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FSF, OpenOffice.org Team Reach Agreement on Java
Bruce Byfield points out his NewsForge (part of OSTG) article about something good coming out of the conflict over Java in OpenOffice.org. It begins "A dispute between the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and OpenOffice.org (OOo) over the increased use of Java in the upcoming version 2.0 release of OOo is over
-- at least for now. The two groups have found a short-term solution, and are working together on
ways to keep the dispute from happening again." The story provides a decent background on why it matters, and shows a surprisingly conciliatory attitude on both sides.
Will this always happen when a product reached the popular user base? I think there should be more work to integrating OSS project with Non OSS projects. Either making Non-OSS projects with OSS Prerequisite and vice versa. If OSS it is about freedom, why do they make it difficult for us to choose a non free development method? If you become to popular then you will be forced to use OSS tools except for what the developers think is the best tool for the job. We should be able to develop without the Free Software Organizations Pressuring us to make our legally developed products fit their idea on what is Free Software. If this is played out to the full extent then we are just as stuck as those who choose to use non-OSS products because we are forced to choose between what is available OSS. I believe in freedom as me as a developer to allowed to choose what tools I wish to use, and for other to assume that I have weighed the Pros and Cons of my choices. This type of stuff that happens is why commercial companies are weary of OSS.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
only official Java APIs are allowed to be used
This was already being done. There was a plugin interface that hooked into the AWT layer of the JVM, but that was something that was easily replacable by other VMs. Previous versions of OOo (probably from back when it was StarDivision property) used hidden APIs, but this was cleaned up in the 2.0 edition.
Java JRE interested parties provide the support code and take care
of QA, bugs etc.
This sounds like they're moving the plugin code out of OpenOffice and into the JVM. Technically, this is where it belongs, but it's always nice to be able to support the largest number of VMs possible.
OOo Java implementations must be encapsulated with well specified APIs
This is just good engineering design. If you can't produce readable JavaDocs from it, it isn't a good API.
OOo Java implementations must not check against Java versions or
vendors, with the only exception of workarounding bugs
Again, this is just common sense. Checking version numbers is a good way to nail yourself in the foot on future releases.
OOo Java implementations must not use swing, either because no free
swing implemetation is available or because it makes the user interface
inconsistent, this rule might be relativated in respect to 4
This is just common sense anyway. Using Swing would be detrimental to the GUI unless it was decided that the entire GUI framework would move at once. Such a decision would involve the entire OOo community.
the Java baseline is 1.3.1
This is the only concession I see being made. (1.4 & 1.5 have some *really* nice features.)
The amusing part about this is that the whole tirade against Java in OOo is nothing but a farce. A quick check of the 2.0 code finds almost nothing that violates these "concessions", and they amount to nothing more than diplomacy anyway. (i.e. The art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a big stick.)
The truth is that Sun has bent over backwards for the OSS community, and all they get for their troubles are painful stabs in the back. Yeah, Sun's got some loud mouths working for them. But their actions have ALWAYS been honorable. Despite all the nonsense about "contamination", has anyone EVER had Sun sue them? I've certainly never heard of a case! And when Sun realized that the language was confusing, they updated future source releases with new language that EXPLICITY gives developers rights to whatever they remember. So no more excuses! If you want an OS Java platform, code it. Sun sure as hell isn't standing in your way.
BTW, Mr. Stallman. How's Hurd coming along?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"Points out his Newsforge about a something good..." Is this a quote from Zero Wing?
It is not an easy thing to write a balanced and informing article about this issue, but Bruce Byfield suceeded in this and we all owe him our thanks for that. I think that there is a great deal of good will on both sides of this discussion and we should *all* try as hard as we can to built upon this good will. By calling each other names we can only all end up loosing. We need not always fully agree with each other, but we should try to accommodate each other as much as possible and try to stress that which we have in common.
This was also posted on the NF page.
ask him politly and then ram a flopyy where the sun dont shine..
/use the self extracting installer,Or use Blackdown or simmilar open source VM implementations if you a GNU hardliner
seriously though.
Its dependant on your distro , if you use an rpm based distro then go to the sun site and download the RPM
If you have a debian based distro then you could try with the self extracting installer or use blackdown which i belive is in many many repositorys.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Too bad they dont use something like TCL-TK or Ruby... but I kow why that is. There's a hell-uva lot of programs and libraries to use for free(as in gpl'ed).
There's a hell of a lot more for Java. For example, there's no other platform that has as many high quality, cross platform database drivers. And for that matter, Java has quite a few free database engines (HSQL, McKoi, Derby (Cloudscape, etc.) At the end of the day, there simply isn't any other solution that's as well supported and ubiquitous as Java.
At the risk of starting a flamewar, I have to say that I'm proud to have been a vocal early adopter that helped Java reach the status it has today. It's a good language, a good platform, hosted by a good company, and supported by many. Only the original Unix platform had such a profound effect on the industry.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Well why not, after the damage is done and they have made themselves look very very stupid.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
As opposed to the type of zealotry which some people say is killing Debian.
What concessions did the "other side" make?
Bottom line: policy
"What we need is a way to distribute a version of OpenOffice that we can count on not to encourage people to use any non-free programs. If the developers of OpenOffice want to maintain their version with this policy, that would be ideal. Until recently I assumed that they did maintain it this way, but it appears they don't: with the current policies, any release of OpenOffice might depend on a non-free program merely because that was the fastest way to implement something. (...) We need a policy decision by the OO developers." (Stallman)
So, yeah, big mistake by OO.org developers. It remains to be seen if they even understand the point of this policy.
Because, remember, Java does not run everywhere and the JVM is proprietary, and you can't ship it freely.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Sorry Richard
Feedback wanted on how the different distributions are handling this, plus pacakge build instructions.
If you're an author and may ever work with third-party libraries, plug-ins or, in the future, web services, multiply license your work and make sure LGPL is in the list.
Most of my work has been GPL or BSD, but in retrospect I'd have better with a medium-severity license like the Lesser/Library GPL. Read RMS's article about why not to use the LGPL, and understand the trade-off you're making.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Is StarBasic not powerful enough to use for creating wizzards and dialogs? Is there more heavy lifting that really needs Java? Or is this a matter of more people know how to code in Java vs. StarBasic?
"It's blatantly obvious when a programmer is using them from the "import sun.xyz.abc", so flame the programmer, not Sun."
and when the programmers are at sun using a sun language?
I said "more free", not "free-est thing evar!!11". Granted, truly free wouldn't involve a license of any sort.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
I'm shocked that Stallman allows GNU software to run on patented microprocessors and copyrighted, proprietary BIOS'es, without declaring jihad.
--
make install -not war
Many in the OSS community believe in soup-to-nuts software freedom, i.e. not only should the source to an app be open, but dependencies shouldn't exist on non-open software or libraries.
The proposal to use GCJ was a good one, and I think raising these issues benefits open source even though it exposes the frictions between the players in the movement.
They're forking the code so it can be compiled with CGJ (GNU compiler for java).
Ta-da.
The reason this is so important is that if all the source is openly available, nobody can make it go away. It's essential to avoid "drug dealer marketing" - the first one is free, but then it's going to cost you. There have been too many products that started out "open", and then started to cost money once they had users locked in.
The typical progression for psuedo-free software is
Examples are Intellicad, Sendmail, and QNX
Nice article, until he makes it sound like having priciples is a bad thing. The issue with FSF is not one of "conscience" but of licenses that can/will be an impedient of free use of the software. This goes beyond conscience and ventures into the realm of property rights that typically can deny others of free use. That is why Stallman in the past warned of the issue of using Sun Java.
I think OOo need to look at FSF as representing customers that have a particular demand and accomodate that demand. All too often critics misuse the word "conscience" to disparage FSF community (customers) demands.
This is simple "marketing 101" -- listen to the demands of your customers
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
However, I don't trust him as far as I can kick him. He had proved to me that he will always overreact to every situation, and suggest solutions that he is incapable of executing himself.
You *can't* be serious! Stallman has been one of the most reliable people in the computer industry. You can *always* be sure which side of the argument he'll be on--even if it's not always your side.
Personally, while I hold software freedom (in the FSF sense) as a value, I don't hold it as the ultimate value. In that sense, I don't find myself, in practice, always siding with Stallman, but it's absurd to say you can't trust him.
Also notice how far along the QT replacement project has gotten. Interesting, isn't it?
Yes, fascinating, it prompted Trolltech to release QT under the GPL. One 100% free QT. Total success.
Blackdown is open source? Really? Wow, I can't find a single link to the source on their website. And Kaffe is really not up to snuff for arbitrary code.
We've got a source-available proprietary 3rd party library in our code. It's a C++ program. No big deal.
It's just their equivelent of ./configure is written in Java. So, I've spent a big chunk of my time on the Linux on PowerPC port (to an RPM-based distribution, of course--Red Hat Enterprise Linux) in hunting down a JVM that is compatible with both the stupid configure program and the Linux distro in use.
So, even without being a GNU hardliner, the proprietary nature of Java is extremely frustrating--especially when the product you're working with doesn't even use Java once you get the damn thing built.
Personally, I was more than a bit disheartened when I first found out about how much of OOo 2.0 required Java. While Portable OpenOffice 1.1.4 worked quite well on machines without Sun's JRE installed, I was rather worried how Portable OpenOffice 2.0 would fare (just compiled a test alpha using the latest UPX beta, etc). If they split out a version that didn't require Java installed, I'd probably base Portable OpenOffice on that instead.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
5 steps?
This "I have a right to YOUR source code" nonsense goes past what "free" really means.
I suspect you don't understand what exactly is "free" in this situation.
The GPL makes sure the code stays free. Remember "information wants to be free"? The FSF doesn't care about the programmers, as long as the code remains free.
If you don't like it, don't use the GPL, don't contribute code to a GPL project, and for heaven's sake don't use the Linux kernel because you're too cheap to come up with an OS of your own or buy a ready-made one for your dvd player then whine when people bitch at you.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Ok. But BSD being "more" free is not really in dispute... at least I don't think it is. What's in dispute is whether or not BSD is a better licensing model than GPL. As someone who's published GPL licensed code, I don't really consider the BSD license that much. Mainly because it would irk me to no end if I bought a piece of software from someone else, and it turned out to have my code in it!
BSD is great (IMHO) for things like reference implementations (e.g. for TCP/IP). For things that you want implemented everywhere. But if you don't want your code ending up proprietary then it's not as good. GPL is better at keeping your code open.
Which is to say that there are advantages to each license, and it's not obvious to me that either is inherantly better than the other.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Er um when you use BSD code aren't you saying "I have a right to YOUR source code"?
evil is as evil does
*Sigh*
Is Java Free Software? Nope. Not yet, it isn't.
*Cough*
Excuse me, but Java IS Free. That is, GCJ and the Classpath version. That is Java, and it's Free. It's hard to put it any more plainly, when the whole artcle was about making sure OOo used Free Java!!!
The Sun VM is not Free. But the Sun JVM is not Java. It's an instance of it.
I never even understood why this was such a big deal when the solution outlined in the story was the obvious way forward - make sure OOo works with GCJ. Problem solved and much easier that re-wrting HSQLDB in some other languge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...is why I use AbiWord and Gnumeric.
I was persuaded blackdowns jvm was gnu , perhaps i picked up the wrong end of the stick somewhere.e .html?hl=com&cbn=0:J:0:: .
http://rpmseek.com/rpm-pl/j2se1.4-blackdown-sourc
there seems to be a source rpm for it
i cant see it on the site itself , perhaps i am confusing two things though
I appoligise for any disinformation if i was mistaken .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
It's interesting that OOo has become so influential that the FSF has decided to poke their noses into it. I for one think that making OOo's java code work with GCJ is a great idea and makes it easier on those of us who don't want to have to download Sun's VM. But I also find it a big disturbing that the FSF has the gall to make demands on projects they don't own.
...and KHTML. Would you rather that kind of relationship existed between Sun and OOo? So far, what Sun has value-added to OOo is minimal and has not affected the overall operation of OOo. You don't see Sun making impossible changes to OOo like Apple has with KHTML.
Is KHTML benefiting from Apple? Sure. Much? Not compared to what Apple is getting out of it. I thank God the situation is different here. While I understand Stallman's point, I just wish there was a little more respect or understanding for Sun's considerable efforts in what is a difficult time economically for them.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
This is the self protection of the GPL and LGPL. It's saying that since I allow you to benefit from my work, you agree to allow me to do the same with yours. It's called collaboration. I've seen a bunch of programs with the BSD licence get used by proprietary software without having anything ever contributed back.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
This "I have a right to YOUR source code" nonsense goes past what "free" really means.
I'm sorry, but I have a big problem with this attitude. Someone writes something and shares it with anyone who cares to use it. All they ask is that if you modify the software and distribute your new version that you share your source code changes. If you don't like it, don't take the deal. But complaining that a GPLed software author didn't give you everything you want is going a bit far.
Arguing which license is "more free" is like arguing which ice cream chocolate or vanilla tastes better.
AccountKiller
I'd also like to see any posts that use the phrases "just works", "just don't get it" or "the debian way" automatically modded -5; -10 if they are capitalized a la "The Debian Way". Posts that preface Linux with "GNU/" should be modded "Tiresome, Even to Friends".
The best thing of all is if a really stable Free version of Java comes about, then there is no "Java Trap" anymore.
That really was the most efficient solution, and Stallman being the eminent software developer realized this when he had all the facts.
Really I feel it unfair to label Stallman a "zealot" when really it should be more like "informed and stubborn for the good of all".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
more "free"?
The question is "more free for whom".
The BSD licences allow anyone to use the code for any purpose, but that can include taking a free software project proprietary. The GPL guarantees that a project cannot be taken and turned into something proprietary.
RMS and the people who agree with him want to maximize the freedom of the end-user, even at the expense of the developer. The most extreme case of this is that RMS would like to require that all new software be released under GPL.[1] Very, very few people agree with this idea.
Note that the GPL has some cool points. IBM was willing to license some patents to Linux for free, because Linux is GPLed. IBM can allow Linux to use its technology but can still charge money to anyone who wants to use this technology in proprietary applications. There is no chance that IBM will ever release any patented technology under a BSD license, since IBM would no longer be able to charge any royalties on that technology.
Some coders hate the thought that their labour of love might be taken by someone else and turned proprietary. Those coders will prefer to release code under GPL. Other coders like the thought that anyone can do anything with their code, and they might even hate the thought of someone having to re-create similar code because of a licence incompatibility. Those coders will prefer a BSD-style license. Personally, I'm glad we all have this choice.
[1] Google for the whole "Freedom Zero" debate. ESR made a public challenge to RMS: if you could pass a law requring all software to be released under the GPL, would you? RMS declined to answer. It's pretty clear he would, since he rejects the idea that "he who writes the code chooses the licence" (RMS wrote that this idea isn't "Freedom Zero", it is "Power Play Zero" because the coder is exerting power over the poor, poor users). Here, I googled and found it for you: Freedom or Power?
ESR's challenge Freedom, Power, or Confusion?
BTW, Mr. Stallman. How's Hurd coming along?
Really, your post I thought was pretty good, but this last bit doesn't do the rest justice. Hurd doesn't have the mindshare to make the kind of rapid progress Linux does. What's that to you?
The bottom line here is that Stallman has an agenda. A political agenda. A political agenda based on his philosophical principles. What's wrong with that? And, in this case, he was able to draw some attention to, and to advance the aims of his political agenda. Which is what people with political agendas do.
Since, in the end, he didn't really do any harm to OO, and may even bring it some resources it needs (developers and testers), the final results are win-win, which is an uncommonly good outcome for a political dispute. Granted, a person with a more personable character might have got to the win-win scenario with considerably less heat and fuss, but unfortunately, my experience is that by in large the world effectively ignores those kinds of people unless they have the kind of credibility that only comes with having piles of money at their command. If things were different, then the world would probably be a better place.
Even good people rarely place principle as high as convenience. Incidents like the recent Linuxworld editor ultimatum over Ms. O'Gara's nastiness are, unfortunately, a rarity. For most of the rest of us, principles are really just a vague, far away abstraction, whereas convenience and profit are very clear and immediate. Right and wrong would never play a role in any decision we make, if it weren't for the fear of exposure.
So, we are stuck with gadflies, who vary widely in their admirability, but are universally unlikeable. Nobody enjoys being on the receiving end of a sting, which in every case is bound to seem overly harsh and unjustified. As unpleasant as they are to have around, gadflies play an important function. And if you don't like having them around, consider how fortunate you are not to be one. While I'm sure it has it's rewards, being driven against the current of the world must be a frustrating existence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not forking. Being willing to accept an OpenOffice version that had Java in it at all.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The FSF, at least, is run by grownups, and I have no reason to doubt that there are grownups in charge at OO.org.
Given that, why would we be surprised that they looked for a constructive way to settle their differences?
See what I've been reading.
When did Microsoft force programmers to use their proprietary extensions to Java? Yet Sun jumped on that. And rightfully so.
Will businesses really care? Will IT managers even be aware of this whole incident? Are they interested in every little squabble within the development team(s) at their proprietary vendors?
It's all noise at the "higher level" view.
Red Hat has a number of people who are working full time on free Java, and they've done a lot of work on getting OpenOffice to work with the free implementations.
Lets just put a stop to the java zeolots right here and now...
If you cannot package and distribute the application
"with the JVM" it is not and never will be free.
I happen to like java, but I sure would never use it in something I was gonna distribute.
Got Code?
I think Sun was stupid to try this so soon. They're trying to push openoffice AND java at the same time. They should have spent more time making openoffice more of a competitor to Microsoft office in terms of features and not just on cost. When it's good enough where office junkies can switch to OOo, then require Java.
They should have created the dependency for Java through openoffice, not try to bundle the two together. It's like a car dealer trying to sell the undercoating package before he's sold you on the car.
The FSF was being irrational. There was a JVM licensed with an FSF license which wasn't compatible with the latest Java standards. Instead of advocating fixing the broken code, Stallman was apparently advocating not using anything which didnt work with the broken code, to the point of forking a major project to avoid fixing that broken code. That's hardly an example of good programming ethics. Fix the bugs, don't complain about others not working around them.
What concessions did the "other side" make?
RMS amended it to say that if GCJ could compile OO.o, then there's no problem.
The problem here is that OO.o doesn't see the problem. Despite historical evidence of the stupidity of basing development on a proprietary platform - whether its a version control system or a whole programming language - OO.o went ahead and chose to do it anyway.
After all, Sun would never break OO.o on Java just to improve Star Office's position in the marketplace, right?
When are open-sourced based CPUs going to be available? Does anyone know of any available? I don't *feel* free with the current processor offerings available.
Here you go. Check out the OpenRISC 1000 - I am guessing that it will be particularly interesting for you since the 1200 version has been used to demonstrate Linux. Of course the MIPS and Sparc clones can do so as well.
Transmeta was the closest, since Linus worked for them way back when.
Given that the native instruction set was top secret, I would say it was the least open source processor of all.
What concessions did the "other side" make?
;-)
To stop bitching quite as loudly for a little while
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
So what exactly is the business model of OOo then? What customers are paying them money?
If they(FSF) don't like it, they can also fork it and make their own version, and that is what RMS intended to do. And the good thing is you are just allowed to do that and put your money (or labor) where your mouth is.
It is a good thing that they seem to be able to work out the differences: OO.o gets some more publicity, the distro's avoid a messy OOo install (most cannot install Sun Java by default) and the FSF removes another version of the 'java trap'. I can only see winners there.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I use the open office beta every day.
I don't have java installed.
All of the functionality that worked in 1.0+ works better in 2.0, and I don't use any of the additional features. Obviously, some people will want to use those features, but wow, aren't we always the ones yelling at MS for their stupid "wizards" and now we're mad cause we can't use the OOo ones? And isn't MS Access the bane of all db developers everywhere? And now we're upset cause we can't use our own half assed, not nearly as nice version of Access?
Seriously people I don't understand. OOo 2.0 is not "crippled" without java, it works just fine for 100% of the existing (ie 1.0) functionality, and all you're missing is some gay wizards, and a half baked db frontend that crashes all the time. I installed java for about 10 minutes to check out the java features, and then uninstalled it, cause well they sucked. I know this is only a beta release and I'm sure 2.0 will be better.. but it won't be anywhere close to usable, not for anything remotely real.
Active X and Clippy are the answer... duh! (EOM)
> At the risk of starting a flamewar,
:)
You risked one, I'm reaching for -1 Flamebait. What is karma but for the burning!
> I have to say that I'm proud to have been a vocal early adopter that
> helped Java reach the status it has today. It's a good language, a good
> platform, hosted by a good company, and supported by many.
I looked at Java several times, each time concluding it was a castrated C++ and the only available compiler was for a machine that didn't exist but this didn't bother the fanboys because for some daft reason they had decided to write the emulator first instead of the usual process of doing it AFTER the real hardware was no longer available. And of course there was the involvement of Sun, the Sybil of the computing business, where one never knew which maniacal personality would be in charge today, but you knew it wouldn't be a sane one because it didn't HAVE a sane one. As for supported by many, yea if you count ex VB coders. Guess it is progress of a sort.
Democrat delenda est
it's the only way to go.
in fact, you can't buy any in Fremont (in Seattle) if it isn't, and then you can open your office doors knowing you have good java.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, it's fairly easy to see which side of the argument he'll be on - His.
Hate to break it to you, but he's one of the most crazed, unstable (in the mental sense) people in the industry. He thinks that anything that isn't GNU is *wrong* and should never be used by *anyone* let alone be made by someone.
He doesn't care about other people or about reality; only his own ideals, anyone who disagrees is evil.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
You should see the flames the Open Graphics Project (opengraphics.org) is getting for wanting to keep their hardware proprietary, despite the fact that they already provide an unprecedented level of documentation on how the hardware works.
Big difference. Microsoft was doing it as a "java killer" because they didn't want to run the risk of loosing market-share.
The language could have provided programs that people could use anywhere no matter whether it was on windows or not. Microsoft saw that this could hurt their market share. By making it only work on their platform with MS specific extensions, they saught to end the threat.
It's much the same thing that they did in the netscape vs ie battle with the exception that they lost the java war.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
One can only hope that once Stallman and the FSF crowd reach an agreement with OOo devs we will stop hearing about the supposed Java Trap.
Those that get their knickers in a knot over Java not being free would be better off working on projects like GCJ than flaming about those that are producing some of the best F/OSS projects out there.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Seems to me that you can distribute the JVM without difficulty from Sun. To quote:
The J2SE platform and the JRE are free to download and to use for commercial programming. They are also free to redistribute, if distributed with a value-add application or applet.
Seems to me that OpenOffice.org qualifies for that.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Don't see me as a troll, I'm a happy Mandriva LE 2005 KDE user, but I remember the Gnome vs. KDE wars (as in talked about on slashdot, I use linux since Mandrake 8.2). It seems KDE wanted to start early and get to business, so they chose QT from trolltech, but Gnome wanted to stand completely on its own so they developed GTK to build the rest on.
How much is KDE tied to proprietary software? I'm getting scared now...
Dependency hell? =>
I suspect you don't understand what exactly is "free" in this situation.
...and for heaven's sake don't use the Linux kernel because you're too cheap to come up with an OS of your own or buy a ready-made one for your dvd player then whine when people bitch at you.
I'm going by RMS's idea of "free", in that he believes that all information should be world-viewable, regardless of one's possible desire to not show everything to the world. It's Stallman that said "Down with security!" since he wants access to *everything*.
This tripe gets modded Insightful?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Why do we even have to have Java be part of the equation when there are other *free* platform independent languages out there, such as python.
Sure, Java works fine, but why even ask for troubles like this by using it?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's not specifically forcing source code redistribution.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
And who pray tell puts a gun to your head and forces you to use GPLed code?
evil is as evil does
You may recall that the OpenOffice developers were complaining that there is very little community involvement in their project. As such, it's obvious they're not making concessions in the interest of peace, they're making concessions in an effort to stay relevant.
How we know is more important than what we know.
For example, the BSD license allows a derived program to be distributed without source code while the GPL does not. Arguing that this means the BSD license is generally "more free" ignores one basic principle of freedom: Your freedom ends where it limits the freedom of others. So what is more free for the developer means potentially less freedom for the users and other developers.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
"This tripe gets modded Insightful?"
Do you consider that a valid alternative when you have no counter-argument?
Sun seems to have a clear strategy of trying to incorporate their proprietary version of Java into open source projects: Mozilla, OpenOffice, Gnome, Apache, etc. But a piece of software ceases to be free when it depends in an essential way on proprietary software.
Fortunately, open source developers are noticing this more and more and are starting to take countermeasures. Hopefully, in the long term, this will lead to unencumbered versions of Java becoming available and acceptable.
This whole issue seems totally unnecessary. Stallman's "Java Trap" is only relevant because FOSS implementations such as GCJ do not implement the full Java 5 standard. The solution to this would be update or make a FOSS version of Java that implements Java 5. It's not a trap if there is an obvious way out. If you don't want to go the obvious way out (because it takes too much effort), then the only thing that is trapping you is your attitude.
Also The Harmony project (if it is successful) would seem to lay to rest any FOSS advocate's qualms about Java.
I'm getting tired of this adversarial stance that /. readers in general have towards Java and Sun. Sun is not your enemy and Java is not a trojan horse. Sun have made their code available, several FOSS JVMs exist, the java spec is free.
Sure, it's a lot of work to make a good JVM, and I wish Apache all the best with creating a supurlative FOSS JVM, but the fact that Sun haven't done this on their own does not make Sun evil.
I looked at Java several times, each time concluding it was a castrated C++
This may be your opinion, but I think that if you look beyond your prejudices, you'll find that Java is so much more. For example, C/C++ code can't dynamically load individual components (i.e. reflection) without extra metadata (e.g. a shared library).
the only available compiler was for a machine that didn't exist
You're pulling out nonsense now. Javac being a Java program is a GOOD thing because it is portable and available to Java programs. If you don't like it, go use Jikes. (Jikes is open source and runs natively.) Truth be told though, the Java compiler doesn't matter. Due to the bytecode design, there isn't much room at that level for optimization.
because for some daft reason they had decided to write the emulator first instead of the usual process of doing it AFTER the real hardware was no longer available.
Java is not an emulator. It is a virtual machine. The two are very different concepts and have very different performance characteristics. Emulating hardware is usually very slow. VM code, however, gains the advantage of being compiled at runtime thus making it both portable and sometimes FASTER than native code.
If you have a problem with this, I suggest you take it up with the inventors of P-Code
(Lots more whining and insults)
Don't worry, your insults toward myself and millions of other professional developers shall not deter me from getting your Java licensing issues resovled! The next version of White Box Linux shall have Java!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Lets not forget that Stallman is against public domain code.
Public domain is about as free as possible, you can do absolutely anything with it, except please Stallman.
The GPL seems more restrictive than many closed source licenses (as many have pointed out) due to the obligations it creates.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Within the OOo Project, Sun Microsystems, which released the project's code in 2000 and still provides most of its developers, is regarded, with some exceptions, as a community benefactor. By contrast, free software advocates view Sun -- and, by extension, OpenOffice.org -- with suspicion, largely because Sun has a history of alternately supporting and damning free and open source software (FOSS). For instance, while CEO Scott McNealy has called Sun a "heavy contributor" to open source and claimed that Sun invented it, president Jonathan Schwartz has heavily criticized the GNU General Public Licence. Although this inconsistency could be interpreted as an effort to steer a middle path between proprietary and FOSS software, or as an internal difference of opinion at Sun, more often the community has seen it as evidence of duplicity and untrustworthiness.
I think this paragraph helps explain why some people are viewing this as a somewhat anti-Sun article or conversation. I definitely wouldn't say Sun has ever "damned" FOSS. Criticizing the GPL isn't damning FOSS. If you think that, you are someone who believes that the only FOSS is GPL software, and that is simply not true. Also, Schwartz didn't really rip into the GPL - I've read all his blog comments and his speech that generated all the excitement, and his point was simply that the GPL poses problems for some of his customers, and he felt the CDDL with its MPL model was a better fit for them and for Sun. What's wrong with that? He's not even really criticizing the GPL, he's just saying it's not the right FOSS license for his company's needs. When do we stop pretending that the GPL is the only FOSS license out there and that the FSF's agenda has to be embraced for a project to be beneficial to "the community?"
It's pretty ridiculous to see the article's author claim it's an "inconsistency" or "duplicity" to embrace FOSS but criticize the GPL, even if Schwartz had been really tearing the GPL a new one, which he totally wasn't.
Finally, as to the original issue, I agree that OOo should be written at least to public interfaces, and the debate should end there. If "the community" hasn't yet produced a viable FOSS implementation of Java, that is not Sun's fault, not Schwartz's fault, not McNealy's fault, and not OOo's fault.
P.S. The paranoid and cynical (certainly not me) could see this as a backhanded attempt to further pressure Sun to open Java entirely, and if you were especially paranoid (again, not me by any means), you could further note that this is exactly what IBM is dying for, and finally, wonder why Stallman's missives always seem pretty lined up with IBM's agenda and and why they (one of the biggest patent aggressors in the industry) always seem exempt from his diatribes.
RMS and the people who agree with him want to maximize the freedom of the end-user, even at the expense of the developer.
And as a developer I don't like this (it's a fallacy anyways, developers are users too). Then again RMS doesn't "work" for a living (he lives off grants, etc). Some of the rest of us don't like to be cornered by the "maximization" of the end users' freedom since some of us code for a living. The end user is free to choose or reject software based on the level of "freedom" they have. I actually have no problem with the GPL itself, just the mentality of some of its backers.
Though since this is Slashdot, and I've already been modded as Flamebait a few times for violating the groupthink I think I'll call it a night on this particular thread.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
You mean to tell me that these aren't a bunch of zealot extremists who would rather fight over it and go to jail than risk sounding like someone with a balanced opinion?
Bah humbug! If you're not a zealot extremist RMS worshipper, then you don't deserve to use a computer!!!
Just kidding.
Of course you know that he wrote emacs (it's not a clone of anything). Oh, and gcc.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Bub, you miss out on some very big things here. I'll take it in the stages that they occurred to me.
First, Java code might be able to be faster than full native code, but for a few issues. You have to load the Java VM and initialize it. That takes a fair bit of time and memory. Then you have to convert the bytecode to native instructions (!!) and execute them. Java gets a speed improvement because it can do different kinds of optimizations and predictions than a traditional compiler can do, as a result of pseudo-interpreted bytecode.
A virtual machine can be an emulator. A VM is just not strictly an emulator in the modern definition. But it does create a fake environment that the code is "compiled" to. That "compiled" bytecode then has to be converted to native code to execute. You have abstraction between your code and everything else.
Way back in the day we had a way of loading code dynamically without shared objects. They were called overlays. You literally loaded them on top of another segment of code. This was done mostly to get around memory limitations.
Opinion: Java really doesn't have any features that make it worth the failings. Anything you can do in Java, I can do in C/C++. Java is written in C/C++!
Also, don't get your hopes up about those "millions of other professional developers". I doubt there are millions of developers, and most are certainly not Java devs.
BSD is great (IMHO) for things like reference implementations (e.g. for TCP/IP). For things that you want implemented everywhere. But if you don't want your code ending up proprietary then it's not as good.
What's missing from your picture is the scenario where you want your code to become proprietary. For instance, if you work on a company whose proprietary extensions on top of your code gives the company an edge, where these extensions would only be relevant in that competitive scenario, and largely irrelevant in the general scenario.
Using the BSD license, you're able to share your code, keep your dayjob, and provide value to the company you work at.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
You have to load the Java VM and initialize it. That takes a fair bit of time and memory. Then you have to convert the bytecode to native instructions (!!) and execute them.
Of course, all of this happens at startup and is a one time cost. The ongoing savings of a long time program can easily make up for this cost. Java programs tend to compare most favorably with large programs that take several seconds to start up. An equivalent Java program does the same, but provides better performance in the long run. (Server side applications are particularly good at taking advantage of this.)
A virtual machine can be an emulator. A VM is just not strictly an emulator in the modern definition. But it does create a fake environment that the code is "compiled" to. That "compiled" bytecode then has to be converted to native code to execute. You have abstraction between your code and everything else.
You're not saying anything I don't know. I did chose to use the modern distinction between a VM and an emulator, but that's primarily because the two ARE quite different these days.
Way back in the day we had a way of loading code dynamically without shared objects. They were called overlays. You literally loaded them on top of another segment of code. This was done mostly to get around memory limitations.
These two are like the Wright Brothers' first airplane compared to a 747. Java can not only load code dynamically, it can investigate it and tell you all kinds of wonderful things about the code. In JavaBean land, this allows components to be dynamically plugged in, and properties to be made available by reading in their "getXXX()" and "setXXX()" methods. Similarly, JSP pages are possible (and of high performance) because the page can be translated into Java, then loaded dynamically. The exception mechanism combined with the sandbox mechanism ensure that one of those pages can never crash the entire JVM either by accident or by intention. (Of course, in the real world there are some ways of exploiting the underlying OS's limits to crash the JVM, but overall systems are very highly protected against failure.)
Anything you can do in Java, I can do in C/C++. Java is written in C/C++!
Show me a dynamically compiled JSP-like system without resorting to a bytecode design. It's pretty darn hard, isn't it? How about a self-organizing code system that consists of nothing more than a bunch of SPI modules strung together? Not impossible, but quite difficult to do in C/C++.
The argument that C can do anything Java can do is just silly. Of course the same effects can be replicated, because both run on a computer. The features of the Java language, OTOH, make these things *easy* and *low cost*.
Also, don't get your hopes up about those "millions of other professional developers". I doubt there are millions of developers, and most are certainly not Java devs.
Apparently, the surveys say differently. Considering the number of JDK downloads alone suggests that we're well into the millions of developers. Trust me, Java is THE most popular development platform at the moment.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I don't want to argue against any points other than the dev numbers. You're right on with the others in so far as the facts. The only point we *really* seem to disagree on is the performance. Given the piss poor code I've seen from other languages, Java is almost certainly faster in many cases. I just get annoyed when people say that it's faster, end of story, do not pass go.
Don't forget that Java is basically a cost-free modern platform to get your hands on. I'm sure there are a lot of students and amateurs that download it, but unfortunately that article isn't going to show the differences between them and professionals.
I suppose that leaves it as a difference of opinion as I don't have anything to back up my statement on the numbers.
I completely agree. I read the story and thought, "why the hell do they care?" The FSF can take a leap if they don't like the use of Java in Oo.org. Considering the amount of GPL software written completely in Java, I think it's fairly clear that they are playing off the popularity of Oo.org to get some publicity for themselves.
In contract, Microsoft actively encouraged the use of Microsoft-only language features (note: we aren't just talking utility classes here, but totally new syntax!), and in fact developers had to be especially careful to avoid using them unwittingly when using MS's development tools.
I think you severely underestimate the amount of community ire about this. The fork wouldn't have had the immense level of support that Xorg got when they forked XFree86, but the support wouldn't have been trivial either. I bet they would've had the Java removed within a month or three, and I bet they'd have had replacement database functionality within 6-18 months.
The decision not to fork is a true concession.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The Red Hat devs are responsible for bringing us GCJ (Gnu Compiler for Java), and they have gotten it to such an advanced stage that it supports AWT, Swing, SWT (I think SWT, not too sure) and even JOGL so you can write native 3D java apps. All of OpenOffice.org's java components in Fedora and RHEL are compiled with GCJ and so the version of OpenOffice.org in those distros actually runs entirely native without a JVM without any loss of functionality. Its quite nice.
Regards,
Steve
Given the piss poor code I've seen from other languages, Java is almost certainly faster in many cases.
;-)
:-)
:-)
This is where Java shines. Since most of the performance enhancements are in the JVM, it can make even a bad programmer look quite good.
Of course, a truely good programmer can produce high performance code in just about any language.
Don't forget that Java is basically a cost-free modern platform to get your hands on. I'm sure there are a lot of students and amateurs that download it, but unfortunately that article isn't going to show the differences between them and professionals.
I understand the difficulties in finding accurate numbers, but I've seen quite a few figures that suggest we're well into the millions. For example, these figures from 1998 show 2,000,000 downloads of the JDK, but estimates only about 700,000 developers. Given their nearly 3:1 ratio, I have to say that Sun is probably being pretty honest. Also, the figures for Java in the employment marketplace (both from "professional" surveys and ad-hoc queries of Monster and Dice) show a staggering percentage of Java marketshare. If the figures are to be believed, Java has more marketshare than all other languages combined. Quite a good time to be a Java programmer, quite a bad time to be anything else.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm going by RMS's idea of "free", in that he believes that all information should be world-viewable, regardless of one's possible desire to not show everything to the world. It's Stallman that said "Down with security!" since he wants access to *everything*.
And? The only thing you get across here is that it's obvious that you're not a believer in the "many eyes" model of debugging.
Other than the fact that you don't believe in it, do you care to explain why you think this is tripe?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Why is it that whenever you see Richard Stallman working out a compromise with some group regarding OSS, you always get the impression he'd have been happier if no compromise had been possible?
Almost a "Dammit, they suggested a reasonable compromise - I wanted to fight" feel to it.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
You can relicense new code, AFAIK, but the code already released is not under the new license, because you've granted a third party that.
You can't retroactively remove a right that you voluntarely granted to a third party, and upon which said third party rightfully developed or derived work from or livelihood.
I believe it's a principle in Law, at least Roman Law (which I'm more acquainted with), called "acquired rights", or some such term.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
IBM can allow Linux to use its technology but can still charge money to anyone who wants to use this technology in proprietary applications.
:-)
Exactly. Ever wondered why more and more companies are dual-licensing their code? Because only the GPL allows room for that. The BSD license doesn't. This, in a funny way, in a paradoxical collateral effect of the GPL.
However, in a scenario where you want to extend and incorporate code from a community code base, the BSD license may be more interesting. This is a Real World scenario, for instance, you work for a company.
This gets the GPL camp worked up. However, the code base is there for the community, and the proprietary extension might apply only in a limited scenario.
So, it's all good.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Remember "information wants to be free"?
Yes, it's called anthropomorphism. But even if you believe that non-sentient objects have desires, the BSD license keeps your code free forever and ever. Only derivative works have the possibility of becoming "non-free".
The FSF making concessions? Hah! You must be new to the Free Software Community.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Sun won't open their JDK -- but the JCP for Java 5 allows for open implementations. I know about Harmony, but IBM JDK is already done. Is there anything holding IBM back from opening their JDK?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
He had proved to me that he will always overreact to every situation
Pot, meet kettle.
How many inflammatory and bitter postings have you made on this issue? Perhaps you should take a breath of fresh air, smell the coffee, and try to gain some perspective.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The sun.* packages. You know, the ones that are intended to be used only internally, and aren't well-documented. You can review Sun's policy towards them at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/faq/faq-sun-packa ges.html
There are close to none these days. FSF is mainly a legal and political organization. Programming on GNU projects is done by volunteers, or contributed by other organizations.
Of course, you can be a volunteer programmer for FSF working on OO.o, but that is hardly different from being a volunteer programmer working on OO.o.
What you can do is to be a volunteer on OO.o and be aware of the need of the GNU project ( acompletely free system). Which I suspect is what RMS hoped for in the first place.
'He declined to answer, but I'm going to carry on with my post assuming he said yes'
Jeez.
Actually I heard RMS talk in Brussels only a few months ago. In my view, RMS would like to see ordinary off-the-shelf software to be released under the GPL. Things like games etc he said perhaps a 5-10 year copyright. Other forms of information/software should be given a copyright lifetime on a case-by-case basis.
Personally I think this is reasonable. Let all the RMS bashers destroy me (And there seem to be more and more of them here. I was reading a few weeks ago that one reason for this is that more and more ms windows users were reading slashdot now).
ok the below is pretty much imho and going to be somewhat redundant but hey..
it is stupid to ignore the fact that this ideology is directed at a goal, more OSS and thus it is counterproductive to insist on this ideology when it discourages OSS.
This appears to be a does-the-end-justify-the-means sort of dispute. Advocating OSS just for the sake of the S being OS and skipping the important ideological part (not depending on proprietary products) to me pretty much means that OSS actually becomes something else than what it is "normally" supposed to be. Stallman does not appear to say OOo shouldn't be doing what they do; neither he is supposed to mean OOo are doing something "bad", or "evil". He is calling a spade a spade, in a way.
Yet this is exactly what Stallman's vociferous black and white view of the world does.
I disagree. OOo basically wanted the OSS label without having what it "really" takes; they have the full right to implement what they want however they want, but some things should be clear about it. Stallman pointed it out to them and they even appeared to have agreed on most points.
In fact choosing to contribute to OSS in certain ways can actually result in negative publicity since all the sudden Stallman is critisizing you for not going all the way and people start looking at you as an evil corporation.
That, if it is the case, is the problem of Stallman's PR skills, but not of the idea itself. Perhaps failure to find some more "smooth" words alienate a lot of people to Stallman, but it doesn't lower the value of the ideas and concepts that he bears and advocates.
If instead of postive PR for releasing the code to open office they are instead ripped for not fully open sourceing their java compilers/specs... they will be much less inclined to donate code in the future.
I am sorry if I misunderstand your logic, but you appear to be missing a significant part of the whole OSS concept. You're putting it this way like the OSS community depends on the large companies releasing large portions of their proprietary code into open source. It doesn't. The whole idea of OSS srives (ugh.. well is expected to) on that the corporations are supposed to be interested in OS-ing their product. If they can't understand what's it about, then they have no reason really to. No big deal, they will learn.. or lose. OS is even stronger than Marxism.
Sun however does appear to understand what OSS is about and why, and they do what they do, with all the related problems mentioned by other posters. Pointing out the problems is not discouraging them, it's revealing a possible hidden obstacle.
in the long term this sort of attitude [forking] actually harms the OSS movement by sending companies a message that it isn't worthwhile to open source some of their systems or fund the development of an open source framework they can augment with their proprietary technology.
Here I can't but absolutely agree. Forking a project should never be taken lightly. It is a kind of last resort and should only be done if educating and convincing the original developers fails and the project is important enough to influence the community.
nothing in this case prevents future improvements or modifications to GCJ which allow open office to be run in that manner.
And this is the only right way to go.
In short the open source community needs to get over this attitude that anyone who isn't totally comitted to OSS is evil.
I don't see that as a problem.. sure there are some hotshots who see Big Brother issues everywhere but in general the community is inclined the other way -- towards "less pure" OSS. Like someone else mentioned, in real projects people tend to be pragmatic and compromising. I believe that it is our duty to make sure every spade is called a spade and not a fork (ok bad pun) and let everybody decide for themselves. I repea
For example, there's no other platform that has as many high quality, cross platform database drivers
:-)
perldoc DBI
ODBC
Sorry, that doesn't stack up. On PerlDoc DBI, what if I need to connect to Pervasive 2000 (formerly BTrieve). This is a VERY popular database for converting mainframes. With Perl:DBI and unixODBC, I'm out of luck. With JDBC, the vendor provides support. Even if I want to connect to the big name databases with unixODBC, I have to pay for third party drivers. The vendor isn't going to support me. And I still have no support if I go outside of the big name databases.
It's a nice try, but only ODBC on windows comes even close to the amount of database support provided by Java.
What's the need for them all in an office suit? You need one mediocre-but-tiny implementation for Access-like features, and the ability to connect to real servers.
You just said it. "The ability to connect to real servers." JDBC allows you to do this for free, and get vendor support. This is a big point when you consider the value of corporate data stored in an Oracle, DB2, or Pervasive database. In addition, the smaller Java databases are all good options for embedding into OpenOfice whereas there are practically no non-Java options. The only one I found was SQLite, and they don't ship an ODBC driver. (Although there is a third party experimental driver, but it is not mature enough for use. Interestingly, that same third party produces a JDBC driver for SQLite.)
In F/OSS world, anything is "more unbiquitous" than Java - because no freeNIX ships with a real java implementation.
No worries. As I remember, OOo ships with the JRE.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The concessions on the free software side seem to be not forking OOo.
I am trolling
Female Prison Rape in NY
Mainly because it would irk me to no end if I bought a piece of software from someone else, and it turned out to have my code in it!
I really don't understand this argument. If someone uses free code in proprietary software, that software costs less to build and is better tested. So if anything, you pay less for better software. Personally I would be more frustrated if the software I bought was buggy and overly expensive because they were reinventing the wheel.
So what? The orginal code would still be available to everyone.
Huh? A version of OpenOffice that will not compile and run with properly with GCJ is completely useless to someone who wants to avoid proprietary software like the Sun JRE. This is also the case for people who want to run NetBSD or Linux PPC where the Sun JRE is not available. You may not be one of these people but pretending that their concerns are unimportant is impolite -- much more so than any "threat" of forking.
Unless the OpenOffice developers are prepared to cooperate with this portion of the community (and fortunately it seems they are) forking is the only alternative to abandoning OpenOffice entirely and recommending alternative projects. Blaming the negative consequences from such a move to the OpenOffice project on people who are just trying to get work done without compromising their principles or buying new hardware is boneheaded.
Not all those who wander are lost.
Declaring the FSF irrational is easy to do when you don't consider the facts on the ground. The problem is not programming ethics or bugs in the copyleft Java implementation. The problem is that the copyleft Java implementation is not yet finished. People have been working on completing GCJ for quite some time. While the progress they have made so far is impressive this is not an easy task. Everyone would like to see it done sooner but people are working as quickly as they can.
Limiting OpenOffice to the large set of features GCJ already has available is a practical short term solution and would considerably widen the potential userbase. The OpenOffice developers understand this and have indicated that they are willing to move in this direction, which is not how one would expect them to respond to an irrational complaint.
Not all those who wander are lost.
> This may be your opinion, but I think that if you look beyond your
.src.rpm into native binaries.
> prejudices, you'll find that Java is so much more. For example, C/C++
> code can't dynamically load individual components (i.e. reflection)
> without extra metadata (e.g. a shared library).
Not opinion, facts. Java isn't really even an OO language since it lacks multiple inheritence and while operator overloading causes no end of problems in the hands of the inexperienced, is pretty much required to have a full OO experience. Not that I'm a fan of OO itself mind you, but Java is directly marketed as something it isn't in any sane definition of Object Oriented. In my opinion object oriented is just a buzzword that turns a normal program into an unmaintainable horror that eats ram and cycles like popcorn. Look at TK for an example of how to get almost all of the purported benefits of objects in a totally procedural implementation that is well behaved and fairly understandable.
As for C++ using libraries to load components, well duh, that is what a library IS. Which, btw, is the correct way to gain code reuse. Find me an example of OO code reuse that compares to the sort of wholesale reuse any of the libraries, mostly in C, included on a modern Free Software distro acomplish.
> You're pulling out nonsense now. Javac being a Java program is a GOOD
> thing because it is portable and available to Java programs.
You misundersand. I say it is bogus that Javac only compiles to one target, a platform that only existed in Sun's imagination. Look, I understand the alure of psuedo compiled/interpreted languages such as Java. I used to love BASIC-09. And for the original purpose Sun had in mind when creating Java it even made sense. But then the Internet came along and everyone had to stamp Internet on everything and Sun repurposed Java from Cable TV settop boxes to some 'platform for the Internet' and things went horribly wrong.
If you want platform independence you get it through tools like GNU automake/autoconf, not writing for a mythical platform and producing emulators for the half dozen platforms with enough market to justify the horrendous expense of porting and debugging a runtime environment as complex as the JRE.
Java the virtual machine is a daft idea. Speaking as someone in the Free world that is. The only reason to want a VM is to redistribute binaries across multiple platforms and we in the Free world have to think really hard to remember why anyone would want to do that when the compiler is sitting right there, ready to turn a tar.gz or
Java the language is a sorta OO language that will find it's niche once GCJ strips away the platform and religion baggage from it.
> java is not an emulator. It is a virtual machine.
Not much practical difference these days. Care to draw the line where emulation stops and virtualization starts, between Xen, VMWare Wine, etc. Yes, by specing a virtual machine with no actual hardware they saved the hit of emulating hardware registers and banging bits on a virtualized keyboard controller.
> If you have a problem with this, I suggest you take it up with the
> inventors of P-Code
Good example. Proof that A) Java was nothing new and B) in the end the marketplace decided it was a bad idea, hence it is a dead language. Heck, Pascal itself will be a dead language once Borland gives up on Delphi.
> Don't worry, your insults toward myself and millions of other
> professional developers shall not deter me from getting your Java
> licensing issues resovled! The next version of White Box Linux shall
> have Java!
Hey, just yanking yer chain. It is just that so many Java devels have become almost Amigian in there religious devotion to what in the end is just a language, and not a perticularly original or clever one, designed more to forbid bad programming practices (which has it's place in the corporate
Democrat delenda est
Why I'd be annoyed by this is that I think I should get my own code for free, not a discount! Ideally, I'd like it to be a fair exchange. They got a copy of my code for free so they should give me a copy of their code for free. But I'll settle for getting a copy of their binary for free. What is completely unacceptable to me is that they get to use my work, without paying me, but they don't offer me the same consideration (using their code without paying them). So I use the GPL to prevent that.
If this kind of thing doesn't bother you, don't let me stop you from using whatever license you prefer. But since it does bother me, I'm going to respond accordingly.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Because if, you know, Microsoft had called a up a developer and said, "If you don't stop using Company X's technology, we're going to clone your application and start trying to elbow you out of the market with it", people would be screaming bloody murder.
Microsoft didn't keep its extensions in a nice little com.microsoft.* hierarchy like Sun does with its extensions. Microsoft added classes to the java.* and javax.* hierarchies, changed existing classes within those hierarchies, and even added new keywords to the underlying language. Sun's issue was never that Microsoft was adding stuff; the issue was that Microsoft was adding stuff in a way that made it very hard to tell if you were using a Microsoft only interface.
Obviously you are paying for the improvements they made. If those were not worth the costs of the software, you'd be using your own free software. Let's say that x is the price of your code, y the price of their code and $ the money you were willing to spend for the entire package. Obviously x + y = $. Since x = 0, this becomes 0 + y = $. More succinctly y = $. You are only paying for their improvements. QED.
Ideally, I'd like it to be a fair exchange.
So what you really care about is direct compensation. Fair enough. But please don't pretend that there is no compensation already. Giving away code that can be used freely by proprietary developers may have any of the following effects:
- Voluntary retributions out of conviction or guilt induced by using free software.
- Better quality (assuming the reused code is better than a new implementation).
- More commercial products. Since production costs are lower, more products can make a profit. This can result in more employment and also in more happy users (assuming that different variants optimize for different user groups).
- Lower price for the commercial software (if cost to produce is a factor in the price).
A good example is the various commercial versions of Apache. This doesn't hurt anyone that is content with the free version (most of us), but the commercial buyers do finance some additional development on the free version that everyone profits from. So you have 1, 2 and 3 and possibly also 4.No. My code is GPL. They can't use it unless they compensate me with their code. If I licensed my code under BSD, then you'd be correct. I gave them permission to use my code; I can't complain after the fact that they did. But (like I said) I release under GPL.
The "compensation" that you mention is insufficient to me. The price for my code is your code (or something else that we've negotiated). If you don't like my price, don't buy.And it doesn't matter that some compensation already exists. In exactly the same way that it doesn't matter to some guy selling his car if you show up with a crisp $100 bill and expect him to give you the car. You may think his price is too high and that you're giving him ample compensation, but it's his car and he gets to decide. You might even be right that $100 is a fair market price for the car. But again, it's his car, and he gets to decide.
Same thing for my code.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Mainly because it would irk me to no end if I bought a piece of software from someone else, and it turned out to have my code in it! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the GPL permits commercial use of GPL'd code, but the redistributor must provide your source as well. So is your real objection that you don't want people to integrate your code without providing it? Or is your real objection that you don't want people using your code for commercial purposes?