Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0 5/07/1254211&tid=108&tid=8
That there was an open source java project already, BlackDown. I fail to see what the big deal is here really, and arn't the Java standards open anyways and anybody could just write up an open JVM/Compiler? I mean nothing is stopping anybody on /. (or in the world) from writing say their own C Compiler, or Lisp compiler, or their own Virtual machine software, once you know the hardware of the target system it shouldn't be complicated to get a "working" emulation/compiler. Now for performance you would probably be better off using an existing solution, but thats why we have Sun's Compiler.
I liked this story better when it was posted a week ago.
C'mon, "editors". This has to be getting embarrassing. Right?
Read my blog.
Why start from scratch? It this simply because the Apache folks don't like the GPL?
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.
Why does this attempt get so much attention? There are plenty of existing attempts at getting a free java, why does apache feel the need to start a new one?
I am trolling
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.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
What is interesting is that another project by this name got started during the QT is BAD days. Several developers started the "Harmony" project to replace the QT library with a GPL'd clone. Trolltech relicensing the library stopped this in it's tracks.
;-)
Odd how history DOES repeat itself
Have you compiled your kernel today??
This is not embarassing. It's news that is good enough to repeat.
I can't wait for Java to be fully open source so I can gut it and re-release it how I would like to see it written. Can't wait.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Harmony, thats an interesting name. Its the same name that was used when QT was going to be replaced. Hum is Harmony going to be the name of the closed source killers?
when this topic dies down. As a Java developer for the past 7 years, can someone remind me as to how Java will benefit from being open source? Sun along with the JCP has done an incredible job in advancing the platform. Java is the number one development environment for business applications. Bar none.
Why would someone encourage fragmentation and resource wasting ala KDE, Gnome and the gazzillions of Linux flavors is beyond me.
Sun, keep up the great stwerdess of the Java platform.
Seems to be a difference in the way the licenses deal with patent issues.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Perhaps a usable F/OSS Java implementation would quelch the OpenOffice.org 2.0 and Java issues...
Didn't Sun and Kodak have some patent dispute over Java a while ago where Kodak won. What risks would this Apache projects involve with respect to Kodak patents?
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Zonk, you are an embarassement, an icon of shame for this website.
/. archives before accepting news submissions.
You've been around long enough now. Time to start quickly checking
I hope you're really, really ashamed of the multiple editorial failures you're responsible for. Time to step up and do something about it, man ! No need to follow bad examples !
And I choose not to go AC to say that.
What makes this slightly interesting is the IBM connection:
Geir Magnusson Jr. is a lead in the proposed Har mony Project
Geir Magnusson Jr. is from Gluecode, which IBM has acquired.
If it weren't for that, I'd just say "yeah, whatever - it's just another JVM implementation."
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).
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.)
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 fact of the matter is that there are certain of Sun's terms that don't suit the business model or philosophy of other parties. Harmony will provide a way to provide a version of Java that is compatible with those interests.
I'm a power user that doesn't need support for my operating system, so there's no reason to buy the boxed versions other than to provide financial support to the vendor or to acquire software the distribution is prohibited from providing for free download due to licensing restrictions -- like Java. It doesn't make sense to pay to get something free.
Kaffe and GCJ don't cut it because they are not completely compatible to the spec and their performance is woeful compared to Sun's JVM, let alone JRockit or J9. This will provide a version of Java that distro vendors and others can bundle with their products on terms compatible with their licenses, business models, or other philosophical beliefs.
If you aren't going to read the link, don't moderate the post. Its a troll post from a troll weblog.
Utter nonsense. Let's count the number of distinct implementations of Perl, Tcl, Ruby, Visual Basic...
Languages that are reimplemented frequently tend to be small, simple and appeal to language weenies (scheme, *ML) and/or there's money to be made.
The specs for Java have always been completely open. Anyone can reimplement it. The only restriction is that you can't call it Java unless it meets the spec (and proving that it meets the spec is, quite understandably, nontrivial because Java is a large, complex language).
If you like Java but want to change a few things, you're even free to do that, as long as you call it something else, like C#.
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
What typically happens is that some company has a neat idea for an embedded device. But they quickly find that the Java applications they want there won't fly because Java isn't supported on the hardware they were planning to use. They either have to fall back to a different CPU (which is usually more expensive), or pay a lot just to put Java on the CPU. Or go with C/C++ for their applications.
x86 and PPC are simply not the entire embedded world. There are many other superb (and cheaper) solutions out there, in this space. And no, Java support is far from prevalent on MIPS processors, despite what MIPS might try to claim. I know, as I've been there.
Please keep in mind that there are far more embedded CPUs around than there are PCs or Servers. So there is a clear need for Java, if it were available in this space. But it's not. gcc however, usually is, fortunately.
If Java were indeed Open Sourced, it just might be as popular as gcc is in the embedded space. Until then, people in the embedded space have far more flexibility by going with C/C++ than with Java.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
I don't know so much about the apache license, but anyway, not everyone wants GPL you know. I for sure don't. First because I can't look into someones code, "borrow" some implementation and use my code for whatever. Secondly if all computer software was GPLed how would any programmers earn their money? Donations? Code stuff for money because the functionality aren't there in the first place?
Yeah, ask the main PR man for a competing product what he thinks of more competition. You're bound to get some unbiased answers.
.Net vs. Java, they are so close to identical it's not even funny. As to the implementation, neither GCJ, Kaffe or Mono is 'there' yet in terms of quality, at least not in my experience. If we just leave people to do their hacking, evolution will weed out the bad implementations and we'll have the best tools available.
Personally I don't see how anyone can care about
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
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.
--> Fight tyranny and repression.... read
Did anyone else read this as, "java gods declare sun evil, fork and establish new and open authority to replace them?"
Something about the overall tone seemed to imply that they weren't just writing an implementation, but intended it to supercede Sun's closed implementation.
Sounds good really.
From the PHBs' point of view, more maintainable code is more valueable than more efficent/faster developed code because it means they can treat the developers as interchangeable units they can add or remove on demand. Filling a Java opening is easy, filling a Lisp opening would be a nightmare.
If you need to write applications that run on platforms not supported by Java, er, how about not using Java? There are certainly many other solutions out there that are quite lovely. Sun's Java does a good job on the important platforms. How many people run PPC Linux? Not so many. I do, but not having the latest, greatest Java VM is hardly killing me. My point is that the problem is not so big that it warrants wasting all this time, especially since other people are already working on solving the problem. Compatibility is always going to be an issue with with the OS VM versus Sun's VM, so why not just do something entirely new altogether? You can't seriously think that Java is the best we can achieve. Beating Sun at their own game is impossible. Instead, let's create something new if it is really necessary, which I'm not convinced it is.