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Open source Java?
Bruce writes "Newsforge is reporting that Java 2 Standard Edition, may soon be set free of Sun Microsystems' notoriously complicated licensing. A group of 12 Apache developers have put together a proposal called Harmony. The proposal appeared as a simple project call last Friday on an Apache incubator mailing list. It would make this new, built-from-the-ground-up version of Java available under the Apache 2.0 free software license. And it's causing quite a stir in the Java community, especially since respected Sun frontmen Tim Bray, Simon Phipps, and Graham Hamilton have given the project their blessing. As yet there has been no reaction from Dr. Java, James Gosling himself, who is in Brazil talking to developers. In a FAQ on the Apache site, Harmony project leader Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote: 'We believe that there is broad community interest in coming together to create and use an open source, compatible implementation of J2SE 5, the latest version of the Java 2 Standard Edition specification. While the Java Community Process has allowed open source implementations of JSRs for a few years now, Java 5 is the first of the J2SE specs that we are able to do due to licensing reasons.'"
I think this "quite a stir in the community" is wishfull thinking. The Java community at large doesn't care much about an open source Java. People want to or have to write code, not fighting holy OSS wars.
This is a home-made a storm in a teacup. There is already an initiative to create a free Java: GNU GJC. And no one cares about it. The Apache people are just running some propaganda now, but it will be forgotten in a few weeks.
Bringing open source Java runtimes to fruition should be an important step for open source java projects that are currently held back from entering distributions and packages because of this requirement. Also the requirement of Sun Java to use Java 5 on Linux (this situation may have changed..) would be a good thing to challenge.
Having such a fundamental and established organization like the Apache project behind the effort should really aid & help to posture this effort within the wider open-source community.
Business Voyeur
Well, can you run GPLed Java software on the Sun JVM?
Let's get real, folks. Critical thinking isn't that difficult.
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GPL and Apache licenses aren't quite compatible.
Since the GPL doesnt allow for distribution of code under any other license, then its not compatable with any other license. Other licenses are compatable with it, but its most certainly not a two way thing.Sometimes different ideologies foster competition, just as Firefox has forced MS to reopen development on IE 7, the GPL license forces people with more broader ideologies to create competitors to GPLed projects.
Why start from scratch? It this simply because the Apache folks don't like the GPL?
Actually it hasn't been decided if they will start from scratch yet. They might adopt an existing VM. They might adopt the GNU Classpath class library.
The discussions on checking up the inevitable licensing issues are already underway.
Scenario 1: You as an end user wouldn't have to. It would be included with your operating system, which is not currently the case. If you have to seek one out you would probably seek out Sun's, but if your Linux distro came with Apache's you would just use it unless it was unsuitable in some way.
Scenario 2: You develop Java apps. Right now you have to direct end users to another website (Sun's) and follow instructions found there to download and install Java. You could instead offer an install package that already includes Harmony.
Scenario 3: You want to use Java on an unsupported machine. Right now you don't really have many options for running Java apps on PocketPCs, for example (Like my Jornada 568). An Open Source JVM would almost certainly be ported a wide variety of platforms (considering how many platforms have reimplementations like Waba attempted for them the demand is obviously there).
Sun won't even take reasonable steps to allow distros to pre-install Java. Yes, it is simple for me to install Java after the fact. It is a legal licensing pain to distros to offer well integrated Java installs. That is one problem.
The other problem is that only platforms that are directly important to Sun or IBM get full featured Java environments. Java on PowerPC Linux is still substandard. IBM makes a JVM availiable but you have to jump through hoops even as an end user to get it and you still don't have a browser plugin. An Open Source Java would be available on just about all platforms with equal functionality.
Ever tried running Java on *BSD? It works to some extent, but it isn't pretty. Having an open implementation could mean that Java and Java Server Pages would become more widely accepted in servers running open systems.
The GPL is incompatible with the Apache licence, not visa-versa. And there's much more Java code under the Apache licence than under the GPL.
Something clearly makes it hard to re-implement Java
I'd like to tender a vote for "It's sheer Brobdingnagian size". Individually, each individual function of an API is something you could probably assign a college student to do, but taken together, to re-implement something like Java (which, like "Perl" or "Python" and unlike old-style "C" or ECMAScript, also implies a fairly sizable standard library) is just damned hard.
And as one lil' open source developer, I can't work up much excitement about re-implementing a language spec. (Full disclosure, I hate Java, but that statement is generally true; I can't think of any language I'd care to donate my time towards re-implementing.) I can't imagine this helps the developer pool. (Obviously this is not true of everyone, if you think I just claimed otherwise please learn to read what people say, not what you think they said. I'm just saying that I doubt this gets many people's blood pumping in a way that Yet Another Web Framework or YA MP3 Player seems to.)
We don't just need a Open Source Java, we need a Open Source Java implementation fit for production use.
To produce such a thing, we need a community of competent people committed to that goal. This is what other Open Source Java projects lack.
To get such community going, one needs to communicate in a certain manner. This is what the Harmony people are now doing. The strenght of this project is, to me, that it has both excellent technical competence and competence in community management and in setting and achieving goals in a reliable manner.
This attempt is getting so much attention because senior people who understand that there is more to life than mere technical details pay attention when people who have a track record in producing results, speak.
And when they finally look at doing so, all I see people saying are things like "We already have GJC, you fuckers... we don't need you anymore".
I just don't get it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The GPL is the license the market has picked.
No, Apache is. Many many more companies run Linux as a free way to run Apache than use Apache only because the chose Linux.
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