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J2SE 5.0 Source Code Bundles Now Available

madcowbrit writes "J2SE 5.0 Source code bundles are now available with SCSL and the new and exciting Java Research license! Coders have been asking for Java J2SE source code access under new terms. The new Java Research license gives people more access and options to work with the Java J2SE source code."

46 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. This is the best thing ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now I can optimize it like I do Gentoo.

  2. The big question is ... by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can you compile a FULLY functional JRE (not just rt.jar) and javac? If not, then this is no better than the MS source code access program. Look, but don't touch or try to do anything with it. Judging by the "SCSL Binaries - needed to complete source build", I'm guessing no.

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    1. Re:The big question is ... by RPoet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is just SUN throwing a bone to the free software community who has been asking for a free Java. What they want is the four software freedoms. SUN, by allowing this "shared source" access to take quick, careful peeks at the source code and hope SUN won't go SCO on your behind, want to be able to say "we're meeting you half-way, you stupid hippies!" This move is guaranteed to get them excellent scores in the press, which thinks they've listened and acted. At the same time, the free software community won't be able to complain any more, since they'll just look like arrogant whiners.

      --
      "Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
    2. Re:The big question is ... by carnivore302 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      At the same time, the free software community won't be able to complain any more, since they'll just look like arrogant whiners

      And rightfully so. Don't forget Sun has invested a lot of both time and money into java. Frankly, I am surprised they go as far as they do now. From the license faq:

      12. Am I required to keep my research "java compatible?"

      No. The license encourages you to innovate and experiment using the java technology core. It is expected that research implementations will not be compatible with the Reference Implementation from Sun. This is ok.

      13. Can I publish my source code at a conference, and in white papers?

      Yes, you may publish your work in the usually accepted academic manner as long as you reference the Java Research License and include the correct copyright information.

      14. Can I share my modifications with other researchers?

      Yes, provided that the other researchers have accepted the JRL.

      I might not be your regular open source hippy, but I feel that anyone that has taken the time to create software or whatever has the right to define the terms upon how it is used. Sure, the community has given a lot back. Some (can't find the link, but it was mentioned on slashdot some time ago) even argue that if it weren't for this Sun would be out of business by now. So it's a bit of giving and a bit of taking. This seems like a great gesture from Sun.

      --
      Please login to access my lawn
    3. Re:The big question is ... by javax · · Score: 2, Informative

      There actually is an open source JVM from IBM, jikesrvm..

    4. Re:The big question is ... by divec · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I feel that anyone who has taken the time to create software [...] has the right to define the terms upon how it is used.

      I don't think anyone is trying to force Sun to open source the Java reference implementation. Rather, what are being highlighted are the practical deficiencies of its licence. There are undeniable business risks associated with using software whose future direction is so heavily under the control of a single company, whose priorities may conflict with the interests of your own business at some point in the future. Especially when there are viable, mature alternatives which are genuine free, open source software.


      In contrast, Sun's LGPL licensing of OpenOffice.org, a much larger body of code than the Java reference implementation, is the single most important reason why OOo looks set to be the de-facto office standard in the long term.

      --

      perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'

  3. how open ? by anandpur · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What is the status of SCSL and JRL with other open source licenses e.g. BSD, GPL or more restrictive. any martix?
    http://www.opensource.org/

    1. Re:how open ? by k98sven · · Score: 3, Informative
      Quoting Dalibor Topic (one of the leads on Kaffe, the free JVM)

      Open Source Definition vs. SCSL

      Free Redistribution

      Nope.

      Source Code

      Doesn't allow free redistribution, so redistribution in source code fails, too.

      Derived Works

      Nope.

      Integrity of The Author's Source Code

      Doesn't allow free distribution of separate modifications either.

      No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

      I guess it passes that one, yay!

      No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

      Nope. Explicitely limits fields of endeavor to research, commercial use, or internal use.

      Distribution of License

      Nope. The TCK license comes with what's effectively a NDA.

      License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

      I guess it passes that one, yay!

      License Must Not Restrict Other Software

      Nope. Once you've agreed to SCSL, you can't distribute non-compliant software. So you couldn't redistribute kaffe, gcj, or even more up-to-date versions of Xerces if they break tests in the TCK.

      License Must Be Technology-Neutral

      Nope. It's a click-wrap license. It even has a pointless [ACCEPT] [REJECT] at the bottom


      Total: 2 out of 10.

      In summary, it's not open source. It's not even close.

  4. If for Research... by idonotexist · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you use the code for "Research Use" means research, evaluation, or development for the purpose of advancing knowledge, teaching, learning, or customizing the Technology or Modifications for personal use. Research Use expressly excludes use or distribution for direct or indirect commercial (including strategic) gain or advantage then you have the right to [r]eproduce, create Modifications of, and use the Technology alone, or with Modifications. That's according to the license. If they required certain classes, that's another story, but according to the license, you could change that?

    --
    "There ought to be limits to freedom"
    1. Re:If for Research... by molarmass192 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, I was just reading the license ... it's a pretty long and tedious read. Unfortunately, this doesn't really help me out at work. I'd like to customize the JRE for a production system. It would be nice if they allowed modifications for private commercial use. I do have to say, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, this is a certainly a step in the right direction for Sun. Kudos to them for doing this.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    2. Re:If for Research... by miguel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And that is why that license stinks.

      It is "viral" in that if you get that code and
      learn from it, you can not use it to improve
      any open source software.

      I would very much like to see how Sun has
      implemented certain optimizations for Java and
      bring those over to Mono (or to other open source
      Java VMs, VMs in general, JIT engines, compilers
      or scripting languages).

      The problem is that the license explicitly
      forbids the use of it for this purpose `direct
      or indirect commecial (including strategic) gain
      or advantage'
      .

      Still falls short of usable for the free software/
      open source community.

      Miguel.

    3. Re:If for Research... by UpLateDrinkingCoffee · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I was at a conference recently with some high level Sun employees, and this subject came up.

      Sun isn't ashamed to admit that Java is not open source, and likely won't be for the foreseeable future. In fact, they seem to get a little angry at the question pointing out that Sun has spent millions developing Java and now the community expects them to make it GPL or something. I'm not sure how keeping the development burden of Java internal to Sun really makes them money, though. Open sourcing would be the ultimate outsoursing... hundreds (or thousands) of developers all contributing to Java for free.

      The biggest argument against this I heard is that Sun would have to halt new features of Java for 9-12mos and concentrate on getting the source ready to be released. I don't get this at all... just throw it in CVS and do it with the help of the open source community.

      P.S. The Colorado Software Sumit is awesome!

    4. Re:If for Research... by YetAnotherAnonymousC · · Score: 4, Informative

      Another thing to remember is that IBM actually has written much of the j2se code. Who knows what the exact details of that license agreement are? I suspect that Sun (same goes for IBM) may not even have the full legal rights to unilaterally open source the j2se even if they decided they wanted to do it tomorrow.

    5. Re:If for Research... by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Don't forget Java ME is a huge suscess on mobile phones etc.

      Why those guys will make it opensource so some guys at Redmond will copy/paste it to be .net for mobile?

      Yes, they actually do such crap. They did it before.

    6. Re:If for Research... by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Miguel, you are wrong. The license says "You may use any information in intangible form that you remember after accessing the Technology, except when such use violates Sun's copyrights or patent rights." In other words, you can read the code to learn how it works and use that knowledge. You just can't cut-and-paste Sun's code into another project.

    7. Re:If for Research... by MightyMouse123 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Miguel, So you mean if I once worked in Java group at Sun, when I left Sun I could never work on anything related to JVM implementation? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Regards,

    8. Re:If for Research... by geg81 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IBM has called on Sun to open source Java, so the obstacle is Sun, not IBM. The fact that IBM has contributed so much to J2SE is probably a thorn in IBM's side because they did a lot of work and Sun effectively gets to control what happens with it.

  5. I STAND CORRECTED!!! by molarmass192 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The binaries are only fonts, sounds, and icons ... you DO get all the source code. I'm friggen impressed now!

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  6. be careful and think before you download by geg81 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, you can download the J2SE 5.0 source code. But once you do, you will be bound by Sun's source code license agreements. Some companies and open source projects interpret those license agreements in such a way that you will not be able to work on projects covering anything that overlaps with functionality in the Java distribution.

    I'd recommend you read Sun's licenses carefully in their entirety and think about its implications carefully before you download the source code and look at it.

    Furthermore, you should carefully think about what you are getting out of agreeing to the license and what Sun is getting out of it (I find Sun's licenses inequitable).

    If you want to find out how Java-like compilers and runtimes are developed and built, there are truly open source systems you might look at that don't saddle you with the kinds of restrictions Sun wants to impose on you (and they are likely better systems to learn from anyway).

  7. That sure is 'open'... by Fnkmaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    7. Does this license require a click-through acceptance of terms?

    Yes. For enforceability, Sun requires a click-through license.


    This should tell you something - only a license that plans to restrict your rights in some unpleasant way requires a clickthrough. Seriously - I always get the willies from having to clickthrough to accept anything.

    14. Can I share my modifications with other researchers?

    Yes, provided that the other researchers have accepted the JRL.


    Cool, even my patches are subject to the license. I knew some doozy was coming that was going to restrict my usual rights. Thus the clickthrough love.

    8. When do I need to get a commercial license?

    This research license is only for initial research and development projects. If you decide to use your project internally for a productive use, and/or distribute your product to others, you must sign a commercial agreement and meet the java compatibility requirements.


    Uhhh... so let's see, I can use the Sun JRE free for any use. I can download the SCSL Java SDK source code, and while I can't redistribute it or do other Open Source style things with it, I can at least play with it and use it for internal things if I want (I think). But I can't even do that with the Java Research License, if it consists of 'productive use'? That sounds really ... useful to me.

    1. Re:That sure is 'open'... by Hollins · · Score: 4, Informative
      This should tell you something - only a license that plans to restrict your rights in some unpleasant way requires a clickthrough. Seriously - I always get the willies from having to clickthrough to accept anything.

      That's interesting, because the last time I installed firefox, it required a clickthrough acceptance of the GPL. I didn't get any willies at all.

  8. OS X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So now, how long before someone builds a working J2SE 5.0 on OS X before Apple releases it ?

  9. Does it contain the platform specific code as well by ThomasMis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was recently looking at the java source code for its threading implementation. Unfortunately, the method that specifically maps Java thread priorities to native OS thread priorities is a JNI call. In the readme for J2SE is says that such native C code isn't being distributed. Has that changed, or is this nothing more than a new licence on the existing src bundle?

    --
    Check out my podcast: DreamStation.cc Video Game Show
  10. I hope ... by Pegasus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    we can now finally get a recent java for *BSD and more obscure linux platforms (linux/alpha, linux/ppc). I don't care about support, I just want to have it more or less working.

  11. not open at all by geg81 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can find Sun's license here. Sun admits that it isn't an open source license, they are just trying to argue that it is somehow better than open source.

    Because Debian is forced to classify software into open source or not, Debian has had to look at this in some detail, and they concluded that it was not open source.

    1. Re:not open at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Be careful, the computer industry (Sun specifically) has used the word "open" for many years before someone invented "Open Source" as a bogo-trademark. Java is "open" (documented, can be reimplemented), and it does have viewable source code, which meets the generic defintion of "open source".

      The Debian jargon is actually "does not meet the DFSG".

    2. Re:not open at all by geg81 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Java is "open" (documented, can be reimplemented)

      The Java platform cannot be legally reimplemented without meeting Sun's compatibility requirements and without obtaining licenses for several of Sun's patents (Sun has refrained to enforce that against open source, but as Unisys and SCO show you, you can cause trouble many years after some infringement has taken place). As a result, the Java platform is not open (i.e., an "open standard") in the long-established meaning of the term.

      the computer industry (Sun specifically) has used the word "open" for many years

      The computer industry has used the term "open standard" for many years. The term "open source", however, used to refer to publicly available intelligence sources before the open source movement applied it to software. And, whether you believe me on the the history or not, most people will understand it to mean what opensource.org says it means; any attempt by Sun or anybody else to play semantic games and pretend that their software "is open source" for some unusual meaning of "is", "open", or "source" is just being deceptive.

      Be careful,

      Or what? The Schwartz is going to destroy me?

    3. Re:not open at all by vegetasaiyajin · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Java platform cannot be legally reimplemented without meeting Sun's compatibility requirements and without obtaining licenses for several of Sun's patents

      Obtaining the license is no problem.
      From the Java language specification:

      Sun Microsystems, Inc. (SUN) hereby grants you a fully-paid, nonexclusive, nontransferable, perpetual, worldwide limited license (without the right to sublicense) under SUN's intellectual property rights that are essential to practice this specification. This license allows and is limited to the creation and distribution of clean room implementations of this specification.

      Your implementation has to pass the compatibility tests, though.

      There are several clean room implementations of Java (GCJ, Kaffe, TowerJ, Jeode and others I forget). I don't know which ones paid Sun though.
      I think you have to pay if you want to use the trademark name Java.

      --

      My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
  12. If it were by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If it were OSI certified then this would be interesting and very useful - however it isn't.

    I think Sun is a great company but it does irk me that they are dilly dallying on open sourcing the J2SE source code. I think it's some what inevitable that they will. Hopefully they will do it while it will allow OSS and Sun to make competitive advantage of it.

  13. There's an IBM JVM... by Phil+John · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...that used to be called Jalapeno that bootstrapped itself with IIRC less than 200 lines of C, just to start the process. After that, everything to do with the JVM was java itself.

    --
    I am NaN
    1. Re:There's an IBM JVM... by Calroth · · Score: 3, Informative

      "...that used to be called Jalapeno that bootstrapped itself..."

      Just to let people know, it's now called Jikes RVM and is still under active development. "RVM" is a Research Virtual Machine, which is like a standard VM, only researchers do weird, cutting-edge things to it (advanced garbage collection, advanced runtime optimisations). The idea is, one day, the standard JVM will pick up these changes.

      Not related to the Jikes compiler.

  14. J2SE 5.0 SCB4 1.5.0 SDK V2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    and they've already begun working on the next version of the source code bundle, tentatively titled:

    J2SE 5.0 SCB V2.0 SDK 1.5.0

    or for short, J5SV2S1.5

  15. Re:Self compilation by Espectr0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    gcc is able compile self. Does java compile itself?

    Yes it does

  16. Re:please explain it by karniv0re · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You must be new here. hehe. Couldn't resist. Welcome to Slashdot, where you will be invariably tormented for being new. Love the username, BTW.

    But, in reference to your questions,

    I refer to the text:

    12. Am I required to keep my research "java compatible?"

    No. The license encourages you to innovate and experiment using the java technology core. It is expected that research implementations will not be compatible with the Reference Implementation from Sun. This is ok.

    13. Can I publish my source code at a conference, and in white papers?


    Yes, you may publish your work in the usually accepted academic manner as long as you reference the Java Research License and include the correct copyright information.

    14. Can I share my modifications with other researchers?


    Yes, provided that the other researchers have accepted the JRL.

    15. Can I distribute binaries of my research code?

    Yes. You can distribute your binaries for research purposes under a license of your choice that complies with the terms of the JRL (e.g., includes copyright notices and references the JRL).

    That should give you some idea as to what good it could do and what people are expected to do with it.
    Java less secure? Doubtful. It already has advantages over languages like C++ because of it's lack of pointers, and low level memory manipulation. Java-specific security issues? Also doubtful. And why would people want the source code? See above.

    Hope that answers some questions. I'm not an expert, but I am learning Java and it's actually quite fun after you get into the Swing of it (really bad pun intended).

  17. Re:not open at all - Not the same license!!! by Richard_Davies · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please bother to read the article or at least follow the links in the headline. The licence you refer to is the SCSL. The article refers to a new licence, the JRL. I won't bother putting in the link because it is liseted above and anyone reading this can go and follow it as you should have done.

    Be aware that sun now offers its Java source code under two licences, one of which was not ordained by the FSF an an open source licence (SCSL) and the other (JRL) which has yet to be judged (although I strongly suspect it will get on the FSF's list either).

  18. PseudoOpenSourceLicense JRL = SCSL.clone(); by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quoting Danese Cooper, Sun's open source diva:

    "IMHO (and IANAL) the JRL doesn't actually represent much of a change of terms from what the research and academic community could do under SCSL (there are some small changes around export), but it does clear away all the language in SCSL that is confusing, if you are only planning to engage in research."

    from http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2003/06/24/jrl.h tml

    On a first look, there is not much difference between the JRL and the research provisions in the SCSL. The language got a bit clearer, and a few of the most hillarious provisions have been dropped.

    Research projects like JikesRVM, ORP, OVM and others seem to prefer to use GNU Classpath, rather than have their hands tied by proprietary, non-permissive licenses. I'd expect more research projects to join into the GNU Classpath pool, which is free software, in the future.

    It's definitely a step ahead for Sun. Good luck on the rest of the road to freedom without fear[1].

    cheers,
    dalibor topic

    [1] Fear of forking, incompatibility, .net, Microsoft, IBM, Bea, or whatever the scare-of-the-day is, that prevents Sun from licensing their code under an OSI certified license.

  19. Re:Self compilation by iabervon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is only possible to have a direct self-compiling system when the target is native code. The standard Java build process only generates native code internally and temporarily, so that isn't really possible.

    As for machine-level abstraction, all of the recent x86 processors are actually RISC-style processors running optimized x86 emulators. Even RISC processors these days are run with microcode running on different and newer RISC architectures. Pretty much only microcontrollers actually implement the processor you're using in hardware.

  20. Re:Parent is a leech by moonbender · · Score: 3, Funny

    You're totally right, that Miguel fellow should just try to come with his own VM implementation - hah, like that's going to happen! What a leech!

    --
    Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  21. Re:Does it contain the platform specific code as w by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

    It sounds like you were looking at the class library source code instead of the VM source code. It's all there; you just have to know where to look.

  22. MOD DOWN - wrong license by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The SCSL is not the JRL, so your message is off-topic and misleading.

  23. Relax.... by mark-t · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It's unenforceable.

    They cannot stop you from learning from what you observe, nor can they stop you from exploiting that knowledge, even for commercial advantage.

    All they can ultimately do is come down against you if you actually _copied_their_code_ into a resulting work. If they try to stop you from producing something that may happen to have cosmetic similarity to their own code merely by virtue of it performing the same function, they would have to try to claim a patent over the portions of the code being copied first, which isn't the case here.

    Oh... and they can also stop you from using the Java trademark.

  24. My advice... by NoMercy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stay very well clear of it:

    "agreeing to this license (e.g. by downloading source covered by the SCSL) will make it impossible for you to contribute to free software clean-room implementations."

    I'm certanly not going to touch it, the pre-compiled stuff will do fine.

  25. Well this was no fun... by dimator · · Score: 4, Funny
    $ grep -ri -e fuck -e "[ \t]shit" .
    ./deploy/src/plugin/oji-plugin/src/motif/navig5 /JavaPluginFactory5.cpp: // The peice of shit browser does not seem to call Initialize
    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
  26. Re:Version naming?? by lostchicken · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sun has this nasty habit of somehow getting themselves stuck in a rut with a particular major version number. For example, Solaris started on version 2.x and got all the way up to 2.6 something like 10 years later. With version 2.7, they kinda just said 'fuck it, marketing can call it Solaris 7', and they did. But to this day, "uname -a" on a Solaris 9 box says "SunOS turing 5.9 Generic_112233-05 sun4u sparc". (SunOS 5.0 was Solaris 2.0. Don't think too hard about it;-) )

    I guess they decided that they were never going to release Java 2 Version 2.0, so they decided to call it Java 5.

    --
    -twb
  27. I said it before and I will say it again by jonwil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have yet to see a valid argument for why SUN doesnt release J2SE under an OSI complient licence.

    The argument that they want to be able to use the code in their own closed things, well they can do what OpenOffice.Org does and dual licence.

    There are clearly no arguments that can be made about "other peoples code", if there was anyone elses code in there, we wouldnt get to see it at all.

    As for the oft-pushed argument about forking, I said it before and I will say it again.
    What they need to do is to release the source code.
    Plus a testsuite.
    If you want to use the JAVA name on your particular binaries, those binaries must pass the testsuite.
    Releasing under a string copyleft like GPL that requires all source changes to be made public would also help stop forking because anything that is used can be added to the official sun tree.

    That way, anyone can use the source for whatever they like. But if you want to call something (be it modified from the SUN code or otherwise) JAVA, you have to pass the testsuite. That way, anything that has the JAVA logo on it (or whatever) is gauranteed not to be incompatible with SUNs VM.
    A good cpoyleft licence would also prevent what happened with Microsoft from happening again (since any additions could be added to the SUN VM)

  28. license by zxflash · · Score: 2, Interesting

    hopefully with some popularity the license will be revised a little

    --

    All the torrents you could want.