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Linux 'Awfully Cathedral-Like' - Java's a Bazaar
jg21 writes "LinuxWorld draws attention to a curious use of ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar by the Sun Microsystems exec who currently talks about Linux more than he does even about Java. Apparently Sun's President and COO Jonathan Schwartz said at a press briefing last week that Java with its JCP is more like ESR's Bazaar than Linux, which he dismissed as being "awfully cathedral-like" since Linus is the final arbiter (or Great Dictator), and not a committee." But be sure you don't mis-use the word Java in this Bazaar or the Mall Police will totally get you.
. . .anyone else could fork it off (from any point) and maintain it however they wanted.
More to the point many do, including major distros.
The whole idea that Linus dictates what goes in the kernel is utter bollocks, whereas Sun is infamous for maintaining the "true vision" and "purity" of Java.
Isn't their very argument against open sourcing Java that what happens to Linux would happen to it?
KFG
What I took away from the article (C vs B) was that in the Bazaar everyone WAS free to do what the hell they wanted, but that a process of pseudo natural-selection would starve out weak/crap work; either through not ever being used, or through not getting developent time.
This would not particularly require a single decision making point (individual or comittee), just time and community consensus.
That aside, I don't think the Bazaar was ever meant to apply to the _kernel_ but to the Linux / other OSS system as a whole.
Filesystems would, to my mind be the ideal example:
Cathedral(Windows); which version of OUR proprietary FS would you like?
Bazaar (Linux); which of these basically unrelated systems would you like?
There's actually two separate issues being discussed here. One is control over the reference. One is control over the implementation. Sun maintains control over the Java language reference. That's why they sued MS - because they extended the language in such a way that it broke things. Sun doesn't maintain control over all of the implementations. That's why you can get a Sun run time and an IBM run time and a GNU run time and an MS run time ...
Sun could turn the standard over to an independent committee. They don't want to do that. You can argue the merits (or lack thereof) of their position but that's a different conversation and isn't comparable to Linus' control of the kernel (which is arguably an implementation of the POSIX standard.)
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Microsoft removed RMI from their JVM (available as a separate download) which is what Sun used against them specifically. Extensions are allowed. For example Apple's JVM has extensions, but they don't get sued b/c they also implement the entire J2SE specification. Sun's interest is in having 100% Pure Java apps work everywhere, and Microsoft broke that by implementing a subset of the Java platform.
Also, the GNU Java runtime is doomed because of Sun patents on technologies in the J2SE specification. Read about the GNU Classpath project and Kaffe and you'll find that although they have made great progress, keeping up in the future is hindered by patent encumbrances. J2SE is not free and cannot be free for this reason.
Sun used to espouse "open" meaning proprietary implementations of an open standard, competing on quality (and presumably, extensions beyond the standard). That's a decent approach, but not viable if the "open" standard really has patents attached that cause clean-room implementations to be subject to patent infringement lawsuits.