Java Fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS Community

Joe Barr writes "Bruce Byfield has an interesting look at the 'fallout' between OpenOffice.org and the free/open source software communities because of their reliance on Java in the latest release. As he says, "It seems a decision based largely on practical considerations -- and with a disregard for the consequences for both the rest of the free and open source software (FOSS) communities and the future of OpenOffice.org itself." This is an issue that is not going away."

Comments

who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if it's using a non-Free java or a non-Free toilet paper? As long as it DOES THE JOB, it's good enough for me.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that toilet paper gets thrown away after use.

If your corporation builds infrastructure with it, you're stuck with it a LONG time.

Consider all those foolish companies who built infrastructure on VB6 now that Microsoft is cutting off support for that platform

Had they picked an open source platform it would be much less disruptive for their business.

Free as in Java may be OK for hobby use, but has no places in my company.

Re:who cares?

[TheWanderingHermit]

As much as I wish I could be a purist, I have to agree with this simple statement. I started my business on softare that originally used Abiword and was controlled by Perl (Abiword was only called from the command line through Perl), but when OOo reached 1.0, I converted, which meant I had to learn Java (which I don't regret), and I had to base the entire program on Java and the Java interfaces with OOo. And, unlike command line purists prefer, my software is used in the real world, by real people who pay good money every month for my company's services (and I don't mean some measly 29.95/month -- they're paying enough to expect an easy to use program. I can't run it on Blackdown, or other forms of Java that don't have a GUI.

If OOo changed, I, and I'm sure, thousands of other developers, would have to re-write a ton of programs. Such a change would make me seriously re-think OOo, since it would make me wonder when they'd do that again.

I know we all make jokes about how those of us on Slashdot don't have lives or girlfriends, or have poor social skills, but it seems to me those who are pitching a hissy fit over this need to get their heads out of the ground, look around, and try living in the real world for a change. Instead of complaining about their bosses and cramped cubes, maybe they should try to run the business and find out just how hard it is to make sure they have an income if they insist on staying purists.

I don't see how anyone who has had to make decisions based on what customers want and will pay for could seriously expect a product like OOo to dump Java. People like that are the real 100% geeks, like Harold on Red Green, who have no life, no girlfriend, and no concept of what it's like to interact with the rest of the world.

Re:who cares?

[temojen]

If it requires non-Free java, the requirements to install it cannot be distributed with it. This adds a step to the install process, and prevents it from being included with distributions that don't have sun-jre distribution agreements with sun microsystems.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and again: who cares about the "free software movement"?

I am a simple COMPUTER USER.

I care not about politics, especially when it comes to bits and bytes. If the software I need costs money, I will just buy it. If it happens to be Free/free, even better! But I don't care about any "movements" and "religions" or "politics".

As a computer user, these are the last things I care.

Re:who cares?

[lukewarmfusion]

I agree with your points. And the grandparent's point as well. If you want to compete with MSOffice (or any of the other packages that are leading over OpenOffice.org) then you have to get market share. Ordinary consumers couldn't care less about whether it's open source, built on free-as-in-Java, etc. They want it to work. They like the free as in beer, but if it doesn't work (at least as well as MSOffice for whatever they're doing) they won't use it.

Re:who cares?

[aldoman]

Sorry, but what competitors to VB6 does the OSS community have?

PythonGTK is nice, but still nowhere near VB6 (look at the complexity of the runtimes). There is a few 'fringe' programs but to be honest you have to get much closer to the bone to do anything on Linux. Even Mono is still lacking true click and drag programming.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but there is some areas where Linux still is 'lacking' vs Microsoft/Apple/Sun/whoever, and of course it'll get fixed, but suggesting that people who built CRM suite in '97 would be better off now if they had chose a non-existent Linux/OSS solution is a bit silly.

Re:who cares?

[madscientist003]

I think you hit the nail on the head with your distinction of the hobbyist and corporate markets. Asking "who cares?" is obviously indicative of being a personal user who does not have any concern for the licensing issues involved in corporate adoption. The author of the article is right on with his assertion that OpenOffice is one of the seminal applications in the road to more widespread adoption of free desktop alternatives, and I find the scariest part about this situation to be the lack of communication taking place. This has to get resolved, and sooner rather than later.

Re:who cares?

[TheWanderingHermit]

I'm not disagreeing with you -- I have to say I wasn't even thinking in terms of market share (I have a business that doesn't have to worry about advertising, market share, or most of the marketing stuff most businesses have to face -- I am VERY lucky!). I was just thinking in terms of income. I could have saved a LOT of time by writing my software so it is all command line based, 100% open, and using something like Blackdown. But that would mean my customers wouldn't even use my service (and no, most of them don't have someone else to turn to). I directly improve their bottom line, but if they had to keep looking up references and using the command line, they'd drop it, or I'd spend hours a day on the phone for tech support (my clients hardly ever need to call me for tech support!).

I was thinking more along your point about ordinary customers. That's where, to me, it's not even a market share question. It's about whether anyone will buy or nobody at all. Yes, OOo can go for 100% open source, but I'm sure using Java for many functions saves months of programming time over C or C++, and lets them put out a better product.

Another point: Life is a process. Sun is talking about opening Java. The purists here are like people in PETA -- especially the ones that threw a fit and said the city of Fishkill should change its name because it had violent conotations, then later found out kill means stream, and that's where the "Kill" came from. These people are so full of anger and frustration, they have to take it out on others, so they hold everyone to a really stupid and high standard, so they can always criticize others for not meeting THEIR standards.

Open source is a process. Have any of these purists thought about what a BIG step it is that Sun is even considering open sourcing Java? It's a big step. It's not perfect, but it is a big move in the right direction. It won't get there overnight, so it is important to understand that it is more important to be a supportive part of the change than someone pissing and moaning because it's not exactly what they want -- instead of trying to help the process along.

Re:who cares?

[madscientist003]

And your point is well-taken, but the beef of this argument is with the corporate sector who have serious licensing issues to consider before they even evaluate some alternative application (much less an alternative desktop platform).

For personal users, this is likely a non-issue. For those involved in the creation and maintenance of distributions, or those looking to advise a switch to an alternative corporate office suite, this debate is quite important. It's not a matter of paying up for software that isn't free. It's a matter of how the free software movement should cope with having a flagship application not being completely free.

Re:who cares?

[Zocalo]

Had they picked an open source platform it would be much less disruptive for their business.

How so? It's not like the VB6 DLLs that your infrastructure is dependent upon are going to go away. Sure, there are not going to be any more security patches, but equally there are probably not going to very more exploits either, if any. (Based on the premise that few crackers are looking for bugs in discontinued code - when was the last exploit specifically targetting Windows '9x for instance?) Besides, unless I'd had a third party write the application and had no access to the VB6 source, then I could still update the code to a newer version of VB, or even .Net, even though it might be a lot of work.

It's just as possible to get into exactly the same state with an open language as it is a closed one. If the developers all move on to other projects and the language whithers on the vine, unless you have the ability to update the language code on your own then you are in the same position as with the VB6 example. Development languages evolve, and sometimes that means that older code breaks; I've seen this with closed (VB), open (Perl) and "in-between" (Java) based code - open or closed makes no difference.

Yes, having access to the source is a better option, and it does leave more doors unlocked than the closed source alternative, but I don't think it's anywhere near as critical as you believe.

Re:who cares?

[Vile Slime]

I've,

Built corporate infrastructure with Java for about ten years now. I've coded probably a million lines of Java in that time frame.

Except because of the most minor of Java changes on Sun's part I've never had to re-write anything.

My Java programs from ten years ago still run just fine.

Sun has many times declared many classes and methods as being obsolete, but they have never turned anything I use off so that I could no longer use it.

So go ahead, complain all you want, but there are people like me out there that are moving forward a lot faster because they use Java, and there are a lot of people moving slower because they cannot get past ideology.

It's fine by me, my children will eat well because of your ineptitude.

Re:who cares?

[Timesprout]

What bollox. SUN permits redistribution of its JRE with applications. Many vendors already do this with the JRE version they want to run against to save the user having to download a specific version.

Re:who cares?

[teromajusa]

Have any of these purists thought about what a BIG step it is that Sun is even considering open sourcing Java? It's a big step. It's not perfect, but it is a big move in the right direction. It won't get there overnight

Or it might not get there at all. Declining to integrate Java in opensource projects because it is not free enough seems to me like a good way to motivate Sun to make it more free. To blithely accept depenceny on it in opensource projects on the other hand sends the message that there is no problem with the current situation.

Re:who cares?

[teromajusa]

From the article:

By contrast, Red Hat and Fedora prefer to build OpenOffice.org with the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ), which is not only a compiler, but also a free JRE. This was Red Hat's strategy with earlier versions of OpenOffice.org, and Red Hat engineers are attempting to continue it. Caolan Macnamara, a programmer at Red Hat, has reported limited success compiling earlier developer builds of version 2.0. However, GCJ is not yet a complete replacement for official releases of Java, and adding patches makes the strategy painstaking and laborious at best.

Re:who cares?

[BigGerman]

how is it insightful? Java license specifically allows you distribution of the JRE with your products as long as you dont mess with it and it is required to run your program. Gratis.
This whole page of postings shows how nearsighted and ignorant new generation of slashdotters are: the only non-Free part in Java is the fact that Sun wants to preserve the standard in the language and thus wants to control it. I, personally, would prefer a completely OSS Java but it is good thing as is.

Re:who cares?

[TheWanderingHermit]

I know this sounds flip, and I'm not trying to treat you with discrespect, but...

Do you think they really care about that?

Re:who cares?

[Decaff]

Consider all those foolish companies who built infrastructure on VB6 now that Microsoft is cutting off support for that platform

Had they picked an open source platform it would be much less disruptive for their business.

The point you have raised - the ability of a company to drop support for a development language - has nothing to do with whether or not that language or platform is open source. Most organisations that use a development language aren't interested in being dumped with megabytes of source code if a language provider either stops development or goes out of business - open source doesn't help.

Java is so successful and popular for commercial development because it is multi-vendor. If you don't want to use Sun's VM and JDK you can use IBM's, or HP's, or BEA's, or TowerJ's, or even GJC. Not all are available on all OSes, but you have a choice, and you are not going to be left abandoned, like VB6 users.

Re:who cares?

[iminplaya]

What SUN giveth, SUN can take away. That should be a good reason to stay away.

Re:who cares?

[nurb432]

A lot of people care.

Many of us dont want to be tied to something non-free, and thus controlled by another party.

"does the job" has a wider meaning to us.

It also limits what OO will run on now. If there isnt a java port that is blessed by Sun, then you 'cant run it here'.

Re:who cares?

[iminplaya]

The problem is that SUN can remove all distribution rights after this really catches on. Didn't we learn anything from mp3.com or that big community created CD database? If you want to use other peoples stuff, fine, but protect yourself, and make sure they can never take it back.

Re:who cares?

[killjoe]

" Sorry, but what competitors to VB6 does the OSS community have?"

Python with wxwindows is excellent. There are lots of gui builders for wxwindows and some IDEs to make it easy for ya. I for one think click and drag programming especially the kind built into VB6 is an abomination. It makes for messy code that is hard to maintain and soon degenerates into a mess of spghetti. I also need not mentions the awful error handling of VB do I. It's better to use something like wxwindows or swing that are true MVC frameworks. Even if it takes you longer to code it up front you will save time later in the debugging and maintenance portions of your lifecycle.

If you really want clicky programming there is also rekall for database work and dabo if you want something that mimics foxpro.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider all those foolish companies who built infrastructure on VB6 now that Microsoft is cutting off support for that platform
Had they picked an open source platform it would be much less disruptive for their business.

Microsoft is only cutting off support. It's not like all VB6 apps are going to stop working on April 1st. Look at all the business apps still running COBOL programs compiled with unsupported compilers.

You seem to think that just because it's OSS, it is somehow supported indefinitely. I have used OSS before where the project dried up and the website went away. What are my choices now? Maintain the source myself (have you seen most OSS source code?) or find something to replace it. I find both are equally disruptive to my business.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Custard]

" Even if it takes you longer to code it up front you will save time later in the debugging and maintenance portions of your lifecycle. "

I wish more IT managers understood that... most places I've worked think that whatever gets us 90% done the soonest must be the best. If something costs us 5 minutes now, or 5 hours later, they always choose to wait until later.

But that logic always makes me think of how worth it it is to spend 5 minutes putting on a parachute before you jump out of a plane. Sure, foregoing the parachute will save some time up front, but it's going to make the landing much harder.

Re:who cares?

[divec]

Sorry, but what competitors to VB6 does the OSS community have? [...] PythonGTK is nice, but still nowhere near VB6 (look at the complexity of the runtimes).

I use both PyGTK and PyQt (professionally), deploying on Windows and GNU/Linux clients. There is no runtime issue. py2exe creates a standalone executable for Windows. Conceptually it's very similar to VBRUN600.DLL, except that your own extension modules can also go into the executable, so there's no need to leave rubbish lying around the system.

Re:who cares?

[dingfelder]

While it is not open source itself, Kylix (i.e. cross platform Delphi) is a pretty good option for creating open source code, and kicks the shit out of VB in many areas.

Re:who cares?

[SweetAndSourJesus]

"If something costs us 5 minutes now, or 5 hours later, they always choose to wait until later."

They're probably figuring that they won't be working for that company 5 hours from now. VB is a fantastic tool for creating problems for other people.

Re:who cares?

[fatboy]

Yes, and again: who cares about the "free software movement"?

I am a simple COMPUTER USER.

The whole point of GPL is to empower users.

As a user, you should care if you will be able to freely modify, distrubute and use your software.

Re:who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, VB6 has been discontinued by Microsoft. Imagine what would happen if Sun decided as of April 1 to no longer support Java development and to not release it as open source to the world?

Second, you make an excellent example of why using Java is even worse then originally proposed. To use Java as a development building block only enforces the problem of having a non-free license dependency. If it does start getting wide acceptance, there is always the problem of Sun taking the initiative of claiming "all your data belong to us."

And you're still screwed.

Re:who cares?

[natrius]

Java license specifically allows you distribution of the JRE with your products as long as you dont mess with it and it is required to run your program. Gratis.

I think this license also states that you can't distribute a competing Java implementation. Most Linux distributions won't allow themselves to be crippled by that license, so they don't distribute the Sun JVM.

Many people have cried out that everyone should be more practical instead of idealistic on this issue, but the problems people have with OpenOffice relying on Sun's JVM are practical ones. Since distributions can't package a dependency of OpenOffice, they instead have to work around the Java dependencies, and then package it.

The choice of what language the OpenOffice developers use to develop features is completely up to them, but why do you expect people to not be disappointed that there are new features that they cannot use because of the choices they made?

Re:who cares?

[hattmoward]

I know it's not necessarily a perfect match (not working on Windows being a major flaw), but you should check out Gambas.

Re:who cares?

[cheesybagel]

There is no Sun JRE for Linux PowerPC, or ARM, or FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD you name it. Distros have switched from XFree86 to X.org for less.

Re:who cares?

[cheesybagel]

DLLs are binary, and binary compatibility is not forever. Neither are Diamonds BTW.

Re:who cares?

[dubl-u]

Are you suggesting that drag and drop programming is a good thing? Maybe it allows for faster implementation but it provides much slower and far more stupid solutions than true programming. I am not even sure that it can be consider true programming.

The problem with tools like that isn't that they aren't really programming. (I agree; they aren't.) It's that people mistake one for the other because for simple projects the results look the same. Because of that, marketroids shamelessly sell low-end, user-targeted tools as equivalent to real code written by professional programmers.

All those companies that went for the easy way out in '97 deserve to suffer the consequences.

True. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of VB apps, Access apps, Perl CGI scripts, and shell scripts that are just fine for the people using them, and always will be.

The problem comes when people try to push tools like that beyond their limits. And no matter how much warning you give that your quick little hack will need to be replaced eventually, people forget that because it *looks* solid. My favorite solution is to make quick hacks look like quick hacks. It's a shame all VB apps don't look like that.

Re:who cares?

[!Squalus]

"Sorry, but what competitors to VB6 does the OSS community have?"

How about REAL Basic from Real Software in Austin, Texas?

That's a real competitor (sees pun - decides to duck and run as tomatoes fly).

Have a nice day.

Re:who cares?

[Ogerman]

Yeah? What if Microsoft gobbles up Sun at some point in the future?

Then we'd all switch to IBM's JVM, silly. And everyone would start working overtime to get the various Open Source JVM's and GNU/Classpath up to where Sun's reference implementation had been. You act as if "Java" is a program rather than a language. You do realize that there are literally dozens of JVM's and Java compilers right?

Re:who cares?

[mcc]

The problem is that SUN can remove all distribution rights after this really catches on

And if they did this I am sure IBM would be more than happy to step in and let their VM be used in its place.

You have a choice of compliant JVMs. This is a good thing.

Re:who cares?

[jadavis]

It's not programming, it's interface design. Programmers just happen to spend a lot of time doing it. If you're one of those unfortunate programmers, you would really appreciate a drag-n-drop interface. After all, for "real programming", which is pretty much math, it makes sense to write in text. However, for interface design, it makes a lot of sense to do it visually.

Re:who cares?

[tigersha]

For that matter you can download the source off Sun's JDK from their website too. Thats how it get run on BSD.

Re:who cares?

[-brazil-]

Your memory is apparently not as good as you think it is. Java was released as Java in early 1995.

Re:who cares?

[toriver]

G++...

Now, why is there C++ on so many platforms when AT&T, the maker of C++, did not port it to those platforms? Could it possibly be because the OSS community made their own implementation instead of whining to AT&T about opensourcing theirs?

Why should the relationship to Java be any different? Hell, even Mono (the C#/CLR/.Net implementation) is more complete than any of the OSS attempts at making a Java implementation.

Is the OSS community secretly satisfied with the status quo of leaving Java implementations to the industry? (Read: Sun, Apple, IBM, and a few others.)

Re:who cares?

[-brazil-]

That's pure FUD. Every Java distribution so far has come with a license that says it's free, indefinitely, and can be redistributed for free. Sun can NOT retrocatively change these licenses to include a license fee. It's no different than the GPL in that respect. Do you also say that one should not use GPLd software because the GNU guys may "decide they're going to charge a $4.99 fee"?

Re:who cares?

[Majix]

The license doesn't forbid distribution, but the terms are such that no Linux distributor will agree to them. Look, this license has been picked apart by the legal departments at Red Hat and Debian, and others. The distributions are not now, nor in the future, distributing the JVM. That's all there is to it, you're not going to change Red Hat's mind. If GCJ and Classpath does not get the job done, look forward to OO.o being demoted across a whole lot of distributions.

The sections (i) and (iii) in particular are very problematic to Linux distributors. They will not give up their rights to patch the software, as it leaves them entirely at the mercy of Sun. A distributors job is all about taking software, patching and integrating it. That already kills it for Red Hat, but then (iii) states that you can't ship any replacements for the software. Where does that put GCJ and Classpath, which Red Hat has spent a ton of effort on. Can Python be considered a competing component? Mono with JKVM certainly could be. As if that wasn't enough, (vi) requires the distributor to idemnify Sun. No wonder almost no one redistributes the JVM. Do you seriously think Red Hat would open themselves up to such an attack, with the way Sun has openly declared their hostility towards RH several times. They don't need a JVM that bad, they'll drop OO.o altogether before they indemnify Sun.

Re:who cares?

[DaliborTopic]

Your Java license can be terminated at any time. See http://www.jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/jsr/ tiger/JRE1.5.license.html

" 9. Termination for Infringement. Either party may terminate this Agreement immediately should any Software become, or in either party's opinion be likely to become, the subject of a claim of infringement of any intellectual property right."

Worst Case Scenario: Company A owns the rights to JRE. Company B sues company A for some claim of infringement of IP. Company A per JRE license immediately terminates all licenses to JRE to limit their liability. A settles with company B out of court. A offloads the cost of settlement current JRE customers by charging a certain amount for re-downloading the JRE with a current license. Conveniently, terms of the settlement could include passing on the list of registered JRE users to company B, so that B can go after those still violating their IP rights without having downloaded the new 'uninfringing' JRE for a small sum.

Oops. Is it likely? Who knows. Sun has been target of funny lawsuits before (see Kodak). So far they have not passed the costs on to consumers. But if they continue to be under fire by weird IP claims, chances are they will have to do a cost analysis, and cover the settlement costs somehow. The JRE license certainly explictely allows the JRE licensor to terminate the license even before a lawsuit to protect their interests.

cheers, dalibor topic.

Re:who cares?

[Decaff]

because Sun made sure only the sun JRE is allowed to be called Java.

This is common Slashdot FUD, and is nonsense. A JRE can be called Java if it passes the compatibility tests. For example, HPs Java has no sun source code in, yet is called Java. There are other clean-room Java implementations that are also called Java - because they passed the tests.

And "wide Range" is probably something miniscule like four.

Windows 3.1 (IBM's 16-bit version), Win95/98/ME/XP/2000, Linux(RedHat/Debian), Solaris(2.6-2.9), Apple(OS 9/OS X), PalmOS, WinCE, DOS, Mobile phones...

Re:who cares?

[OrangeSpyderMan]

Maybe it allows for faster implementation but it provides much slower and far more stupid solutions than true programming.

To be frank I am not a big fan of VB - but there are many cases where having a real short implementation time is what takes the biscuit. I recently came up with a fairly simple program for a one off migration, and chose to do it in VB, simply because it meant that I could deliver something that would do the job in under a week. While it may have taken 4 hours to run rather than 2, and would be harder to maintain afterwards - it allowed us to get the job done and move onto more exciting things - "real programming", if you will :-)

Open Office and Java integration makes me nervous

[saskboy]

The only virus I've ever had infect my Windows computer was Java based, installed due to a flaw in 1.4.2 and some website I visited I suppose. I don't feel any better about Java being integrated in some way that I don't understand with Open Office, than I do with Word using Macro files, or offering VBS integration perhaps.

Easy Solution

[bigtallmofo]

Just re-write everything in Visual Basic. That should make FOSS advocates happy.

the 'good enough' argument

[chris09876]

Lots of people say that this doesn't matter; as long as OO.o works well, who cares about what free or un-free components it uses. The article does an excellent job outlining the real issues here.

Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost? Using java not only adds dependencies, but dependencies that some parties are uncomfortable with. Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore. Some of the core features (wizards) require java. Even though a wizard isn't "core" functionality, they're something that people in a workplace would likely need to use.

Either way, this is a good article... it explains the issues in a very clear way.

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[DogDude]

Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost?

At all costs. What else is there? Why would anybody develop software, if not to perform a function? The second that other things get in the way of "functionality", is the same second that that software starts to suck. What do you propose is more important than functionality?

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Tim C]

Corporate adoption may be slowed

Don't be silly; Java's free as in beer, and plenty of places are already using it (or at least asking for it) on the server side. Besides, if they're replacing MS Office, why the hell would they worry that Java is or isn't Free? It's a lot freer than what they have...

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Decaff]

Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore.

Yes it is. It costs nothing and it is fully functional. The truth is that use of Java is more likely to speed corporate adoption, as Java is the de-facto language for corporate server-side development. It has a good corporate reputation.

Few companies who install Open Office care about the technicalities of FOSS. They like Open Office in the same way as they like Java - it allows a choice of workstation OS, and it gives portability.

For FOSS advocates, the issue of Java integration into Open Office may be significant, but the fact is that most people don't care.

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[horza]

At all costs. What else is there? Why would anybody develop software, if not to perform a function? The second that other things get in the way of "functionality", is the same second that that software starts to suck. What do you propose is more important than functionality?

Microsoft said the same thing, relegating security and stability, but that's now come back to bite them in the ass.

Phillip.

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[peachpuff]

"What else is there?"

Consistency, compatibility, support, long-term availability, appropriate licensing, security, dollar amount (not currently an issue with Java), adaptability, maturity, overall quality . . .

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[DogDude]

Microsoft said the same thing, relegating security and stability, but that's now come back to bite them in the ass.

If you call being the largest software company in the known universe, and one of the greatest financial successes of our generation being bitten in the ass, then I hope that I'm bitten in the ass, too. Oh God, please, something or someone bite me in the ass!

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Mr. Slippery]

What do you propose is more important than functionality?

Freedom.

Pretend that I have developed the world's most functional word processing program. However, you may only use it under a licence that grants me censorship rights to anything you write. Would you want to buy a copy?

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Jason Earl]

Yes, but OpenOffice.org isn't aiming for a spot on the server (where Java is entrenched), it's trying to upset MS Office on the desktop, and that's an entirely different situation.

Say what you want, but a large percentage of the folks that are gutsy enough to be rolling out OpenOffice.org are doing so at least in part because they are Free Software advocates. In short, they are pushing OpenOffice.org for ethical reasons, and not for practical reasons. After all, a switch of that magnitude is definitely a risk. Lot's of folks are willing to take a risk on Free Software that they would not be willing to take for "inexpensive" software.

Sun is just being stupid on this front. Java has already fragmented into several mostly compatible forks. IBM has their own JVM, as does Apple, Oracle, Borland, and there are a wide range of Free Software Java-alike systems. Heck, Red Hat and the Debian team are hard at work turning GCJ into a useable (if not completely compatible) system. Already one of the most popular desktop Java applications is IBM's Eclipse, and Eclipse uses the non-pure-Java SWT toolkit instead of Swing.

Sun is losing control of Java, and the best way to reign in the various Java offshoots is to release Sun's JVM under a Free Software license. Freeing Java would completely kill all of the non-Sun Java toolkits, and it would give Sun the Free Software allies it needs to compete against Microsoft's .NET. Heck, right now Mono is doing a better job of enticing Free Software advocates than Sun is.

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Xugumad]

This is a very good point; people think they want stable, secure software. They don't, what they actually want is cheapish (but expensive enough that it must be good) software that does what they need, plus plenty of things they think they might want to do another day, which is reasonably easy to use. A feeling that they're using the same software as everyone else (and several million people can't be wrong, right?) never hurts.

Re:the 'good enough' argument

[Jason Earl]

Java purists can pretend that there are no functional differences between the various Java VMs, but systems administrators know the difference. Say what you will, but there are issues in moving between systems (even if you are using the same JVM), and there are issues in switching between the various JAVA (tm) VMs as well. This wouldn't be the case if Sun simply opened their JVM. Sun's JVM would simply get ported everywhere. Right now Sun doesn't have the resources to do the job by itself. So Sun ports to Solaris, Linux, and Windows on two platforms (Sparc and x86) and leaves it at that. Everything else is an afterthought.

As far as the popularity of Java among Free Software hackers, I think that it says quite a bit about Java's acceptance that Sun's Java Desktop contains almost no Java. Even worse, a disproportionate amount of the cool new Gnome applications are based on Mono. It is somewhat ironic that a great deal of Sun's hopes going forward revolve around Gnome and the Java desktop, and yet Sun is having such a hard time convincing Gnome hackers to use Java (tm). The Gnome hackers working for Red Hat are busy getting GCJ to the point where it can compete with Java (tm) and the Novell hackers, and a large whack of the Gnome community is busy cloning .NET. This is entirely Sun's fault. Sun chose Gnome over KDE for licensing reasons (among other things), and somewhere along the lines forgot that the folks that started Gnome care so much about Free Software that they thought that KDE's old license wasn't free enough. Free Software hackers want to like Sun, and they want to like Java, but the licensing issue is a big deal to them. Unfortunately for Sun, it absolutely needs the Free Software hackers to jump on board. There's a reason that Red Hat is winning the Linux war against SuSE and the rest, and that is that Red Hat has always been about Free Software. SuSE has always had a slicker distribution (as did Caldera before it went completely insane), but Red Hat was 100% Free Software.

As for using Sourceforge as a measure of Free Software hacker activity, well, that's more than a little flawed. There are a lot of Java programs on Sourceforge, but once you subtract out the text editors, the Java development tools, and the projects that don't even compile Mono is probably ahead. It's also important to note than none of the important Mono applications are hosted on Sourceforge. When you start talking about GUI desktop applications that people actually use Mono is *definitely* ahead.

Heck, I develop in Java for a living (web development), and yet I still don't use a single desktop Java application outside of Eclipse and it isn't pure Java.

Playing into MS hands

[Swamii]

A few years back MS made a lot of fuss about Java while developing an alternative (.NET). In the process, they've planted some seeds such as "Java is neither open nor free!", and "Java is lock-in!", or the confusion surrounding Java on Windows, thanks to the MS VM supporting only v1.3.

I'll tell you all now, I'm a Winodws developer and I write C# code. For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore; if you do, it's for support of an existing product. Virtually all new projects are .NET-based or native code. So if you, the open source community, cause more fuss over Java and whine about using it, then Microsoft has truely succeeded in it's FUD plan over Java.

Re:Playing into MS hands

[Tim C]

the confusion surrounding Java on Windows, thanks to the MS VM supporting only v1.3.

I could be wrong, but I believe that MS's Java support (while it existed) only extended as far as v1.1.3, not v1.3. Of course, that's because they lost the court case to Sun, not because they couldn't or wouldn't support a newer version.

For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore

That's because traditionally, with a few notable exceptions, client-side Java apps suck. They're clunky, slow, and they look like arse. That's getting better, but it's almost certainly too little, too late. I do Java development on the server side, and I'm learning C#/.NET in order to do Windows client-side dev work (just scratching an itch). I'm not about to ditch Java, I just believe in using the right tool for the job. Now, it's arguable whether or not C# is the right tool, but experience tells me that Java isn't.

Re:Playing into MS hands

[Decaff]

For us Windows devs, no one uses Java anymore; if you do, it's for support of an existing product. Virtually all new projects are .NET-based or native code.

This may well be true for you, but it is not true in general. A quick search of Job sites shows that there is a considerable amount of new Java development on Windows, even client-side. There is also a lot of J2EE deployment on Windows servers.

The lack of a straightforward migration path from VB6 to .NET has meant that a significant number of VB developers have migrated to Java. If you are migrating, it might as well be to something portable!

Re:Playing into MS hands

[Decaff]

Nonsense. I've been developing Windows software professionally since around 1995, and I can tell you with all certainty that almost no Windows developers use Java, unless it is for an existing codebase.

Nonsense. I have been developing Windows software professionally since around 1987! I can tell you with certainty that there are many new projects using Java for deployment on Windows. A simple job search shows this. There may not be a large amount of client side development, but that is because most new projects in all areas of development are web-based.

Sure, there are some Java jobs now, and this is primarily because companies heavily invested in Java during the 1990s.

That can't explain new J2EE developments and does not explain the significant migration of VB6 developers to Java:
http://news.com.com/Developers+slam+Microsoft%27s+ Visual+Basic+plan/2100-1007_3-5615331.html?tag=st. rn

But virtually no one is using Java on Windows for client stuff anymore, especially with the VM incompatibilities that exist on this side of the fence.

The only incompatibilities are between MS's VM and others. Most new PCs (around 70%) are shipped with Sun's VM, and the JRE download for the rest is no worse than the .NET runtime.

Go to Windows dev-centric sites like The Code Project, see how many Java articles, content, source code, or jobs you can find, you'll see what I mean.

Well you wouldn't find many there - it is a site dedicated to Microsoft development languages!

Re:Playing into MS hands

[omb]

And interestingly Java client-side's suck as much, or more on Linux than Windoze; you want to know why, it is simple, you either need to keep cranking up a new, virgin, JVM (in which initialization optimization was never a goal) or go the Container route, which is only viable on the server side.

Once you understand Java's history, originally as OAK, all this makes sense, you initialize the JVM once, when the appliance is turned on.

This implies that the JVM should load, on Linux, as a module, and bytecodes should be loaded by the kernel binary loader, calling out to the JVM module --- this would make Java truely native, and focus on optimizing startup. This ammounts essentially to JVM virtualization; suddenly Beans and Containers would become much less intrusive but with a role in managed Web Channels and BL layers.

Finally I despair of the 'pure Java' client side UI layers SWT/Swing/AWT which are all underfeatured, ugly slow and bloated; this is, once again, insularity. Qt, for example, is easily embeddable in Java, and enables quick construction of UIs that dont look like the work of a 3 year old.

GCJ?

[ArsonSmith]

Can't these features be ported/compiled with gcj and run as native binaries?

Could it work with Java under Mono

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda ironic that Novell's Mono (with root in Microsoft research) is the most promising free VM these days. Too bad Parrot doesn't seem to have java running on it...

Re:Could it work with Java under Mono

[Anonymous Coward]

Mono has no 'root' in Microsoft research.

And what makes you think that they're the best? Certainly the most hyped, but go look at some benchmarks. The fastest free VM out there is Jikes RVM (with does actually spring from the research division of a major company, namely IBM.)

Talk about exaggeration...

[oldosadmin]

"A small but vocal minority.."

Apparently nobody has cared to complain to the marketing people. Not that I want them to, lol.

Java is free, people. Java is probably already on most desktop computers. Sun gave us OOo, and still do 75% of the programming. Unless you're willing to reprogram the Base, HyperSQL, and the other components that require java in C++, then don't complain.

You're getting an office suite, which, while it admittedly isn't perfect, it's definately the best *value* out there.

Re:Talk about exaggeration...

[SoulOfMyShoe]

"Java is probably already on most desktop computers." Most computers may have some sort of Java libs, but you have to have the Java Runtime Environment or the SDK for OOo. Most computers do not in fact have this. Microsoft packages its own Java runtimes which, as far as I know are incompatible with OOo, and many linux distros don't package it due to licensing issues. I do agree that OOo is a great office suite and the price is great, but it would be a lot more portable and easier to distribute if it did not rely on Java so much.

Re:Talk about exaggeration...

[oldosadmin]

Microsoft no longer has a JRE -- they were forced to stop it, because of the DOJ.

And most desktop computers, windows at least, have sun JRE, because 90% of gaming sites require it.

Re:Talk about exaggeration...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no java for linux outside of x86.

THAT is a major problem with requiring java.

Re:Talk about exaggeration...

[lexluther]

The comment above, in my mind, is the clearest statement of the issues. As a community it is important that we push the ideals of OSS, however to the extent that we dont produce software that competes with the proprietary alternatives then our user base will diminish, which is the true threat to FOSS, not if OO.o decides to use Java.

At my office we use OO.o and I have used it as a selling point of Open Source in general - Now, if I pull that out from all of the users who are happy, and productive and say "not open source anymore ... try abi-word." they are not going to go for it. To them it effectively evinces one of the strongest arguments against OSS: variable support and instability through versioning and releases.

Finally, Java is a language - it is not like they are bundling the jet database engine. The implementations of the gnu java compiler will only be spurred on by writing *parts* of OO.o in java, and then we have removed the dependency on Sun.

GCJ- Linux app packaging

[acomj]

I read this earlier. If they're going to use java, they should at least make sure it works with GJC out of the box. The one Java alsmost all distros ship with.. So redhat et all. don't have to jump through hoops to get it installed.

I sometimes wish Linux had a application packaging system like MacOSX where you have the option of brining tons of libraries with you hidden under a file system pretending to be an app icon. It just works (most of the time). I'm tired of ldd.

Re:GCJ- Linux app packaging

[Anonymous Coward]

I sometimes wish Linux had a application packaging system like MacOSX where you have the option of brining tons of libraries with you hidden under a file system pretending to be an app icon. It just works (most of the time). I'm tired of ldd.

Linux already has basically everything you need to build packages that way. The key thing is that Linux already has a way to specify where to find libraries relative to the binary that is trying to load them. Most people who build software for Linux don't know this and stupidly build hard-coded paths into executables and make you change your /etc/ld.so.conf to include every directory on the planet, but in reality this is a total waste of time since $ORIGIN is available and makes this issue totally go away.

Basically, $ORIGIN works like this: when you build the binary and link against the libraries it need, you can put something like -z origin -rpath '$ORIGIN/../lib' on the ld command line. (Note that the dollar sign is quoted and is intended to go into the executable file unchanged.) This means if the binary in /usr/local/foo/bin/foo and it wishes to find libfoo.so, one of the places that the runtime linker (ld-linux.so) will look when it tries to load libraries is /usr/local/foo/bin/../lib, which equates to /usr/local/foo/lib. Presto, it finds libfoo.so and everyone is happy, and nobody had to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH or modify /etc/ld.so.conf.

This means you can, if you want, distributed software that all goes into a directory, and that the directory can be put into any location you wish without any configuration changes needed to run it.

As a matter of fact, even if your goal isn't to distributed a package with all its dependencies bundled in, it still should be the default to use $ORIGIN. If you are building binaries to distribute and your install process require the user to use ldconfig or modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH, you should consider the build broken.

Re:GCJ- Linux app packaging

[the-build-chicken]

they should at least make sure it works with GJC out of the box

Actually, no...if GJC wants to call itself a java compiler, it should make sure it properly implements the spec.

So what...

[kungfuSiR]

I think that this is being blown out of proportion. The integration of java into the latest version of open office, although a little annoying, is not something that is going to keep me from using it on a day to day basis. Especially considering that all of my computers have java installed anyway.

Speed up releases?

[kschawel]

I think the article makes some interesting points, such as:

Some might argue against Schönheit's characterization of C++ as complex or Java as being not slow. However, technical arguments are in many ways beside the point.

What I got out of it is that the Java environment makes it far easier to add features to the current OO. From the article:

Java allows more rapid development of components for OpenOffice.org, without struggling with the complexity of OpenOffice.org's C++ build environment. People complain about releases not being quick enough and when Java is used to make the build environment less complicated, people bitch about it not being open source. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Re:Speed up releases?

[Anonymous Coward]

People complain about releases not being quick enough and when Java is used to make the build environment less complicated, people bitch about it not being open source. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, you can, it's just that the OpenOffice guys haven't figured it out yet.

Have you seen the OOO build process? Have you read the OOO source code? They're the most complex, convoluted, cryptic crap I've ever seen. The code is half German, half English, and full of undefined acronyms. I speak both languages and I don't know what the fuck most of the UHCRAprefixes on HRPEvariable JMWKnames mean. Or when you've got 30 folders, each with a 2-letter name, and no README or anything else to tell you what the secret codes mean.

You don't need Java to make a less-complex build process; plenty of C++ projects are very straightforward to build. Adding Java may have made it easier to add new features, but it didn't help those of us who want to improve existing features. In fact, it made the build just that much more difficult.

I still maintain that the reason OpenOffice is moving forward so slowly is because it's so damn complex, and the number one priority of everybody involved with OpenOffice should be to make it simple enough that more hackers can help out.

If you want the real "can't have your cake and eat it too" problem, it's this: developers complain that there isn't enough manpower, but instead of lowering the barrier-to-entry they're *raising* it by adding dependencies that they know many people (like Fedora and Debian) will have to spend effort just to work around.

FOSS [sic] versions of Java

[The Bungi]

For all the daunting capabilities of the bazaar model and the "explosive" availablity of developer resource that are supposed to be out there, I find it interesting that someone hasn't developed a "trully free" alternative language/platform that rivals Java and .NET. All they can do is copy the big boys (classpath, Mono, the GNU .NET clone and so on) rather badly, and then bitch when someone decides that maybe, just maybe, this is an example of commercial software being far and above where FOSS will probably ever be.

And let's not get started on IDEs...

Re:FOSS [sic] versions of Java

[jbolden]

Boy you stepped into it on this one.

Where is parrot today? Where has it been for the past five years?

I gave you the link on the last post. Its on the net like most OSS projects. Today you can (and people do) write Yacc type code in it and it makes for a good virtual assembler.

Why isn't Larry Wall using it for Perl 6?

Parrot is about as official for Perl 6 as it gets. Alison Randel (the project manager for Perl 6) is the author of the reference for Parrot (Perl 6 and Parrot Essentials). The first link on the Perl 6 website is to Parrot development site. The Perl 6 mailing list cover Parrot in every issue.

Larry's official statement of purpose addresses this multiple places, "Perl 6 is the next version of the Perl programming language. The project attempts to address the interpreter, the language, and the culture. The internals of the version 5 interpreter are so tangled that they hinder maintenance, thwart some new feature efforts, and scare off potential internals hackers. The language as of version 5 has some misfeatures that are a hassle to ongoing maintenance of the interpreter and of programs written in Perl. And finally, the entire Perl community is invited to participate in the design and implementation of Perl 6."

I don't know how much more official it can get.

Why isn't van Rossum backporting Python to it?

He is officially supporting it at this point and the python comnmunity is considering a permanent move to the platform. Right now everyone knows the first goal is to get Perl working completely so they are letting the Perl community be the test implementation.

Why don't I hear about it every week?

I have no clue. Probably because you don't follow news on dynamic language development.

Fallout?!?

[Otter]

This is an issue that is not going away.

Whether or not the complaints are sensible, I've got to think that if this "fallout" involved more than a tiny handful of disgruntled people I would have heard about it before this.

Will this make any real difference?

[Snay.Boot]

I cant see this making that much of a difference. Is there going to be a price tag on OOo? Will it actually affect any end-users. I doubt it. The only people this will affect are serious afficondos of the GPL. They are just cutting off their nose to spite their face. OOo is a great suite. I havent tried this new java dependant version, but I cant see any actual practical implications. Oh noes, java is owned by sun!11!!!one!!1! So?

Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[Ars-Fartsica]

Its very fast, featureful, native GNOME integration, and provides excellent functionality. Likewise Gnumeric is an excellent spreadhseet complement which is also fast and native to GNOME.

What would be nice is a ppt reader to go along with them...maybe Evince could be made to read ppt?

As for Java, I am only interested in the subset being promoted by RedHat - the free gcj/classpath variant. Call it FreeJava or whatever, but to me anything else is unacceptable. Come on folks, we came this far insisting on free software, don't give up now over one lousy VM and language spec.

Re:Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[GreyWolf3000]

Gnumeric is a piece of junk. It crashed during the first five minutes after I started trying it out.

Agree about AbiWord, disagree about Gnumeric. Gnumeric is stable does everything I need. I've heard about professors using it to teach spreadsheet classes (instead of Excel) because of it's pretty impressive featureset.

I don't know what distribution and version you're running, but I've built Gnumeric from source many times, and used it on several distributions, and it has always been really stable for me.

Re:Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[bach37]

Gnumeric is a piece of junk. It crashed during the first five minutes after I started trying it out.

Gnumeric opens and reads many advanced sheets that OO.o can't handle, especially ones with charts or other advanced componets.
Try it yourself.

Re:Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[mrchaotica]

It's kind of amazing that the FOSS community doesn't seem to have ever come up with a good, solid word processor.

I disagree -- it's not surprising at all, because until recently it seems to me that the (UNIX-centric, remember) FOSS community abhorred the very concept of "word processors." Why would you bother making a dumbed-down, WYSIWYG, bloated graphical application that encourages using non-semantic markup and wasting time with pointless fonts and graphics when a text editor, markup language (Troff, TeX, DocBook, etc.), and postprocessor is easier (remember, you're already a hacker) and better? After all, it can give you cross-platform professional-quality PostScript output, and the source files are even semantic! What could be better than that?

Personally, I wish the dominant "word processor" was LyX, but that's just me...

Re:Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[bcrowell]

Personally, I wish the dominant "word processor" was LyX, but that's just me...
I like the concept of LyX, but the implementation has some serious drawbacks, IMO. I couldn't get it to produce good PDF output, and the widgets are bizarre and don't behave the way I expect.

[...] until recently it seems to me that the (UNIX-centric, remember) FOSS community abhorred the very concept of "word processors." Why would you bother making a dumbed-down, WYSIWYG,...
Scribus is a possible counterexample, although it's really meant as a graphic design and page layout program rather than as a word processor.

when a text editor, markup language (Troff, TeX, DocBook, etc.), and postprocessor is easier [...] and better?
Well, TeX does have some big advantages:

it's free, and not tied to unfree software like Java;

its implementation is of very high quality;

it does a better job of mathematical typesetting than any free or nonfree software in existence;

it has a big, healthy, friendly, helpful user community.

Re:Try AbiWord and Gnumeric

[jbolden]

The proper combination would be Scribus designs the style sheets for use by LyX/Tex/Latex.

The answer is mixed

[vkapadia]

From TFA,

"By contrast, Red Hat and Fedora prefer to build OpenOffice.org with the GNU Compiler for Java (GCJ), which is not only a compiler, but also a free JRE. This was Red Hat's strategy with earlier versions of OpenOffice.org, and Red Hat engineers are attempting to continue it. Caolan Macnamara, a programmer at Red Hat, has reported limited success compiling earlier developer builds of version 2.0. However, GCJ is not yet a complete replacement for official releases of Java, and adding patches makes the strategy painstaking and laborious at best."

- vimal

Re:Java isn't free and Sun isn't a friend to OSS

[phek]

I haven't heard anything so retarded since the last time I heard steve balmer give a speech. How excactly is ".net much more free than java"? Last time I checked, microsoft was not giving away any open sourced versions of any .net compilers without at least purchasing the operating system, so it's not really giving it away, plus its not open sourced. On the other hand, you can freely download jre and jdk from the sun website and though I'm not sure whether that is open sourced or not, there is always the open sourced blackdown java implementation.

So the closest thing I see to irony here is that in order to defend microsoft, you have to be totally ignorant to the everything, much like all of microsofts products.

Ah, fork it...

[nacturation]

OpenOffice.org is released as an open-source license, right? So if they have such a big beef with the direction it's going, then someone can create a fork of the project and put the work into ridding it of this supposedly undesireable Java dependency. Or pick up the codebase, write all the currently java-dependent code in C++ and submit it as a patch.

To me, this sounds like a bunch of politicians and lobby activists trying to make the most noise so that they achieve their respective ideological agendas. As an end-user of OO.o, I really don't care either way as long as the functionality is there. And, afaik, the current Java license allows for redistribution of the Java Runtime Environment so they can't retroactively pull that license and prevent people from doing something they've already granted.

Practical versus idealistic

[ceswiedler]

Here's a case where the FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) acronym doesn't work, because Free Software and Open Source Software are not the same thing.

Practical, pragmatic decisions like using Java are not a problem for Open Source. That's what Open Source is: developing software in an open manner because of a belief that software developed this way is technologically better than closed-source software. It does not insist that every tool (or language) used in the development process be Free Software or Open Source. From a practical standpoint, it is sufficient that the tool or language meets the needs of the developers and is available on the required platforms, and does not appear to be a patent or other legal liability.

Free software on the other hand, insists for idealogical reasons that any software or tool which is not completely free is deterimental to the community. It's important to have respect for this opinion, but it is not a catastrophe for the OO.org team to choose the Open Source route.

Re:Practical versus idealistic

[Cyno]

Practical, pragmatic decisions like using Java are not a problem for Open Source.

Maybe so but the end result is no longer Open because it depends on closed libraries/REs. And OSS must not believe that software developed as open source is technologically superior if they're willing to give up access and control of the source code so easily.

Free Software, on the other hand, has a very precise goal which is to make all software in the system open and free. And there are very real legal and financial reasons they want to accomplish this, aside from the obvious technical advantages of having access to code. The FSF does not think any non-free software is detrimental to the community, but rather insists on calling it what it is, not Free. OpenOffice might not be proprietary and closed source yet, but it is not Free if it requires Sun's JRE to be fully functional. Some components are Free and licensed appropriately for approval by the FSF, but not all. So the community will most likely delete the infringing components and replace them with more open source code and move on. In a sense saying, "Thanks, but no thanks" to Sun.

but it is not a catastrophe for the OO.org team to choose the Open Source route.

No this choice is not a catastrophe. But a competing fork built on pure F/OSS software would be. They would lose more community support and have to work harder to compete. That's a one-two punch from the Free Software community, if it happens. Its like trying to make a profit while your market is shrinking and competition is driving down prices (think AOL).

And, as always, we wish them luck. They're going to need it.

Re:Java isn't free and Sun isn't a friend to OSS

[4of12]

Pardon my hazy understanding of the subtle issues surrounding Java and .NET, but isn't the major problem not so much about the JVM or the CLR, but all the libraries that applications written in either C# (Windows forms) or Java (com.sun.whatever) tend to use?

Well, that , and that either "standard" is subject to change without notice due either to paranoid-possesiveness "No we won't define an ISO" (Sun) or to gorilla-sized "We are the standard despite the stinkin' standards bodies" (MS).

Two words..

[lrwx]

Fork it.

How dare they!

[grahamlee]

It seems a decision based largely on practical considerations

Silly open source developers - putting practicality and pragmatism above more important things like dyed-in-the-wool political viewpoints. Next you'll be telling me they're all off using these newbie Linux systems, rather than diligently waiting for HURD to stabilise like they're supposed to. Tch.

What's the issue again, I missed it...

[pb]

Now I hate Java just as much as the next guy, (well probably moreso, but anyhow...) but I've compiled and used OpenOffice 1.x many times, and let me tell you--Java is not the problem. OpenOffice is *already* enormous and bloated and slow. It also already requires Java just to build the darn thing, or at least it did when I built it. Whether it depends more or less on Java, I don't care as long as it gets at least two of smaller, less bloated, faster...

So, ok, now that we're agreed that we aren't necessarily talking about a technical issue here. Again, what's the problem. That "Java isn't open source"? Well why don't you ask IBM to open up a JVM for you. Or, better yet, write your own! Java is widely used, readily available, and actually pretty darn open as these things go.

So what's the problem. Ideology? Zealotry? Arcane license disputes? Well, it's nothing that'll get in the way of me and my word processor. Just wake me up if it gets larger, more bloated, slower... :)

Re:What's the issue again, I missed it...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Also missing: the facts :-)
Its not the JVM. We have that already.

Kaffe is probably the oldest of all open source JVM projects. It is cleanroom implementation of JVM, which means no Sun proprietary JVM source code contamination. Until recently, it did not have JIT... One open source JVM implementation from IBM is Jikes Research Virtual Machine (Jikes RVM).

Rather, its the libraries that are still needed. Here is a link to the 14 JVM's using GNU Classpath

GNU Classpath, Essential Libraries for Java", is a GNU project to create free core class libraries for use with virtual machines and compilers for the java programming language.

Re:What's the issue again, I missed it...

[psykocrime]

Well why don't you ask IBM to open up a JVM for you

They already did.

Re:Java isn't free and Sun isn't a friend to OSS

[stratjakt]

The .NET SDK (compilers and everything else you need) is free from MSFT.

For everything else, there's Mono and dotGNU, and plently of fledgeling C# compilers.

Blackdown isn't open source:

We each are dedicated to the professional development of the Java platform for Linux based on the community source concept. We see participation in the Blackdown project as a cutting-edge opportunity for intellectual cooperation between the open source community and the commercial software industry. We each are committed to abiding by the agreements we've made with Sun and other technology vendors. We aim to use their good will to further the cause of independence for software developers around the world. A bridge between the open source community and the commercial software development world is to everyone's advantage, and we would like to exemplify that relationship. We believe that the vendors with whom we partner are committed to the same ideals.

It's a free-for-non-commercial-use linux port of Java. It's stillborn in the corporate world.

crybabies

[pavera]

People are just being crybabies. All of the functionality that relies on java is new, and in my opinion non-core. Yes, they need to clean up the menu system so that choices that require java are greyed out if its not available, but 2.0 is worth it just for the ui enhancements and better filters.

Base is a lame Access knockoff that crashes all the time. It won't be stable until OOo 3. And why do we care if we can't use wizards, aren't we always lampooning MS for their endless "wizard to create xyz"?

What now we're mad cause someone used the best language available (to them) to produce some new features? I though FOSS was about choice, but I guess thats only if you pick the language that FOSS condones... You can pick anything as long as its lisp and emacs! Anyway, I'm not a java fanboy, I much prefer python or perl, but java does have its place and there are alot of coders who know it, so now we're saying you can't develop OSS in java.. that's a great stance to take.

Grow up, download the JRE, or don't whatever, I've been running the 2.0 beta since it was released without the JRE and I haven't missed anything, for what I need an office suite for it works great. To be true I did install the JRE to check out Base, but it sucks, and I ditched it after about 10 minutes.

Java isn't that bad

[Hannah E. Davis]

As others have said, this has been blown way out of proportion.

I'm not going to claim that it's my favourite language, nor am I going to pretend that I prefer it to something that's fully free/open source, but it serves its purpose. I'm a computer science student stuck somewhere between first and second year (I switched faculties, so I'm behind), so I've been learning both C and Java concurrently. Because the learning language is Java, I have more experience in that, but I find C more fun. However, I am not going to hop on the OMG! JAVA IS TEH SUCK!!11! bandwagon because it does have some merits. Some were mentioned by the article, but in my personal experience, the main thing that I like about it is its portability. If I'm looking to download a program that doesn't have to run fast, and I want to use it on both my Linux laptop and Windows desktop, I'll look for something written in Java so I don't have to worry about either Mandrake or Windows flatly refusing to run it. The extra (and basically one-time) step of downloading the latest version of Java onto my computer before I can run a Java app really doesn't compare to desperately Googling around for something that will definitely not screw up due to OS issues when I try to install it.

Ok, now... back to the article before I get too far off-topic. If Open Office works with Java bits in it, that's great. I don't use it much anyway, since emacs, vim, or even vi will normally serve my purpose.

What about the not good enough argument?

[LWATCDR]

"Although it's true that functionality is important, at what cost?"
Simple. Every and all costs. I program that is not "functional" is useless.
" Corporate adoption may be slowed, as OO.o isn't a completely "free, fully functional" product anymore."
I guess you are right here. I mean so many companies worry about using Java. I mean it is not like java is "free as in beer". Guess what? A huge number of corporations already use Java for internal development. Those that are not tied to VB or .net are Java shops. This non issue will not slow down deployment one bit.
This is yet another religion war that really means next to nothing. It is right up there with the GNU/Linux fight and BSD vs GPL.

My take on it:

[erroneus]

Okay after reading TFA, I think there is good reason for concern. I can also see the possibility of additional compiling projects. It's my understanding that since these are Java programs and there are programs that compile Java into binary. So I'm thinking we'll see custom OO.o distros featuring "now without Java dependancies!"

And why not? That's the primary strength of the Open Source movement -- don't like where a project is going? Fork or customize in some way. Ultimately the popularity of the standard package versus the customizations will steer the project in the most popular direction.... in theory. (There are some hard-headed asses out there who, as in the case of XFree86) won't bend to popular demand and a completel fork would result. But the bottom line? The public should have its way if it wants it bad enough.

Sun has a stake in the acceptance and popularity of Java. The motivation behind this should be fairly obvious. It's my understanding that in the future, Java itself will be open sourced and will ultimately take away a lot of the argument that many FOSS people have against this situation. (The other part, asside from the license stuff, is the poor performance... I hate Java performance sometimes...sometimes it really seems to drag.)

Eclipse

[bstadil]

And let's not get started on IDEs..

You are joking Right?

Esclipse

Re:Eclipse

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Visual Studio sucks - it does not run on Linux!

Re:Eclipse

[cheesybagel]

The Visual Studio editor cannot even do rectangular cut & paste, like Vim. Last time I checked it didn't autoindent code or integrate easily with CVS either. While Vim does.

Re:Eclipse

[cheesybagel]

I have used VS6. The indenting is not as sofisticated. IIRC it only keeps the indenting as you type. Vim will indent any text block, regardless of how mangled it is, with choice of style.

Besides a nicer UI, I have not found anything that VS and Vim does not, while I have found a lot of things Vim does which VS does not. This is Vim, which is simple and lean. If you go for Emacs, it also has a web browser, e-mail and news reader, Eliza and the kitchen sink.

Once you learn the Vim keybindings, it is *much* more productive to use for programming than Visual Studio. Your hands never have to leave the keyboard and there are loads of mnemonics. Just make sure you get a special reinforced Escape key.

What's wrong with Kaffe ? JikesRVM ? Using Java?

[javaxman]

What's the real issue ? Is the real issue simply that Sun wants to retain the right to define what Java(TM) is ?

Given that it's perfectly legal to implement a system like Kaffe, given that it exists, that it can be done if you absolutely must, what is the actual issue with using Java in Open Source projects? Lord knows there are _tons_ of FOSS projects written in Java out there...

If the issue is just the Sun license and the "non-official" status of projects like Kaffe, to that I just have to say, guys, get over yourself. If you don't like the Open Office folks writing functionality that depends on Java, write it in C or whatever your self and contribute it. Seriously.

As far as end users? They don't care what something is written in. They want something that works. To that end, placing yet another installation requirement in the chain isn't great, but at the same time, the vast majority of user installations ( including on Linux ) simply aren't complete without a working JVM anyway, so... what's the big deal again?

Re:Aww... first grammer nazi hit me...

[gardyloo]

My first grammer nazi reply!

*cough* :-)

Re:Java isn't free and Sun isn't a friend to OSS

[SunFan]

They should have used .NET, ironically, since it's much more free than Java is.

No freakin' way. .NET is 100% proprietary outside of the meaningless ECMA standards. Is this some sort of troll that completely tricked the moderators?

For what it's worth, Sun will be the largest contributor of OSS code in the world this Summer, if they aren't already.

No, but...

[benjcurry]

Are there any legit reasons that they didn't use an OSS alternative, like Python? It seems to satisfy all of the issues mentioned in the article...am I missing something?

Re:No, but...

[T-Ranger]

This is just based on reading the article, and some speculation on my part but: There is no "Python database". Yes, there are bindings for a crapload of DBs, but no reasonable ones implemented in Python There are likely more Java programmers then Python programmers, in general. There are definitly more Java programmers then Python programmers at Sun. A bunch of of Java developers actually produced some code. So it very much came down to "show me the code".

What the heck is the matter now?

[turgid]

Look, Sun makes Java, and it's closed soure.

Java is many things. It is a programming language. It is also a runtime environment in the form of a protable virtual machine. It also comes with a huge class library.

For some reason, that monkey Miguel went and decided to write his own version of M$'s Java clone, C#/.NET, for "Linux" (i.e. Unix-like OSes) to undermine everyone else's work.

Now, you can get branded Java from people other than Sun e.g. IBM. IBM is currently a great favourite of the slashdot peanut gallery.

In addition, gcc comes with a Java-language to native code compiler as well as byte code (to run on the evil, nasty closed-soure Sun (or IBM or whoever's) JVM).

If you don't like Sun, or IBM, or Blackdown or kaffe's JVM, including their JIT compilers which can optimise to exceed the efficiency of statically-compiled code, then you can always revert to gcc's Java language compiler.

However, I'm sure these facts will be conventiently ignored for the sake of a good, heated argument, and many rants.

Java, OpenOffice, and FreeBSD, oh my

[linguae]

Read my post if you want to have a feel for how difficult it is to install Sun's JDK on FreeBSD. There are so many twists and turns here that when I reinstalled FreeBSD, I decided to install Kaffe instead to learn Java with (needed for future classes; language use not under my control).

This may be flamebait, but one of the main reasons why I haven't used OpenOffice on my computer is due to these Java dependencies. OpenOffice not only requires Java, but it specifically requires the Sun JDK. Some users may be asking me, "What's the problem?" The problem with that is that there is no binaries for the JDK for FreeBSD 5.x, and that I must agree to a very restrictive license in order to download the sources. Next, I can't compile the sources into a redistributable package (because Sun says so, meaning that for every FreeBSD machine that I have I must compile Java manually, nor give Java packages to others), and I can't even look at the sources without being tainted for life. Finally, the compilation takes an extremely long time to finish.

Don't get me wrong. I like what I've heard about OpenOffice. But as long as OpenOffice is encumbered with Java code that requires the Sun JDK, I'm not using it. How many of you know the BSD story when the BSD developers got tired of AT&T due to its licensing (for those of you who don't know, BSD was originally based on AT&T Unix) and started rewriting the "encumbered" portions of their operating system? It would be great if some developers would do the same with the Java portions in OpenOffice.

To elaborate further, I feel that Sun's handling of Java is a nuisance. Java may be a nice language, but as long as its only really complete implementation of it remains licensed the way that it is, I won't code any open source projects with the Java language, and Java is never going to be a primary open source development language. Why should the code that I write be tied to a non-free, restrictively licensed runtime environment that only runs on the platforms that Sun says that it should run on? Python, Ruby, and even Microsoft's own C# (in the form of Mono) isn't encumbered by such restrictive licensing. Sun's slogan for Java was "write once, run everywhere." Well, it depends on what Sun consists of "everywhere." Since the operating system that I choose to use is considered "nowhere" by Sun, well, I guess that Sun's JDK is going to be "nowhere" near my machines again, and for all of the projects that require this JDK, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not installing them, either.

Re:Java, OpenOffice, and FreeBSD, oh my

[Dystopian Rebel]

Fellow FreeBSD user here.

You can build OO without Java:

make -DWITHOUT_JAVA

Re:Off topic, but...

[deanj]

Correction, he rips J2ME a new one.

The problem with J2ME is that phone companies have been adding their "extras" onto the platform or worse, not making them fulling compliant. Samsung's major HTTP screwup on the A500 is a great example of that.

As for Java being slow... give me a damn break. It's running on a PHONE!

So of the rest of that article, particularly the "no memset" and " the inability to read resources into anything but a char array" so a complete lack of understanding.

Blaming a language on a bad implementation of a JVM on a phone is just stupid.

Re:Open Office and Java integration makes me nervo

[Eric Savage]

The only time I got in an accident my vehicle had 4 wheels, so now I only drive a motorcycle.

On a more serious note: Do you honestly believe that a homegrown macro language would have been any more secure than choosing a language which they know they can get help from the project sponsor on? I would guess that Python was the second choice, and would have been trendier, but they would be more likely to get integration help from Sun than from the Python crew (for financial/marketing reasons, not because of a lack of benevolence on Python's part).

My problem with OpenOffice

[mi]

Is their insistence to include everything (and the kitchen sink) into their tarballs. And that includes Berkeley DB, stlport, jpeg, png, expat, freetype, zlib, sablotron, etc.

It truly is insane... I'm grateful, Sun's license does not allow them to bundle in their own Java in too...

Parent is right! This is just F/OSS zealotry

[Canberra Bob]

The usual response to anyone who wants anything included in a F/OSS project is "why dont you do it yourself? The developers do it to scratch their itch not yours"

The developers made a design decision for THEIR project. But oh no, thats no good because it's not what the F/OSS community wanted. Lets get this straight - its their project but they shouldnt use the language of their choice because others dont like it?

They're the developers, they decide what they do with it. Who are you to tell them what they should develop their own product in? So it doesnt conform to YOUR philosophy, so what? Sorry but this certainly smacks of zealotry. If you dont like it then fork it and create your own version of OOo.

Welcome to KDE-GNOME Redux

[SEE]

The Qt libraries were free, if not Free, and they made it easier to create an environment and apps that Just Worked. The result was a series of complaints, and when those failed, GNOME. TrollTech noticed that it was losing ground as distros favored Free Software over free software, and finally GPLed Qt.

If OO.o becomes harder and harder to run on GCJ, you're going to see the same thing. Maybe an OO.o fork, maybe a specific effort to create a different Free competitor. But dependence on a non-Free system component is going to create trouble; if OO.o wants to thrive in the long run, it's going to either need to be GCJ-compatible or have Sun open-source Java.

Re:Open Office and Java integration makes me nervo

[owlstead]

Java has a very good security record. Anyway, this java stuff has not to do anything with remote execution, just with application code. The chance that there is a buffer overrun in Java is very small (it would mean a serious bug in the JVM). No software is perfect, but Java has a much better security record than most execution environments out there (compare it for instance with ActiveX).

The problem is that there is little to choose from if you want rapidly developed, secure code. C++ code gets complex very fast, and is difficult to check for memory leaks, buffer overruns etc. PERL and Python are less maintainable. IDE's for Java are getting very easy to use as well. MONO, well, this IS a Sun project...

Java and OOo portability...

[soullessbastard]

Disclaimer: I am an OpenOffice.org Mac OS X developer and a founder of the NeoOffice project

One of the biggest problems with Java in OOo is the way that it's being used. Probably the largest volunteer developer community outside of Sun is in the porting project which mostly aims to recompile OOo onto other Unix and Unix-like platforms. Part of the portability lure is that the older architecture of OOo made porting easy; OOo itself has its own internal complete abstraction layers for operating system functionality, windowing, widgets, and the kitchen sink. By simply porting those layers, OOo could run anywhere and even the most obscure Unix variant could have access to a MS Office compatible office suite.

Java breaks that. Why? Not all of the platforms on which previous versions of OOo could be built have any official Java implementation (e.g. Linux/PPC).

Now, Java is no longer optional. Java is actually becoming a requirement not only for running OOo. Some of the build tools are becoming implemented in Java. What's worse, many of these newer Java-dependent features and build tools actually require a specific version of the VM in order to be functional (e.g. reliances on libraries distributed with Java 1.4+).

This choice leave platforms without Java in the cold, but sadly it also leaves platforms with outdated Java VM versions in the cold. I only hope this doesn't further cause headache for some of the intrepid 64 bit porters out there since I don't know of any VM that can be safely embedded in 64 bit apps yet.

Porting developers have raised this issue as far back as 2002 and earlier. There's no excuse for the Sun-dominated engineering of OpenOffice.org to have been ignorant of them. Instead of lowering the bar for the build process, the dependencies have just been injected into core functionality! It's sad when the pleas of some of the most prominent non-Sun volunteers to the project get blissfully ignored by the powers that be.

I don't have a problem with using Java for open source software since, after all, NeoOffice/J is dependent on Java. As NeoOffice/J is focused solely on Mac OS X, however, portability isn't one of the NeoOffice/J goals. For OOo, however, portability used to be one of its strengths and is still one of the strongest development communities within the project that doesn't originate from Sun. It's sad to see decisions made that alienate one of the only vibrant non-Sun communities.

While OOo has built a great community of marketing, translation, support, and evangelization volunteers, there is no substantial core developer community outside of Sun. Alienating the precious little that exists doesn't help the situation either. Unless there is serious effort to build up a non-Sun developer community, the project can only be doomed for failure when Sun cuts their development team (or goes out of business).

ed

Re:Open Office and Java integration makes me nervo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an idiotic statement in and of itself. Java is a language; or, in some contexts, a platform. What this means is just that what really matters are applications; NOT Java -- Java does not expose any security faults just by its existence.

And for what it's worth, as a language it is reasonably "safe" WRT appliation development, in that many of problems C/C++ apps have (buffer overruns etc.) do not exist due to code running on managed environment (same holds true for C#, Python, Perl, VB, etc).

As to your Java virus... that sounds like a hoax to me -- Java applets do not have enough access to create viruses of any kind. So the only way for a virus to exist would be to write a full java app that you'd have to execute, just like any other app.

More progress being held back

[bonch]

And once morethe FOSS community illustrates how it kills itself. A free, viable, functioning alternative to Office, and people get upset because it doesn't fit their personal definition of "free" enough.

Get some priorities. Sheesh. Only in this community do these minor issues get blown up into huge flamewars over nothing. "It's not FREE enough!" Who the hell cares, it works and it's free to use!

Re:More progress being held back

[GreyWolf3000]

Get some priorities.

I see 'progress' holds higher priority to you than freedom, but for many of us the reverse is true. You seem to just want an operating system gratis without any concern over the value structure that has created this operating system in the first place.

I'm sorry you don't value software freedom (it's your choice). However, implying that F/OSS software has some manifest destiny to take over the world and that any decision must advance that goal is just silly. Why do we need an alternative to Office then? Because it's expensive? What about Windows? It comes with most computers and I hear these days it's pretty stable.

This is probably the greatest argument I've seen against making Windows ports of free software--people get hooked but learn nothing of the value of software freedom. Without those values, users often adopt a very selfish "gimme gimme" attitude.

And once morethe FOSS community illustrates how it kills itself.

Nonsense. Once more the free software community demonstrates that it is unwilling to stop working until a completely free desktop is available. Many distributions that don't care so much about software freedom are more than welcome to add whatever proprietary junk they're legally entitled to; for those who choose to prioritize software freedom, I hope they also get what they want.

Java for Win/Linux/Mac

[smartsaga]

So people use Java when releasing applications for multiple platforms. What's the big deal? The JRE costs nothing to companies anyways.

Why use .NET to program if you can't get the windows and controls to work on MONO on linux?? GTK runs on Linux and Windows but no Mac support without installing X11. Installing X11 might be a pain for most Mac users, let alone that adds another step and requirement on the Mac side.

Why do people dislike Java so much? Is it because it takes to much RAM when using Eclipse to program or NetBeans??? Is it because it's not easy enough for people to program?? What the hell??

Java it's free, IDEs for development are free, it runs on Macs, Linux, BSD, Unix, Windows, etc, etc, etc... My point is... WTF??? It's like we say in spanish "peladito y a la boca" can't be any easier to develop for multpiple platforms having all the tools.

I say people are just ging nuts over peanuts.

Your multiplatform programing are belong to us... get it??

Have a good one.

Much easier than it seems

[tromey]

Apparently mere mention of "java" makes people go insane.

OO.o 2.0 is already working on free JVMs. FC4 is shipping this, along with Eclipse, Tomcat, and a ton of other stuff. We've got jonas running as well, just not quite ready to ship.

One reason - speed & resources

[ivoras]

OOo 1.1 was NOT a speed demon on any platform. Most people I know who tried to use it on slower platforms (1GHz or less) claim it's slower than MS Word from circa Office 2000. Also, its startup time is really bad on whatever platform.

I tried OOo 2.0 beta on Windows and was unpleasently surprised. There were *no significant changes* in its ugly-ish user interface (other than it finally supports XP skins and Impress has slide sorter as dockable thingy; actually the ONLY thing i liked in OOo2 is more options in PDF conversion - too bad SWF support is stalling) and it's very bloated. Since it requires Java, especially in the database component/client, it's practically unusable - it devours memory and CPU for event the simplest operations.

Now, this is very bad PR. Consider a company with somewhat older computers and OS+Office (e.g. Win98, Office 97 or 2000) wishing to switch to Linux - that scenario is getting less likely by the day (If said company, for whatever reason (faster? smaller?) chooses FreeBSD, it will have even more problems w/java):

• User interfaces on newer Linux distributions are getting waaaay too memory-hungry (ref: a Slashdot article a while ago about bloat in Gnome)
• OpenOffice.org is getting bloated even faster

Unfortunately, OOo is still the only Open-source product out there that can reasonably understand MS Office file formats.

the other fallout

[LordMyren]

they forgot to mention the other fallout: the one between the developers and the people who like text to appear as they type.

java is slow - John Carmack, Command Keen programmer.

Free-er solution...

[MsGeek]

Fork OO.o. The source is out there. Create a Free Software-correct fork of OO.o, call it "Free And Open Office" and go to town. Replace the database module with MySQL or PostgreSQL or whatever database you want. Hack out anything and everything that you don't like. F/OSS sees proprietariness as damage and routes around it.

Screenshots

[julie-h]

How do you exspect me to comment on the story, when there is no pictures or screenshots?

Ever heard of Glade?

[cheesybagel]

Here's a link. It generates XML files with the UI that can be using by Python via libglade.

The real issues

[FedeTXF]

The real issues are:
1) There is not a good enough database written in pure C/C++ as there are in Java: HSQL, Apache Derby
2) There is not a good JVM/runtime packages with an opensource license.

So instead of whining OOo uses some non free component to get more market share and please its users, start helping the gcj, classpath and other projects. When RMS did nto have a Free OS he did not turn to 1940 information handling methods, he started making one.

With all the ppl bitching...

[ShieldW0lf]

With all the developers bitching about Java and the fact that it's not free, and considering the fact that there is a massive base of Java users and developers that are friendly to the idea of a *nix system to be won over, they sure do seem to be dragging their feet at getting an up to date free JVM.

Java is one of those things that you CONSTANTLY see ppl in the free software camp bitching about. Why don't they bloody well put their heads together, through their weight behind one of the many free software projects out there that are working on the problem and clean-room reimplement the damn thing if it's such an issue?

Even if they couldn't make a free JVM and call it Java, they could still include it all the distributions configured to drive things like OOo. I can't imagine that an OpenOffice 2.0 Kaffe Edition (or whatever the JVM clone turns out to be called) would be such a big task if everyone stepped up to the plate where the JVM was concerned.

Re:With all the ppl bitching...

[putaro]

It's not the JVM so much (though the OSS versions are a bit lacking there). It's the class libraries. Java has a very large and functional set of class libraries. If they're not available Java by itself is not terribly interesting. GNU has the GNU Classpath project which has been muddling along for a long time to recreate all of these libraries.

Great acronym

[subStance]

Heheh - I love that the acronym would become FOO.org. That ought to win over the geek crowd at least.

I care.

[ta bu shi da yu]

I don't run Linux to run a non-free operating system, and I find OpenOffice to be a vital part of my distribution. Java, I'm afraid, is not open. A reliance on Java is not a good thing, even if the Java bindings for UNO are much cleaner than the C++ counterparts.

Re:Open Office and Java integration makes me nervo

[jrumney]

I have been reading here on slashdot since a few days ago mentions of java virus(es), but I haven't actually read anyone mention of such a virus's name or what it does. Could somebody expand on this? Are these viruses applets that take advantage of a security hole in a browser's JVM [Sun's or MS's]? Are people finding plain malware or do they actually replicate by infecting executables?

They're trojans really, not viruses, as they do not spread themselves, usually they act as a vector for installing malware. The most common one takes advantage of a bytecode verifier bug in the MS JVM, which Sun allowed MS to patch in release 3012 (distributed as a critical update to Windows since about 2 years ago), despite being ordered by a court not to continue to release updates to their JVM.

There was a vulnerability with 1.4.2_04 (or maybe _05?) and earlier JVMs recently, but I have yet to see an exploit in the wild. People are probably becoming alarmed because their virus detection is picking up a "virus", since the exploit code was downloaded from a porn or warez site they visited, but if they are running an up to date JVM, then the exploit code was not executed, so its mere presence in the cache is not cause for concern in itself.