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Sun Demurs On Open-Source Java
Tarantolato writes "A Sun spokesman and James Gosling now say that there are no set plans to distribute Java under an open-source license. According to Gosling, 'the debate is still going on, fast and furious'. Concerns about forking are cited, as usual."
that Sun is more mixed up than a fart in a fan factory. Free hardware, no, free Java, no free Java.
Right now, Sun is acting like a headless chicken, running into Microsoft and one end of the court, pecking its way back into the Free Software side. It's ridiculous, really.
Is it any wonder why they are losing business, money, and on the stock market?
Sig temporarily out of service.
...then perhaps they should look at why projects forks? If they can manage to spot things that might lead to a fork early on, they can adress it in a way that benefits everyone as well as avoids forks.
Off course, that also requires whoever is responsible for the code to be able to work with others...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
A change of thought often requires a change of guard. Time brings both.
Sun's going kepp on waffling until the last of their money left over from the dot-com boom is gone.
Expect some real decisions made in desperation as they run out of money but for right now there's definitely a leadership problem at that company.
This guy is way out there
And they still haven't realized it yet.
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Sun seems to be doing a wonderful job of creating publicity for itself despite accomplishing anything. That's pretty clever, if they just keep announcing stuff then deannouncing for the publicity they stir up. I'd still like to see Java opened, but this furthers the thought that it just won't happen. Not any time soon, atleast.
What is interesting is Apple's integration of Java into OS X (into the OS X System Architecture), in addition to cooperation with Sun (i.e., allowing OS X specific attributes into Sun's Java).
These are unusual developments because they are not seen between any other OS and Sun.
Certainly, Apple has an interest in Java and, while holding a very small server market share, increasing its server presence. Merely that Apple is not associated with the server market and Sun is, may be very valuable to Apple.
Certainly a relationship between Apple and Sun does exist. How far that relationship develops will be interesting to see.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
(tinfoil)I'm sure the risks of someone "embracing and extending" are considerably lessened now that Microsoft is out of the picture.(/tinfoil)
But seriously, all Sun has to do is respond correctly to the market over time to maintain their leadership role with an open-source Java. If they can be like Linus then their code will be the reference everyone accepts otherwise some other player will eventually fill their role as the de-facto implementation.
Shh.
From Jonathan Schartz's bio at sun.com
"Mr. Schwartz also re-established Sun on the desktop with launch of the Java Desktop System which has quickly become the industry's number one desktop alternative"
Since when? They can't commit to Open Source anywhere, you have a user agreement the size of the bible with their company-branded Linux distro that's at least a year behind the times and Redhat's new corporate desktop is going to make Sun's "Java" system another joke on Slashdot. Never seen such a leadership problem in my life. Conflicting press statements every damned month.
This guy is way out there
The reason why forks are not dangerous is because people will still want to write "standard" Java code, no matter how many different strange Java-esque things there are.
Linux is horribly forked. There are dozens of different distros, on dozens of different hardware platforms. There are many different kernels, and the different distros often have their own kernels with their own patches and changes. And here is a perfect example of a fork in Linux which has come back to help all of Linux: Because Linux was forkable, the NSA chose Linux to be the basis of its secure operating system, SELinux. SELinux is so strange and different from regular Linux that it wasn't compatible. It was a true fork, creating a different set of APIs that were mutually incompatible in many ways. The openness of Linux allowed this innovation to occur. It was something that Linus hadn't thought of years before it happened (I'm guessing). And yet it happened. And now, guess what, the work that was done in SELinux has been rolled into 2.6!
So, we had open source software, which allowed a fork, which allowed for totally innovative, off-the-wall creative development, which turned out to be cooler than people would have expected, which then ended up getting un-forked back into the main codebase!
If Sun open sources Java in the right way, that is exactly the kind of thing that will happen with Java, too. It's hard to prove this argument, because I can't say exactly what those innovative forks are going to be, becase they're things that people haven't thought of, but that's what will happen.
So do it Sun!
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For me, the OSS community is what makes Java such a good platform. There are so many cool tools and APIs. On any one of my projects it seems as if more work has gone in to making the OSS tools that I import than whatever I use from closed packages. It's a shame Sun don't give these developers any credit.
Even though I love Java I don't feel any particular loyalty to Sun and would prefer to not use their products. I just have no idea how near or far GCJ and the GNU Classpath are away from letting me do this.
I've seen that GCJ can produce a natively compiled Tomcat or Eclipse but I'm stumped if I want to natively compile my own 'hello world' example from an ant script.
Really, when you have so many disparate voices discussing the course for the future, shouldn't there be someone to focus them and come up with a strategy? Who lets these people get in front of a mic without clearing their announcements first?
I am convinced Sun is dying. Not BSD dying, but real dying. Don't quote me on that.
The issue isn't forking, the issue is how to generate revenue.
It's the usual balancing act: open sourcing software would have many benefits, but what effect will it have on revenue? For a company with revenue problems this is a legitimate concern.
Forking isn't a big deal that they are making it out to be. They are using it as an excuse. Yes, yes, I know what MS tried to do to Java - note that not open sourcing it didn't stop them.
I HAVE A PROPOSAL
Ok, everyday, I get on the net and I see a story that Sun has announced something. Then the next day I read a story that Sun has backtracked on what they announced the previous day. Later that day, Sun makes a different announcement. The next day, they backtrack on that announcement. Later that day, they make another anouncement... And the cycle continuous.
So, my proposal is this. For Sun stooping to such tactics, I say we teach them a lesson about continously blowing smoke up our collective ass by boycotting news from Sun until they stop constantly backtracking on their announcements and actually live up to a promise.
Until then, I do not want to see any more news from Sun. I used to be interested in any news about the company. Now, however, I only think about how much internet bandwidth is being wasted by these fiction stories every time I see a Sun announcement.
Please don't get me wrong, I would love to continue to hear news about Sun. I just don't want to hear any more lies.
It should be done immediately.
I would like to say to any Sun employees that the very fate of your jobs hang in the balance here...if not the survivability of the company.
If Java is not opened up gcj will replace it and you will loose relevance.
As is now, gcj is on par with a good 85% plus of the Java class package sets for jdk 1.4.2 as well as native binary executables of Tomcat 4.x are just around the corner, if not produceable already.
You can work with the Open Source community to define what Java will be in the future, or risk becomming a SCO placard if you decide to sue us later on for open sourcing the language itself.
So, your fears about forking Java are already acting on that future by not doing so. Many like myself want to see gcj project move forward quickly due to Sun's questionable financial future and its historic reluctance from management to work with us.
In the end the OSC will have what we want: complete ownership of our own source code and the absolute right for anyone to possess it when the sale of development or software shrinkwrap is completed.
You can join with us and work toward setting standards for the language and the class sets...
OR
We will continue with gcj project backend for the gcc compiler toolsets and insure projects such as Tomcat and Jeromino have safe futures....with or without Sun Microsystems.
We welcome all companies to join us on this crusade to liberate source code in the sale of software and services...and any company that joins us we will utilize such services they offer.
The longer you delay, the further in doubt Sun's future existence is questioned and the more risk you put upon the open source projects.
The OSC community will not tolerate the questionable future of Java very much longer given the spectacular decline of SUN in the past 4-5 years financially and the waffling of key technologists that have built the company. (Joy's on and OFF again relationship for example...)
Investment of time and resources into the Apacje Tomcat project is too valuable now...
Will you come with us or will we leave you behind?
-Hackus
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
(i) Why aren't the people yelling for open source Java busy working on Kaffe and the others?
It seems to me this is more of a "Sun, give us your code or you suck!" type of deal, than anything else.
(ii) Who is going to put up the resources to continue to research and development the Java platform? If the open source community has not been successful in creating an open source java from scratch, what makes you think that we would be able to maintain and improve the technology?
Netscape was talked into releasing and subsequently rewriting their flagship product as open source. That did not save them, in fact they spent a ton of money doing that. This move benefited the open source crowd ( I am writing this from mozilla ), but how did this help netscape?
(iii) Has OpenOffice/StarOffice improved Sun's bottom line much? Any?
Does anyone have a denfensible on plan on continuing the R&D of Java after open sourcing it? And I mean a business plan that is backed up by data?
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
It's sound business for Sun to (A) Open source licensing the Java J2SE,J2EE and J2ME framework libraries ; and (B) Release a fork of the Solaris Kernel under the GPL license.
It would benefit the entire Java based industry, including the free software, open source and proprietary based vendors, to open license the core J2ME,J2SE,J2EE libraries and Java to bytecode compilers.
Java's primary strength, the ability to write code which is constantly portable across many vendors platforms, would be greatly enhanced if all of the vendors were using the same core libraries.
To insure that the standard base core would not become polluted with incompatible forks, the source could be licensed with a clause requiring any incompatible changes or any additional classes or methods to be moved to and occupy only the vendors namespace. Another clause would require that the vendor version of the Java to bytecode compiler and any GUI IDE defaults to generating portable bytecode, without embedding any vendor specific references.
The OSF definition of an open source license clause five explicitly states: "The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software."
Developers and vendors would only be required to shift changes to the vendors/developers namespace if the changes were incompatible with the JCP JSR open standards. This would not prevent the development/distribution of additional optimizations, ports or bug fixes. Since adoption of standards has for a long time been an open source tradition, it would not be much of an imposition on the open source community.
Vendors don't have to use *all* the same "core" libraries - just provide the same standard interface. The open source Java core can been seen as a starting common base. Each vendor would be free to "short circut" their implementation as long as the standard API behaviour remain the same. Vendors would still be free to compete on their JVM performance along with how well it performs interfacing data bases, integrated development tools, etc.
Sun could require contributers to the Java Open Core to let Sun or the JCP dual license the result as Sun does with OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. If a vendor does not wish to disclose their modifcations then the vendor could pay for a closed source license scheme. The payment could then be split up amongst Sun, the JCP and the contributers.
Ask IBM and HP what their customers are demanding and you will find out more often than not that it's vendor neutral/independent solutions. Customers don't want lock-in slavery anymore. That is why Linux is such a success and why there is more demand for Java skills than any other programming language.
It should not be necessary to open source license Sun's JVMs. In the long run it could greatly benefit Sun to develop the JVM under a dual license as it doing with OpenOffice.org and selling StarOffice.
Releasing a fork of the Solaris Unix Kernel makes even more sense when you consider Suns move towards commodity based hardware, like AMD's opteron, and enterprise desktop systems. Sun is going to need drivers to interoperate with x86 hardware and common peripherals. In comparison to Linux, the range and quality of hardware drivers available to Solaris is pitiful.
If Sun can manage to get out from under the SCO Groups claims over the old AT&T code base, by dealing direct with Novell who still appear to hold the rights and copyrights, then Sun would be free to release a fork of the Solaris kernel under the GPL license.
Sun would be then free to take any source code from the Linux kernel and incorporate it into the GPL'ed Solaris kernel fork. Sun would then free to deploy that kernel in desktop and clustered systems markets, where Linux currently does have a lead over Sun.