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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?"
Please enlighten me? Why GPL Java?
Java is pretty good right now.
how long until
I don't like programming in Java, but having a free Java (as in speech) would be really great !
Think about how it can be easy to include Java in a Linux Distro.
If Java becomes free, I can imagine a lot of thing. Why not bindings with GTK for example ?
Ploum.net.
What kind of idiot would confuse a freakin' computer program with a child?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I think it's time for a regime change at Sun. They need someone in charge who is willing to let go of the 1980s software business mentality and adapt to the modern world.
You can't sell proprietary UNIX when others can get it for free. You can't sell StarOffice when you can get OO.org for free. You can't sell $8000 UltraSPARC workstations when you can build more powerful AMD64 machines for an 1/8th the price. You can't lock down a programming language that people want to use when there are so many other competing technologies that they can turn to.
It seems to me that Java is going to be dead within the next couple of years if it doesn't open up and become a Free standard.
Wouldn't it suck if Sun went under and Microsoft bought up all of their assets, including Java, and then killed it all? Don't laugh; it could happen.
-Jem"I do think the entire OS should be called GNU/Linux, instead of just Linux, as most of the packages are GNU stuff. Bash, GCC, GDB, GNU automake..."
This is offtopic and I should be modded into the ground but everytime I see this I just can't let it go.
First point: The ENTIRE OS is the kernel, everything else merely interfaces with the OS and is thus either a library or an application. System utils like those you mentioned above are still just apps. Since the Kernel is the OS, and it's author(s) choose to call it Linux, it is properly refered to as the Linux Operating system or a linux operating system (as the case may be).
Individual applications may be called by their respective names. And distributions again should be called by the name whoever compiles the distro chooses to call it. There's nothing that says Fedora linux, couldn't just be called Fedora for instance (they name the full distribution after the OS which make sense but isn't required).
The GNU applications are often packaged with linux, but there is no particular reason for them to be. The BSD tools for instance would work just fine. And further, most of the GNU utils are pretty trivial stuff to say the least, would you like to see me write half of them using a grand total of less than 100 lines of perl code? They are by no means ALL trivial and some are good stuff, but there's nothing there that couldn't be replaced either...
Most distributions include 100's or even thousands of programs coupled with the Linux Operating system, compared to the total the GNU stuff really isn't all that much I don't know where people get this idea.
In short, there is no actual credible reason to call the Linux OS GNU/Linux. Simply because he's depressed that hurd is pretty thoroughly lame and useless isn't a good enough reason to call it by something other than the name the author and maintainer has chosen for it.