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Sun Demurs On Open-Source Java

Posted by timothy on from the titles-redone-at-great-expense dept.

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."

5 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. If forking is a concern... by WegianWarrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.
  2. Sun at the right angle? by ignatus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Given the fact that they claimed to release parts of solaris as open source I seriously doubt the honesty of Sun (both their pro and contra opensource actions). It looks to me as if they are trying to make a fuss about it in order to get in the news. I really hope i am wrong, and that this is the result of a doubting management at Sun, lost in the dilemma to encorporate opensource or not.

    --
    - Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
  3. Re:I am now convinced by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, it seems to me that after several years of drifting aimlessness they are finally in the process of making a firm decision about whether to make a complete shift away from being a hardware/software/service company to being a pure service company. I think it is normal for there to be disagreement and confusion within the company about when, if and how this is going to happen. What I find disconcerting is how much of this is making it out into the public. Don't these people clear with PR before voicing all these claims? Honestly, all these conflicting reports are just plain unprofessional.

  4. OS X + Java and Apple and Servers by idonotexist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"
  5. Do it Sun! We want a fork! by ChiralSoftware · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Forks are good! Forks mean difference and diversity. Difference and diversity means exploration of new ways of doing things. Maybe someone will fork Java and add in a totally new way of doing graphics rendering, or disk access, or network access, or maybe someone will make the JVM into a Linux kernel module or something that runs directly on hardware without an OS, or it will run on other OSes (OpenBSD for example). There are so many possiblities including possibilities that no one has thought of right now. All of these are forks to some degree and who knows what the result of them will be.

    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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