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ESR Responds to Sun's Claims of Being a Better Bazaar
UnixSphere writes "Sun has been quoted to have said, 'Sun's Java is developed more in the mode of the bazaar than Linux is,' which has prompted OSI President Eric Raymond to correct Sun's view of what open source really is."
Nothing more nothing less.
Didn't Microsoft try to make their own Java implementation(J++) and didn't sun go after them for it because it didn't stick to the java standards? Is that open source?
If you don't like the linux kernel you can take the code, make your own kernel, and even break whatever standards you want....Linus isn't going to drag you to court for breaking the POSIX standard or something.
Can the same be said or Java? In fact parts of it are still under a propietary license as the article states...so people who live in glass houses.....
I for one am glad that they don't open the possibility of a fork for Java. It would be a stupid move. Just look at all the bullshit that went down with Microsoft, their attempts to do so, and the resultant chilling effect that had on Java on the desktop.
If I was an American (god forbid) and Sun WAS to open source Java after spending all that time in court with Microsoft regarding their aforementioned forking, I'd say the appropriate thing to do would be to chase them down with pitchforks and torches for wasting so much taxpayer money.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Don't give this thing the wings it so richly doesn't deserve.
Unfortunately, that approach doesn't work. If you don't vigorously deny an accusation, people tend to assume it's true. It's just like the way corporations handle rumours about them (e.g. the one about Proctor and Gamble being a Satanist organisation). They deny them any chance they get and that's the only effective way of dealing with something like that.
If ESR doesn't respond, a lot of casual readers will just sort of assume that Schwartz's claims are true.
I think calling one a cathedral and the other a bazaar really requires that any developer who wants to actually can create code for other people to use, and that they'll use it if it's good.
There are large barriers to doing that from both the Linux kernel and from Sun. A more bazaar like example is CPAN or sorceforge. Anybody who creates something coherent can have it published there for everyone to use.
Java and Linux are much more limiting. You can't "hawk your wares" in either case. That said, I don't think this should be absolute...more like a scale. Linux is closer to the bazaar than Java, I think.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
That's also no accident, since Java is the only major software product Sun has that is still of any relevance to the market.
/. community always mentions IBM and HP as the companies that embrace and understand Open Source and Linux. I don't get that .....
Do you think the acceptance of 'Linux on the Desktop' would have been on the level it is now, without OpenOffice / StarOffice? None of the attempts (do I hear Munchen) to wipe MS from the typical office desktop would have had any success without Sun's StarOffice or OOo. In my book that is relevance to the market.
The same can of course be said about Ximian (Novell) or Mozilla (Netscape/AOL), but what are HP's or IBM's contributions to the Linux world, without which Linux wouldn't have made it? Still, the
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
To those that are bad-mouthing ESR for responding, I think he should since Schwartz used ESR's reference in making his points.
And Sun doesn't get it completely. I applaud them for everything they have done, but if 'realists' look at whats going on, it seems to me that SUN is in bed with MS and will attempt to push Linux into obscurity if not out-right kill it if it can.
Maybe a third model can be added called Markets and it would more accurately describe SUN. They want to be the store you come to and you pick from the wares they choose to carry, from suppliers they choose, not you. They don't like small distributers and will undercut them until they go under, form unions you have to join to practice, and make laws so the little guy can't compete.
It's because java isn't free (open source) software that it has to be forked (with GCJ, Kaffe, et al).
A nice, DFSG-compliant, GPL-compatible license would make all of our lives easier and a fork wouldn't be necessary.
Free markets: nobody has a right to vote how you may or may not act with your own stuff - but if they don't like it, they can get their own stuff and do as they please instead, or go to someone else they prefer. Result: egregious misbehaviour causes a "fork" where customers move away. Also result: not only is the majority happy, but also all profitable minority niches of the market are served.
Not surprising ESR thinks this way considering he's a libertarian and possibly an anarchist
The reason many people don't equate this with Microsoft tactics is that Microsoft hatred is all about protecting the value of guild crafts and nothing about principle. Windows hatred is simply the modern equivalent of the hatred the Cobol and Fortran camps had of C. The future really hurts when it threatens to make your own skills obsolete.
On Java it was Sun who were being the evil proprietary monopolists. Their objective was to reduce every platform to the level of Solaris, leveling down, not up. Suns approach was "If you dare do anything that I can't I'll sue you."
Java could have been the future of computing but there is no way that any company, let alone a declining company like Sun can be trusted with the complete control they demand. The chances of Sun ending up in a SCO like position in five years time are significant.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
gcj and kaffe aren't forks; they're new implementations. But you're right that java's unfreeness is a large part of why they exist.
You're a suburbanite.
The point is that no one gives a damn. The analogy between the cathedral and the bazaar has become so twisted, stretched, and debased as to become meaningless. To me it has the same flavor as the much abused quote from Gandhi ("first they laugh at you...") posted ad nauseum on Slashdot