.
My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
Because it would be one hell of a Free software killer application. There's so many people using Java already, and Stallman's point against Java right now is that when writing code in Java (which many do simply because it's easy and beautiful to write in Java), you create dependencies to non-Free software making it practically impossible to run an entirely Free system using such dependent Free software.
Consider this: if Java were Free, it could easily be the world's most used piece of Free software (before you say Apache or something, let's say 'most used by private persons')
You might be a troll and I did bite, but it was just too good an opportunity to point out what Freeing Java could mean.
mainLoop : for(int i=0; i n; i++) {
for(int j=0; j m; j++) {
if (blah[i][j] == 1) break mainLoop;
}
}
Is also how you can break out of nested loops in Java. More restrictive then goto's so it keeps the code neat.
It's turtles all the way down.
Depends on state employment law. California is an at-will employment state, which means your employer has no ownership of work produced on your own equipment and your own time (you of course have to honor confidentiality and non-compete agreements).
This means you can be fired at any time or quit at any time. It also permits switching between headhunters whose contracts explicitly prohibit such switching. State law trumps the letter of any contract. But maintaining the spirit of fair employment contracts is in the interest of all parties.
- In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author. Section 101 of the copyright law defines a "work made for hire" as:
To read more go to http://www.copyright.gov/* (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment;