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Sun to Change Java License for Linux
daria42 writes "It looks like the days of downloading Java every time you re-install a Linux box may be at an end. Reports are trickling in that Sun plans to alter the Java license to make it easier to bundle the JRE with Linux. From the article: 'Sun has faced calls several times to open-source Java, which advocates say would foster innovative open-source development. The company has resisted formally open-sourcing all of the Java software, but it has dramatically changed the development process around Java and changed licenses to make it easier to see Java source code.'"
I'm sorry...
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Three cheers for sun *reaches for mug java*....o wait, my self heating mug exploded
Because downloading the JDK or the JRE after installing linux was hard? If it wasnt for this, I wouldnt be periodically using the latest version.
That's what you get for having a slow connection.
Sadly, this means that Windows will be the only major OS that can't seem to come with Java delivered right out of the box. Maybe they'll address that problem with Vista?
not sure about pervious versions of slack, but 10.2 ISO has it, i dont see the problem way other distro dont include it?
jre-1_5
If there are areas where the specs need improvement to get closer to the "Write Once Run Anywhere" goal, by all means complain about those areas.
We want multiple competing implementations, both open and proprietary. That said, I could see Sun open sourcing the Java libraries - at least the Java parts. The SDK comes with Sun source for the publically visible parts of libraries. However, the licence precludes using that source in an open source VM. Instead, the GNU classpath project has to rewrite them from the spec.
Keeping the Sun VM proprietary but opensourcing the libraries seems like a good compromise between maximum interoperability and competition.
I remember hearing about two or three weeks ago that Sun said it was committed to "Open Sourcing all of its software, everything they make."- this is from LugRadio and a Sun representative.
/very/ progressive stance, I don't see why they're stalling when it comes to Java.
Given this
If anything, this slows Java adoption.
Java was all the rage in the late 90s. Had they made it Free, I think it would have been a tour de force. Now we see competition from simpler technologies. We're learning that we don't need a J2EE infrastructure when a simple Model-View-Controller model with a database backend will do the job just as well, and so on.
Freeing Java would spread adoption, if nothing else than by including it in every distribution shortly thereafter.
This new license system isn't good enough, it'll just frustrate people.
Unfortunately the article is a bit light on details. It says that Sun are going to make the JRE easier to redistribute but that on it's own isn't enough for many distros. It would also have to be at least able to be repackaged (so it goes somewhere more friendly that the Sun supplied RPM) and preferably modified (to make it play nicer with the rest of the system) before it's really useful.
Also, it's a shame it seems they're only going to include the JRE. Nice and easy for linux users to run java programs. Shame they won't be able to write any...
Odd analogy, but I guess it kind of makes a little sense maybe... http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/04/sun-microsystems- schwartz-cz_ec_0504schwartz.html?partner=yahootix
In shwartz's words...
Forbes:
You're trying to woo customers with free hardware. How do you make them paying customers? You haven't monetized Java proportional to what's out there.
JShwartz:
That's a misnomer. Largely an American misnomer. Nearing 1 billion Java handsets.
Forbes:
So what's your Java revenue?
JS:
Close to $13 billion.
F:
That's not money in Sun's pocket, though.
JS:
It's like asking a company that produces generators how much of their demand comes from people using electricity. It's 100 percent.
F:
But it's about how many customers are paying you for the privilege of using Java.
S:
And I'll point out that a billion handsets fuels an enormous market in the telecommunications industry. Java running on Sun's Java Enterprise system, whether it's at American Express or General Electric or Vodafone, is fueling Sun's overall revenue. Asking us how much money we make on Java is like asking Verizon Communications how much money they make on handsets. The fact is that they lose a fortune on handsets, but they make a fortune in subscribers.
F:
So are you going to convert Java users to subscription service for Sun?
S:
Partially, we're already doing that. American Express runs on the Java Enterprise system. That's per employee subscription for core middleware for Sun. My broader point is that Java ensures Sun has access to an open market. Java allows us to reach out to customers who don't run on Sun hardware and ensure we can serve them wherever they may be--whether it's on a Dell box or HP box or in an IBM customer base.
Again, it's hard to explain to people. Here's an analogy. With the advent of electricity, Thomas Edison tried to patent a lightbulb so that you would have to use his lightbulbs if you used his dynamo. That strategy obviously failed. And what emerged was the standard plug. Asking Sun the value of Java is like asking GE--which is, I think, the largest manufacturer of power turbines in the world--what the value of the standard plug is. It ensures they can serve a global marketplace. So if you asked them what's the value of the plug, how would they respond?
Here are some stats on Java: There are more than 1 billion Java cards in the marketplace, securing everything from set-top boxes to handsets. There are more than a billion Java handsets, all driving demand for network infrastructure. There are nearly 1,000 members of the Java community process, who collectively contribute to the standard called "Java." It is the default standard for set-top boxes in Brazil. So what will the infrastructure opportunity be in Brazil to serve 100 million Java-enabled set-top boxes? I promise you it will be enormous, and Sun will be among many participants that can serve that demand.
Section 5.3 of the Debian Java FAQ sums up the present licensing issues that prevent Debian from including Sun Java.
The more I hear calls that Java to be more open source the more I wish all these Java libraries worked like the way CPAN does.
CPAN is great and its what keeps Perl relevant and it works well for the Perl community. All these java libraries bundled with the JDK should be more modular with a lean core distro and then the rest can be organized and installed as modules.
And like everything CPAN all these modules will be peer reviewed by other Java developers in the open source and corporate worlds.
Ah, one can only dream.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
Java, due to MS's efforts to subvert it, is probably the hardest to free up, but this is a good, workmanlike step in the right direction.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Because there are so few innovative open source java projects right now? Heck, I can hardly keep track.
Leaving aside the politics of open source, and the "I can't play with your toys" argument, the main issue here seems to be the license incompatability that keeps Java from being bundled with the 267 different Linux distributions.
If people want to be innovative, how about working to unify the basic functionality of all those distributions, specifically one common, simple way that works on all distributions and architectures to install 3rd party packages, like, say, Java?
ObMetaDig: And besides, why do you care? Every time I see java on /., the whole thread seems to be "it's slow / no it isn't / GC sucks / no it doesn't / .NET rules / no it doesn't"
I don't see how this is any different from tainted binary kernel drivers. They'll allow redistribution of the JRE run-time environment. Big deal.
If they allowed redistribution of JDK compiler and libraries, we'd be making progress.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Uh?
| (ceci n'est pas une pipe)
well they could start with providing the mozilla-firefox java plugin for amd64 systems on linux...libjavaplugin.so, anyone?
My sig has been answered.
Three recent thorns in my side:
The Process object's destroy method sends a SIGINT or some such rot to the child process, which may or may not kill the child process. There's no way to send a SIGKILL, no way to get the PID of the process, no way to set the process group and no way to get or kill children of the child process.
There's no way to get OS-Specific permission settings on a File. For that reason if you try to archive some files in Java using an InputStream that takes Files, you'll lose the permissions settings on them and the files will restored with something both generic and useless like 644. They make a halfhearted attempt to address this in 1.5, but it's still useless.
It would appear that the only way to get disk space left on the volume is to open a file and start writing 1 byte at a time until you get an IO Exception.
It's deficiencies like this (And the ~50MB VM overhead) that make Java a poor choice for system programming tasks, but the robustness of the language design itself could be so easily changed to address these issues. The fact that it hasn't and that all of these issues have been around for over half a decade lead me to believe that Sun isn't really serious about the language and probably shouldn't be in charge of the standard, either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Installing Java on Linux is easy as pie. Try installing it on OpenBSD....
I've never really understood why Sun doesn't just dual-license the Java VM and libraries like it does with OpenOffice. This would allow Linux distributions to include both the JDK and JRE and wouldn't preclude commercial developments. This wouldn't be that different from what Trolltech does with Qt. With Qt, this limits commercial KDE development, but Java already enjoys strong commercial support. If they GPL'd (not LGPL) the JDK, they would open doors to the Open Source community while still supporting their commercial contracts.
I wouldn't think that forks would be a big problem either, as everyone would likely stick to Sun's JDK by default. I certainly haven't run into IBM's JVM very often and one needs to look no further than Mozilla, OpenOffice.org and Qt for evidence that dual-licensing doesn't necessarily lead to uncontrolled forks.
The truly bizarre thing to me is that this hasn't already happened. It's not like Sun is trying to keep Java sources secret. They've already exposed them to the world with their fairly liberal research license.
Mayber things will change. I'm reminded of Eric Sink's comment on Slashdot years ago regarding open sourcing OOo:
"The only glimmer of hope has been Sun, which seems to have a practice of being smart during the even-numbered years and downright silly during the odd-numbered ones."
They don't have to open source it. They need to stop requiring that it be downloaded directly from their servers and that the user view and affirmatively accept the license for every installation.
This must be your lucky day. Sun has an RPM package for download; the self-installer generates the .rpm file.
Slackware has bundled java for years. Why didn't anyone else? Is/was it illegal?
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
It's nice that they've made this move, but I don't see how this really changes much. The server side guys never had a problem with downloading Java. I can only assume that this is a move for the desktop.
The problem (as I see it), is that it's too late for any kind of java desktop resurgence. How come Sun never produced any kind of Java Gnome/Gtk+ apps? They do employee Gnome contributors and Gnome is their desktop. Oh right....Swing is enough for everyone,*rollseyes*. Maybe four years ago if they had gotten behind Java gtk+, and made this move things would be different, but much of the open source desktop developers have moved on to Ruby, Python, and Mono. And there's still a lot of development done in C/C++. Even on the server side, many people are moving to LAMP+Ruby.
So my question is what is Sun's reasoning for doing it now?
From the Debian FAQ entries, it doesn't need to be open-sourced, but it does need a license which doesn't prevent it from being bundled with other software that replaces any function of JVM, which allows it to be distributed other than for the sole purpose of running an application or applet distributed with it, and doesn't require you to agree to indemnify and defend Sun from any lawsuits by the people you distribute it to, before it can be bundled. The GPL isn't an issue. Sun's license is the issue.
I've downloaded GPL software for Windows, and I had to agree to the GPL before installation.
The GPL doesn't require that; the developer of that installer did.