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Java: One Step Closer To Open Source
Ritalin16 writes "Sun Microsystems on Monday intends to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Java programming language by sharing the proprietary source code for several key Java applications used by corporate customers. Sun officials believe that by making the source codes open to developers, they will spur more involvement and use of Java-based applications."
Ahh, someone who wants to make a front page slashdot article, but doesn't understand Java. What's worse? The editor that posts it, and doesn't understand java.
The source code being released isn't "source code for several key Java applications," its the source to Sun's java application server (called "Platform Edition 9"). Other app servers you probably have heard of are WebSphere, WebLogic, and.... the open source JBoss! The reason Sun is open sourcing their app server is because no one uses it!
If a company wants to run a giant professional website and has money to throw at it, they'll get WebLogic or WebSphere to run it. If they don't, they run tomcat (if no EJBs requried) or JBoss. No one uses Sun's app server cause its new and immature.
This is not a step towards opening Java. The only relation this has to Java is the fact that it runs Java code and is written in Java. Just because sun open sourced it doesn't mean its thinking about open sourcing the Java lanugage.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This doesn't really matter to Java detractors. IT types, usually not programmers, will bring up the same old tired clichés.
Somewhere around the year 2000 Java became uncool especially with younger programmers. I guess because it became an institution taught in high schools everywhere. Maybe programmers feel Java is rammed down their throats so they champion less established languages even something by Microsoft.
Java really is the best thing out there for a lot of things. Sun can give away everything and detractors will be like: "OK but what about your first born child?"
Java: One Step Closer To Open Source
*sigh* Sun is already as open as they're going to go with Java by releasing it under the Java Research License. Now Sun has never complained about or hawked Open Source JVMs, but neither have they been too keen on helping out projects who bite their hands. As a result, the project to watch is the Apache Harmony Project. Given that Apache maintains a close relationship with Sun, hasn't burned their bridges, and has a good track record for completing very complex software, there's a good chance that the Apache JVM will quickly exceed Kaffe and GCJ.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If Sun really wanted to be helpful they could forget the application server and really forget the source, and just concentrate on making a less restrictive BINARY license for redistributors such as linux distributions. Java is being held back in the absence of something like Harmony, and that's just absolutely rediculous when the problem would be so easy to fix. Sun needs to come to terms with reality and realize that they need an installed base, not the other way around.
In other news, the Ford Motor Company announced today a bold new initiative to sell more cars. It seems that they will now be allowing customers to open the hood and tinker with the engine after buying the car. Ford expects this to increase the popularity of their cars and create a huge market for third-party add-ons.
Unknown host pong.
Sun will not go completely open-source. They already have JBoss, which is open-source... too bad that no one I know of uses it. Also, I doubt anyone would have used Platform Edition 9...unless they made it Open Source and promoted the hell out of it, which is why they are doing this. Everything will remain closed-source. *shrugs* just my 2 cents, though.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
They already did that*.
--
* Well, mostly.
sigs, as if you care.
News articles, like this one, have a way of being read by my bosses who mistake their content entirely. "I just heard that Java is free, can you look into that?"
" As if Java isn't slow enough, they open source it just in time as .NET is 100x better and faster." .net was that much faster than natively compiled C binaries, considering Java is anywhere between 75-95% percent of the speed of C (Statistics pulled out of nowhere, i remember last time i checked Java was expected to be around 90% of the speed of Compiled C i was guessing that improved) .net considerably faster than C ;)
Wow , i had no idea that
That would make
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
That could be a leak in the freenet client, no?
-mkb
If a program is written poorly it is possible for it to hold on to a lot of its objects (memory) because Java thinks the program is still using them. I think the easiest way to screw up (but not sure) is to keep a hash around with all of your objects in it. As long as the hash still references the objects, even if nothing else does, the memory will not be freed up. Have you tried killing off specific aplications that are using Java to see if you can find which program is hoarding all of the memory or are you pointing your finger at the Java VM?
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
This doesn't really matter to Java detractors. IT types, usually not programmers, will bring up the same old tired clichés.
Same tired old cliches. I can tell you first hand that lots of major developers of Java and early advocates have been turned off directly by issues that could have been addressed by open sourcing it. But that won't stop you from your tired cliches that it doesn't matter, just because you don't want it to matter.
I was developing major applications with it before it reached 1.0, and still work with it quite a bit, but it becomes more and more irrelevant despite my best work because Sun wills it to be irrelevant. Even as a major early licensee of Java, basic problems were not considered important enough for Sun to solve, and it hasn't changed much.
Somewhere around the year 2000 Java became uncool especially with younger programmers. I guess because it became an institution taught in high schools everywhere. Maybe programmers feel Java is rammed down their throats so they champion less established languages even something by Microsoft.
Again, strong on cliche, very weak on technical understanding or demographic fact, but at least you contradict your prior nonsense that it is not programmers turning away.
Java really is the best thing out there for a lot of things. Sun can give away everything and detractors will be like: "OK but what about your first born child?"
Go whine somewhere else. You think you should dictate what is useful to us without giving us adequate control to meet our needs? We will continue to use Java less and less as other tools continue come forward that are more responsive to our needs. The stuff we run today in Java doesn't benefit from the JVM and will be ported away as performance becomes more important and other features we need to build in are still not available in Java, since it is not open.
The whole attitude that somehow open source is wanting more from Sun than it would contribute back is ignorant, uninformed, short sighted, etc. Sun and their apologists should get a clue. Open source would make it responsive to a much wider range of developers and would produce developments Sun was too blind to pursue or pursued way too late and too little. Any harm has already been done to a great extent by Sun's pig-headedness. They should go off in a corner and use it by themselves if they don't want to open it up.
Waiting for Java has become a dead issue. No one expects Sun to get a clue, so why are you still whining that some in the past thought they might.
I have been a Java developer since year dot (well it feels like it) and I can't understand the fuss about having an open source Java. Most of the libraries that I use (in fact all I think) are fully open source along with the application server the only bit that isn't is open is the core libraries but these are given away for free and I have never run into a license issue.
The only thing that I would like in terms of openness is a packaging license that allows the registered linux distributions to repackage the JVM because current installation methods are a pain (I'm on Debian which probably makes it worse that on a lot of other distros).
Other than that I like the stability that is granted by having one company at the wheel. If Sun decided to loose the plot and start imposing strange conditions on VM useage I am sure an open source VM would appear the day after tomorrow. Until then though I will keep buy as many free VMs as I can.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Thanks for not understanding anything about Java. Java CAN use native widgets -- check out SWT. SWT apps look great. Take Eclipse and Azureus for example: they're superb applications, they integrate well with nice shortcuts and launchers and whatnot, and they look wonderful. Even swing apps can look great if some effort is put into their design; Netbeans is a great IDE.
The product name is new, the product core is not. Other names it went by include (in chronological order)
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
SWT runs on Java the language but it is not Java itself. That is to say, it is not part of the Java platform. It is a product of IBM-- it's a third party library-- and is not promoted or supported by Sun. If he wants to complain about the Java language maybe he's being unreasonable, but if he wants to complain about Sun's Java then things are quite different.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This sounds like a problem with Freenet, not with Java. You can write code with memory leaks in any language. Java makes memory leaks a little harder, but it in no way makes memory leaks impossible. If you had a C program where the author forgot to call free() would you complain about the "leak" in C?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I can think of 101 reasons why not use .NET:
http://www.manageability.org/manageabilityWiki/Why JavaIsBetterThanDotNet
Uhh, sorry but isn't "unacceptable" still just one word?
The fact of the matter here is that
- Poor documentation. This is a huge issue even in the
.NET community. The best documents there are for .NET are the comments on the prototypes in the SDK. That is unacceptable.
- Portability. This is obviously motivated by profits, which is understandable, but still a drawback for the software community at large. In that light, Microsoft should have released the platform for linux and OSX. The related open-source projects are changing this, but they should never have been necessary.
- Exception handling. It's there, it's decent, but it's not quite as good as Java.
I'm sure there are projects that are better suited to be written in Java. But the software community, if they want to save Java, will eventually be forced to "respond" toMods: Do you disagree with me? Go ahead and mod me down. Meta-mods will sort it out. Good luck!
If Sun had been sensible with Swing, it could have produced something responsive and useful like SWT.
IF SWT were part of the Java runtime, would you make the same point?
All GUI features have to hook into the OSes graphics library at some point - making them native.
Third party native hooks versus built-in hooks - a bit of a fine line there. Especially since SWT runs on most platforms, and platforms that aren't supported could be ported since SWT is OSS.
- Sun is the final arbiter of what constitutes a Java-compliant application. People incorrectly claim that Sun's control extends only over the trademark, but that's not true: they can keep you from shipping your Java implementation through patents and the licenses on their specifications if they don't like what you are doing, no matter what you call your Java.
- The Java specifications that you need to create your own Java implementation are only available under a strict license (the fact that you can download them so easily from java.sun.com makes it even worse)
- Sun owns several patents on key technologies needed for creating a compliant Java implementation
- The only Java implementations actually capable of running the code are Sun's and licensed derivatives.
Maybe the creation of a fully open source Java implementation by IBM, Apache, and/or GNU will finally force Sun's hand--while technically, non-enforcements of their patents and licenses against such open source projects doesn't invalidate their claims, practically, they would have to act or face tough questions. But until the legal status of open source Java implementations is resolved (or Sun abandons their ridiculous patent and license claims), the only Java there is is proprietary: Sun Java and its derivatives.And open sourcing stuff built on top of their proprietary platform doesn't bring it one step closer to open source. Quite to the contrary: it merely looks like an attempt to drum up business for their proprietary platform.