Slashdot Mirror
The Curious Incident of Sun in the Night-Time
Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is carrying a story by Richard Stallman which blasts Sun's recent Java move, claiming it is deceptive and self-serving, makes Java neither free nor even open source, and leaves him wondering why it has attracted so much attention."
Before all the anti-RMS wingnuts come crawling out, RTFA - RMS isn't criticising Sun for not opening Java, he's criticising the community & the media for their confused reporting (or endorsement) of the story (see Open Source Java? for a typical example).
[mildly offtopic] - Does anyone know what the significance of the title stallaman chose? It's too close to the book to not be a reference, but I'm just not getting it...
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Life, perhaps. No? I thought only Microsoft was run by the undead.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I think Stallman is missing that there are a lot of commercial interests in Java that are very happy about the ability to bundle Sun's virtual machine. In addition, Sun is now in talks with those same community leaders to see about relaxing the Java licensing further so that it can meet the OSI's requirements for Open Source. (Of course, the forking issue is going to be a major sticking point...)
That being said, his position is equally valid. From his perspective, he's only interested in Java being "free" as in shiny boots. My own frustration with Mr. Stallman, however, is that he doesn't really seem to work with companies like Sun to see if their interests and his own can coincide. So he spends his time on an attempt to replicate a complex system that he lacks the resources to properly follow. (Don't get me wrong, GCJ is nice, but I doubt it will ever "catch up".)
Even more frustrating is that many of the other OSS "leaders" (*cough*de Icaza*cough*) feel it necessary to start brand new projects out of a sense of NIH syndrome rather than help support the platforms that are actually needed by the industry. (i.e. Java) The result is that the OSS community has managed to fragment its efforts and has had a much harder time catching up than it should have.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I agree the Sun announcement is somewhat unclear and misleading. They are still not giving the community what they are looking for...
The desire is for Java that the open/free community can hack on, improve and get the features they are looking for into the core implimentation. This is still not possible.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
FREE!!! OPEN SOURCE!!! Get yours today!!! See, public relations have their key words, too. It's an ad! And everybody fell for it. It's the developer's version of a "white sale" at Pennys
What?
Honestly, this story got so much hype because a) The Community is too dense to grasp that Java source code has been available for years, no matter how many times it's explained to them and b) Stallman's musing that "Perhaps because people do not read these announcements carefully." applies to, say, editors at various open-source news outlets at least as much as to "people" in general.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If it wasn't for these occasional diatribes from him we wouldn't even know this guy still existed...
"Richard Stallman Denies He's Irrelevant, Again!"
I for one welcome my new Java .debs. IMVVHO Sun should have made these changes a long time ago. At the end of the day I (and I suspect the vast majority of people) don't care all that much if Java is OSS I care about how easy it is to install and use.
Sure, it would be nice if Java was OSS but in the real world I don't think Java being closed source has slowed it's adoption. Java being a pig to install probably has.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I've seen Stallman's blasts before. This was quite calm.
I've seen him blather before, too. Smart guy on stage. Acerbic one-on-one.
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Stallman himself wrote that title. Click on the link.
Is it me or did anyone else get the image of King Canute on the beach ordering the sea to go back?
I know that RMS isn't directly attacking Sun here but the reporting, but it would be nice if once in a while he had something positive to say rather than contending that everything is rubbish. And gets in as ever a plug for the GNU project rather than talking about all of the other efforts out there, paticularly the Apache one. He also ignores several contributions to FLOSS that Sun did make around the netbeans IDE and of course the J2EE platform (some of which I had the pleasure of being on stage for the announcement of), but then that probably doesn't count as its not "GNU".
And as for media people not reporting tech stories with 100% accuracy (Sun said that Open Sourcing Java was a matter of when rather than whether) how long has he been working in IT?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Does he have to criticize every other license under the SUN?!?! Apparently, yes.
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
leaves him wondering why it has attracted so much attention."
Funny, I've been wondering that myself for years. Java is slow, clunky, breaks easily is generally an all around piece of shit. Azureus is the only java app that I've ever considered 'usable', and even then the memory requirements keep me from using it as my primary BT client.
The idea behind java is good, but the way it's managed is even a bigger joke than the java applets.
So is the story title some sort of back-handed statement about RMS? Mark Haddon's book is a good read, BTW.
Sheesh. Companies don't use the term 'free software' because the name sucks. It's ambiguous.
As for "careless readers", Stallman doesn't seem to mind Gnu/Linux, even though the "careless reader" may assume Gnu wrote the entire Linux package. But Stallman is happy because it gives Gnu more publicity.
Even if the "careless reader" is making false assumptions, how about using the same logic and be grateful that OSS is getting more free publicity? But that would require Stallman to be grateful to something to doesn't involve him and he doesn't control, and we know that won't happen.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"Gah!!! Free from these non-open-source chains that bind me so!"
I wonder what Stallman would do if, for a day, he just couldn't think of anything to complain about.
Should be "from the couldn't-have-chosen-a-worse-title dept."
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
"With this change, GNU/Linux distros can include the non-free Sun Java platform, just as some now include the non-free nVidia driver. But they do so only at the cost of being non-free."
Which, to the vast majority of users, means absolutely BUPKIS.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Java has an NDA you have to sign before seeing the source. Java allows Linux distributions to ship with pre-built binaries. So it's as open-source and free as...Nvidia and Microsoft? Maybe Stallman has a point.
Actually, I'd day it *does* matter how free Java is, especially if it's less free that the media led us to believe. And I'd have to say that RMS is still fairly important to the movement. I mean, this *did* make NewsForge.
You are not the customer.
He actually uses this quote in the essay.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Yes - we did the DLJ (see https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/) not as a move to open source Java, but to make it more easily available. The DLJ's intent is clearly about easing redistribution by OS distributors. (BTW, I work in the jdk-distros team)
There's a couple things he missed in the article.
One is a nitpick. The way the DLJ goes, we require one person per organization to agree to the license. Not per user, per organization. In the debian bundles that's handled through a debconf key that remembers the license has been seen and agreed to. An administrator for an organization could distribute that debconf key and then silently install Java across their organization. At least that's what I've been told is possible.
The other thing he missed is the other announcement last Tuesday. The "it's not a matter of whether, but how" comment.
Just because it's not as good as it could possibly have been doesn't make Sun's actions bad. They could have started charging us for Java, but instead they made it a little more open. I think we should be applauding a step in the right direction in order to encourage them to make more, instead of givin them the impression that they are hated, because why would you do anything for a group that hates you?
Philosophy.
Maybe I'm confused but I thought 2 SEPARATE announcements were recently made by Sun.
u x_licensing/)
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1 - It will now be easier to distribute Java with a Linux distro
(see http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/05/java_lin
2 - Sun is planning to open source Java but has not decided on all the details (I presume they're trying to pick the right OSI-approved license)
(see http://news.com.com/Sun+promises+to+open-source+J
Look at the dates in the articles. The "we will open source Java" announcement (#2) was made at JavaOne. The "we'll make it easier to distribute Java" (#1) was made before JavaOne AFAIK.
Mr. Barr is one of the last people to write about the reactions of Open Source community.
The below was his reaction to a Mindcraft publication.
From: Joe Barr [joe@pjprimer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 8:02 AM
To: sales@mindcraft.com
Subject: Industry Scum
Hey, Mindcraft
I am writing an article about asslicking whores in the industry.
You know the sort, they bend over for folks like Bill Gates by
producing totally false "benchmarks" based on liess, mistests,
biased hardware and software, and scores of other unethical,
deceiptful, dishonest, duplicitous means.
Like your reviews of NT vs Novell and Linux. Classic cases of
professional prostitution.
Cock sucking the geeks in Redmond.
The question for you maggots, whores, whatever you prefer to be
called, is: how much does it cost to buy one of your benchmarks?
tHANKS,
Joe Barr The Dweebspeak Primer
I suspect, ultimately, you look at RMS as a would-be leader, and you say "But I don't want him as my leader." And that's all well and good, but sometimes he has interesting things to say, and you read him, and you agree or disagree. And that's what makes him relevent.
I'd rather read the well-thought-out comments (whether I agree with them or not) about copyright and Freedom in software that RMS talks about than read another bogus prediction from Dvorak or Cringely.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'm pretty sure that Canute (from James Baldwin's "The Book of Virtues:" King Canute on the Seashore, among other places, I'm sure) was attempting to prove to his officers that the world didn't obey him, which isn't exactly the image you were trying to call up.
That said, the essay really had just one topic (reflected by the title): there's a mistaken identity problem with Sun's change in licensing. It's not "Free Software," nor even open source. Now, it doesn't seem like you disagree with his thesis, so what's the problem?
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
To quote; "If you look closely at Sun's announcement, you will see that it accurately represents these facts." If fact, RMS seems to be saying that Sun says what it is doing, but people didn't read the announcement. (That sounds like 98% on the /. community ;)
He actually uses this quote in the essay.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
It's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
...please shoot him and put us all out of his misery? Fucking whiny hippy.
I wonder where Richard Stallman comes up with such creative titles?
Just read it a couple months ago, else I don't think I would have recognised it.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
RMS comes out against a for-profit company that manufactures proprietary software. Nothing new here...move along.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
On one side we have the 'use it if you can' camp, and on the other, the 'it's not free so screw that' camp. We need both, though we could do without some of the scaremongering so favoured by the latter.
"Richard Stallman thinks he's God in the open source movement?"
Richard Stallman does not think he's god in the open source movement. He belives the open source movement is misguided, and believes that people should not adopt open source licenses.
Typical of his views on the open source movement is
"The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values."
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484
Hey Richard. Why are you tilting at this windmill? We all believe in freedom, but any way your disputes with Sun go are a pimple on a flea's ass compared to the diminunition of freedom being threatened through "net neutrality" laws favored by the big Telecoms. I'd say the second largest threat to freedom comes from the whole DRM/HDMI pile-o-crap.
Please use your reputation and formidable brain and reputation for something important. The battle fronts have changed. Java is just some boring common-ish language nowadays. Sun will probably be out of business is a few years.
I thought the article was going to be about Scott McNealy lost at the South Pole surrounded by NY Zoo penguins saying, "This sucks!"
See for example the opinion of IBM's counsel at
l -discuss/200505.mbox/%3COF76586EEB.32A8F63F-ON0425 6FFC.004F25E4-04256FFC.00507B90 us.ibm.com%3E
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-lega
about the residual rights clause of the JRL:
"Notice that the residuals clause does not extend to copyrights. You can
study Sun's source code under the JRL and then turn around and write your
own implementation relying solely on what you remember, and you're covered
for any potential trade secrets that Sun might have had. However, if your
code turns out to be "substantially similar" (an intentionally vague legal
standard), then Sun might have a copyright claim that it can assert. You
need to make sure that your code is not substantially similiar. How one
does that without constantly referring to the code that you're trying not
to copy without looking like you're trying to copy without getting caught
is an interesting question.
Sun probably didn't intend this result. What they probably meant was that
as long as you aren't making literal copies of material portions of their
source code, you're covered by the residuals clause. If that's the case,
I think their desire for brevity got in the way of clarity. They would
need to expand that section a bit to make it clear that the residuals
license covered copyright issues as well as long as you didn't literally
copy large amounts of code."
cheers,
dalibor topic
As for "careless readers", Stallman doesn't seem to mind Gnu/Linux, even though the "careless reader" may assume Gnu wrote the entire Linux package.
You're not helping your point. Given "Linux," the reader is more likely to assume that Linus wrote the entire thing. Given "GNU/Linux," the reader is given the two main sources of code for the core operating system. Perhaps you don't think that GNU deserves that much credit, but you at least have to realize that there's a difference here.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Ever since the term "open source" was coined, we have seen companies find ways to use it and their product name in the same sentence.
Whats funny is I don't understand the confusion here. Sun announced that Java has a new distribution license so Linux distros can have java in their non-free sections of their package management systems.
Sun also announced that they are looking in to releasing Java source under an osi approved license. They are two individual stories, and it has absolutely nothing to with the decade old free vs. open source software debate.
Actually, I've seen companies use "free software" quite a bit, though usually when its referring to "free-as-in-the-first-hit-of-crack" rather than "free-as-in-GPL" Which is probably because, Stallman & Co's ideological desires aside, most people see "Free {Product X}" (e.g., "free software") as meaning free-of-charge rather than free-of-legal-restrictions, while "Free {Activity X}" (e.g., "free speech") is more likely to be seen in the latter sense.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You're right, its even worse:
"We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom,"
So in other words no one should charge for software no matter how much
time and effort they've put into it because by some tortured logic he
believes free software = free user. Err , yeah ok. Presumably he'd extend
that logic to music, art , literature or any piece of human endeavour
that required effort and he thinks people should share in. The man is just a
tragically naive hippy which obviously no clue about human nature or how
the world works away from his keyboard. IMO he should just STFU and
get on with his coding which is all he's good at.
You didn't recognize it. :)
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
"It does not say that Sun's Java platform is free software, or even open source. Available, that is, as proprietary software, on terms that deny your freedom."
Sun owes me nothing; they paid the salaries of the people that developed and implemented Java. And Sun's current financial situation, in spite of the hugely popular language, is evidence that they aren't laughing all the way to the bank as a result of controlling Java.
So what freedom of mine is Sun denying? People and/or corporations who create intellectual property are under no obligation to give it away for free.
Go use C++, or PHP, or PERL, or Ruby if you can't abide by Sun's terms.
from "the java trap" http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html
" A program is free software if its users have certain crucial freedoms. Roughly speaking, they are: the freedom to run the program, the freedom to study and change the source, the freedom to redistribute the source and binaries, and the freedom to publish improved versions. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.) Whether any given program is free software depends solely on the meaning of its license. "
Sun don't say java will is free software, it is OPEN source, since you can download and study the source. If you want to contribute with code optimizations or other improvements, you can study the code and send it to SUN, modifying and redistributing at will would spawns several forks with limited compatibility killing the "write once, run anywhere".
I hope that Java never became "free" in Stallman's definition.
"If you develop a Java program on Sun's Java platform, you are liable to use Sun-only features without even noticing. By the time you find this out, you may have been using them for months, and redoing the work could take more months. You might say, "It's too much work to start over." Then your program will have fallen into the Java Trap; it will be unusable in the Free World."
This states that Stallman doesn't understant hoe JCP works. There is no "Sun-only features" as standard libraries, SUN's VM implements the specifications that are avaliable to everyone to implement in his way (the specification garantes the interoperability).
Java is already open, as open as it is usefull to the open source community. it is not as open as stallman's dogma says it is desired, but that is another matter.
... the Free World mentality. It must be something like the grown men who devote their spare time to creating their own race car: it looks cool, they did it all by themselves, but it will never run on a track or even down the street, just sit there with its chrome ClassPath logo shining in the sun, watching the Toyotas speed by. These people would love to get all the hard won knowledge of the professional racing teams for free.
The biggest problem I have w/ RMS is loudly using words like "ethical" and assuming that everyone means the same thing by them as he does. It's a common failing in the modern world (listen to US political parties pretending to disagree with each other sometime), but it makes a guy who was once supposedly a good engineer sound like the guys who are _really_ trying to destroy the world, and not by selling closed source software either.
In the end, Sun has the right to use any license they want, and the ethical choice in a free society is to support that. Anyone is welcome to try to convince others to change the social contract, but the good guys shouldn't do it by demonizing Sun, etc, because they won't accept someone else's non-advantageous license terms for their own work.
ian
"Linux" is simply the "Kleenex" name for it. Leaving out the "GNU" isn't disrespectful. Most distros could be called X11/[KDE|Gnome]/GNU/Linux.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Dear sirs:
It has come to my attention that you are doing a woefully inept job. Communication between editors is apparently non-existent, no attempt is made to drill down to original sources, misleading and incorrect article summaries are often posted, your copy editing is virtually non-existent and you frequently commit numerous other sins against journalism. *You should be ashamed* by your lack of professionalism. It casts a shadow on you, on Slashdot, and on the tech community. In fact, were you my employees, you would almost certainly be out of a job.
Please, please, please, stop screwing around and treat this like a fucking job. There are eight hours in a workday: use them for working and you might even gain the respect of the Slashdot community and that of other, professional journalists.
Thanks for your time,
Acy Stapp
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
pay your attention to this.
What is this NDA? Anyone can download the Java source code no charge. So if there is an NDA I don't see how it would hold up since the source code has always been disclosed to anyone who wants to have a look. This is helpful when you are trying to understand how Sun implements something.
I am not familiar with the Nvidia situation, but this is very different than the MS source code that has been kept secret until China demanded the source code to scour for backdoors, etc. After this Microsoft dropped the stance it held through the anti-trust trials that revealing the source code would be a national security threat and started charging academic and research faculities and had them sign NDA's. When the source code is stolen and put up for sale online, MS comes down on that with their legal team.
If you tried to sell the source code for Java, it would be pointless since it has always been freely available from Sun.
"I don't think this is quite deranged and vitriolic enough to be a troll (and it doesn't have the neatness of the average cut-and-paste effort), so it must actually have been composed as a serious post. Scary."
How typically slashdot. Anyone who holds a different view from one of its
adolescent posters is "deranged" , and "scary". Grow up.
Pffff, this truly is a troll, stop bashing RMS. Read TFA and you will see he is actually making a valid point. While I'm usually listen to people like Linux and ESR I cannot downplay the importance of RMS's work...
If Java had begun it's life . . .
Line forms on the left. Be sure to have your headshot ready; so we can shoot your head.
KFG
But the point was that if one actually did call it "X11/[KDE|Gnome]/GNU/Linux," you wouldn't be at risk of assuming that the X group did most of the work, right?
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I recognized the article title as being a play on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , though I don't understand the connection between this story and the book.
Anyway, it's an excellent read.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
If he admits to wondering, then he's really out of the loop.
Stallman mentions the NDA in the article.
Did Richard's father stab Sun with a fork?
Did Richard's mother run off with a man living in Sun's house?
Does Richard really dislike yellow and brown?
he doesn't really seem to work with companies like Sun to see if their interests and his own can coincide
You are asking the Fox to guard the henhouse.
-Here's the source code good luck! (lindows and a couple of other projects)
-Tivoized Linux: (can't modify it because my DRM engine checks for a single signature)
-Red Hat/Suse and others to follow: The community version is not ready for production use.
-Sun's Solaris/Java. Total license confusion. ex. can't use debian's apt. They aren't license compatible, yet both are "free." Hmmm.
The original intent of OSS is pretty much gone in all three cases.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
There is no curious incident in the night, no capitalist conspiracy and no deliberate deception. Just how many influential media outlets have announced that Sun is open sourcing Java in the full sense of the term?
It could be argued that it is Stallman's article which is "deceptive and self-serving" since it emerges at the end that he is doing little more than pushing an advert for one of his own pet projects under the guise of excoriating Sun for something Sun has not, in fact, done:
We in the GNU Project continue developing the GNU Compiler for Java and GNU Classpath; we made great progress in the past year, so our free platform for Java is included in many major GNU/Linux distros. If you want to run Java and have freedom, please join in and help.
I think I'll stick to regular beans, thanks.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
A message to RMS - get over it, cut your hair and get a real job.
Sun may have a few good reasons not to fully liberate Java at the moment.
First, Sun is ripe to be aquired. With the CEO-for-life gone, a reasonable market-valuation, and a set of "crown jewels" (Solaris, Java, fantastic server design), it's just a matter of time before someone (Apple?) sees the match and ponies up. Given that very likely possibility, why would Sun weaken its short-term value proposition for a buyer by giving up a certain amount of control over Java. (Not to mention putting a lot of cutting-edge VM code out there for competitors to leverage.) Java is a crown-jewel for aquisition; why give that up?
Second, Java is doing quite well without being fully open source, thank you. Go do searches on the job market. Java is still the hot ticket. It is a skill in demand because it holds a commanding share of server-side development; past, present, and through intertia, future. For any sysadmin, downloading and installing a Java VM is child's play. It's also free-as-in-beer. Yes, that isn't the same thing as fully free, but it's good enough for Java to be successful.
Third, Java has succeeded, in large part, due to a reasonably open, albeit slow, process known as the JCP. There's a level of quality, consistency, and prudentness to Java which has made it successful. We can argue day and night whether all the open-source developer's in the world tweaking Java outside of Sun's stewardship would be more or less successful. What matters, for Sun, is that the current process is successful. Change from that course must be accomplished in steps to verify Sun isn't heading in the wrong direction, for its bottom line.
I should add that as a developer, I'd love to see Java be FOSS; GPLed or BSDed or whatever. Consider, for a moment, that Sun is a public company, and you'll see why Sun has done more to open-source their flagships than, say, Oracle or Microsoft. Or IBM for that matter (AIX, mainframe-OSes, DB2, Lotus apps, Websphere, Rational apps, MQ...)
Apologies in advance that the article is mainly about the media's misinterpretation of Sun's move, but in my opinion, Java licensed in a way that promotes its distribution as part of Linux flavors is still newsworthy, and Sun has taken yet another big step.
I might be being trolled, but Stallman doesn't refer to free as in money. He means the freedom for the users to modify the program according to their needs. A free software developer is perfectly enabled to charge for his software. It's just that many decide not to.
So maybe you are the one coming off as ignorant. IMHO you should be quiet and stay out of discussions you know nothing about.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
... is that Java will become Open Source and the inevitable forking will begin along with the overnight apperance of "UltraJava", "DestilledJava", "ExpressoJava", etc. all with additional features, features removed... People will add things that make some other language "better" and believe it's the key thing missing from Java adoption.
But the one thing that has me terrified is that a certain company will begin a massive FUD campaign informing major businesses that Java no longer has identity, a real ownership and that it will become a nightmare to work with since JVMs and standards have been blown out the window. And they would no doubt succeed by picking a number of crappy Java implementations to compare against their much optimised and vendor locked in C Pound language.
Shortly afterward *unix servers would begin to disappear from major businesses as they implement Windows Vista Server 2007 Virus Spyware Patch Version 3.5 Since Last Tuesday
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
http://download.java.net/jdk6/
Not bad advertising, everybody is going to blog about it and people will discuss it...
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com
Didn't read the license when you downloaded that? One of the provisions is that source code and modifications can only be shared with other licensees. Notice all the "Personal Research Use Only" parts?
I think RMS is right here.
The new Java licence does not preserve the Four Freedoms. If you use Java under the standard binary licence, you are at the mercy of Sun. And although they might be playing nice today, the fact remains that they could change their minds at anytime in future, potentially leaving you up a certain well-known waterway without an implement of propulsion.
I can see why Sun want to protect Java, but I don't think keeping the source code locked up is the best way to do it.
The Java brand name is undeniably strong. So what would be wrong with keeping Java as a registered trademark; and then licencing the use of the trademark on separate terms from the copyrighted software? Then, if you changed the functionality beyond what Sun would permit, you would no longer be allowed to call it Java. The GPL, para. 7, is explicit that you can't distribute software it covers if some other restriction stands in the way. They obviously meant this to cover software idea patents, but a condition regarding unauthorised trademark use would also fit with this. If you just removed all mention of the word "Java", then you would be beyond the scope of trademark law -- so nothing would then prevent you from complying with the requirements of the GPL.
That, then, is my proposal. Experimenters get a GPL'ed and extensible Java-alike. Meanwhile, the likes of Microsoft can't subvert Java and squeeze Sun out of the market. Everyone should be happy!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Yeah, he mentions it in the article but doesn't explain it and I have never heard of it before this article. I don't see any sort of non-disclosure agreement in the licensing, infact I see quite the opposite in the SUN COMMUNITY SOURCE LICENSE Version 2.3 (Rev. Date Sept. 29, 2004)
x t
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/scsl_5.0-license.t
It has language like this:
compile, reproduce and distribute Original Code and Upgraded Code in Executable form, and Reformatted Specifications to anyone for Research Use by You.
IANAL but it appears to allow one to commercially distribute changes with some restrictions to compatibility:
b) Distribution of Executable Code. You may distribute the Executable version(s) of Compliant Covered Code under a license of Your choice, which may contain terms different from this License, provided (i) that You are in compliance with the terms of this License, and (ii) You must make it absolutely clear that any terms which differ from this License are offered by You alone, not by Original Contributor or any other Contributor.
No where do I see any mention of non-disclosure. If anything, it just seems like double speak on Stallman's part to generate confusion.
There's conditions that require you to make fixes to the code freely available and jump through some hoops of standards. Granted it's not as "free" as EMACS, but if it had been J++ would have taken over and we'd be stuck with a third rate standard that would only work with M$ products since only their virtual machine would work with J++ and the vision of write once, run anywhere would be much further away than it is today.
As the other poster wrote, Linux is just a title for a collection of program that we term an Operation System. There's no implication of ownership or credit. It could just as easily be called "Arglex". RMS introduced the whole concept of pushing politics into the name.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Linux = Linus (Torvalds) + *nix.
Yes, I'm pretty sure Linus never figured it would become such a big deal, but he's definitely getting the credit for it.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
RMS is the Hugo Chavez/Fidel Castro of software.
I'm not entirely sure if his own radical and tenacious persuits of "free" could survive one minute outside the bubble of his Utopian ideals. Let's face it, business is business. It would be nice if it were a little less cut-throat and everyone could play nice and share but that's not reality.
I'm not sure what kind of stir RMS is trying to cause by this sabre rattling, but it seems just as equally self-serving as his complaints against Sun.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
>While I'm usually listen to people like Linux and....
You seem to have a very special relationship with your OS...
That's the historical deriviation of the name. So what?
Yes, I'm pretty sure Linus never figured it would become such a big deal, but he's definitely getting the credit for it.
Of course he gets credit for it; he started it. But the equivalent situation is if Linux started insisting we call it, "Linus Torvalds/Linux". Note that it's perfectly possible to have a Linux completely without Linus by forking the Kernel. Note that it's NOT possible to have a Gnu/Linux without any trace of Gnu tools (which DO exist, by the way).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
You need to go one layer deeper.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
hahahaha... that was funny.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
With Perl 6 coming out, we will be able to compile and execute bytecode with Parrot. I see the need for Java being opensourced coming to an end with the release of the next version of Perl.
If you are having memory issues with an app that can run in only few tens of megabytes of memory, you need to seriously upgrade your PC.
Azureus needs tens of megabytes? There is a client out that needs less than 160KB. Java is definitely not as bad as the GP puts it, but there are quite a few languages out there that are better on memory usage.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Note that it's perfectly possible to have a Linux completely without Linus by forking the Kernel. Note that it's NOT possible to have a Gnu/Linux without any trace of Gnu tools (which DO exist, by the way).
...]), where the Free Software Foundation was the organization.
Let me reiterate, for clarification. Your initial statement was that RMS pushes for GNU/Linux because it will bring in more publicity for GNU, with the downside that some people might assume that GNU was responsible for the "entire Linux package" (emphasis mine). My response was that, given the two options "Linux" and "GNU/Linux," the former is much more likely to make people assume that Linus is responsible for the entire package, whereas the latter gives each a pretty equal share.
If your argument is that GNU is an organization, where Linux is a "product" (GNU/Linux ~~ Microsoft Windows), then I can see that being a problem. I've always seen GNU as the project to make free software tools (as in, GNU == [glibc; gcc;
FSF/Linux isn't very fair, definitely, so I agree with you if that's your problem with it.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I was surprised to see him imply that Free and Open Source software were the same (his use of FLOSS to refer ot both).
Maybe his is coming around....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I haven't read any "V". One quote atributed to 'V' is: Something like: To find the source of your problems look in a mirror. Well Sun stewarding Java is good and bad. On the one hand it makes it so "power users" don't add nich features and do "creeping features". On the other hand I'd bet a fair amount with a decent Java -> C Syntax and what not cross compiler it's acceptance would have been quicker. The one major problem Sun's Java team is facing now is the total lack of every-day-joes to reinvent it. Make it sexy again. Make it something with buzz. Look in this day and age the tech has matured enough so that it's beyoned retarted that software firms can't/don't have the option to write, test, and sell one software package. Having met a large number of the original developers they have a serious ego issue. I don't recomend the GPL 1.5 aka Java 2. What they can do without any issues from most of the consortium is do a half version delay though, this would let Apple get on board and handle what Sun can't: Make Java cool. Since RMS is so fond of being a talented, eccentric yes, but still talanted ranter and GPL wonk How's about these: "Look no further than a mirror to see the source of your' own problems". and "...still tis nothing more than a rose...oh why do conflict so? are we not all brothers? can't a man find happy mirth, a negotiat with the enemy...?"
Your signature sums up you're attitude nicely; whatever you don't agree with is automatically 'scary' and 'absurd.'
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
That's more-or-less the point as far as the confusion goes, but mostly my point is that RMS has specifically said he wants GNU attached for the publicity. But if Open Source is getting some publicity, that seems to be a bad thing because of potential "confusion". But then, "free software" is incredibly confusing, but he doesn't have a problem with that because (paraphrase), "it is an opportunity to educate people about free software and what it should mean."
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Java is already fragmented. The result of open sourcing Java will actually be consolidation, i.e. killing of competing VMs. And a huge open source test suite will greatly benefit all surviving JVMs, which is a good thing.
How can you not see this?
Javas problem is not that it might get fragmented, the problem is that it IS fragmented. Do something about it! Let Java free!
Don't you love people who leech off of RMS's work, and then complain about him?
Quite hypocrital of you.
...[If] Open Source is getting some publicity, that seems to be a bad thing because of potential "confusion". But then, "free software" is incredibly confusing, but he doesn't have a problem with that[...].
The bad thing (at least in this article) isn't that Open Source is getting some publicity, but that Sun's announcement is being misrepresented: Sun isn't Open Sourcing (in the GPL/BSD sense) Java, although that might be in the works. Sun is announcing a change in license that allows distributions to package Java a little easier.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Wow, imagine that, a member of the "Java is all anyone should ever need" typical Java programmer mindset is whining about Java not completely taking over OSS, like it should, right?
It says things you can and cannot do with the source, just like GPL says things you can and cannot do with the source. It doesn't say I can't tell people I downloaded the source. It doesn't say that I can't tell people I found a bug in the source. It just lays out the terms under which you can and cannot modify and/or redistribute the source, just as GPL does (with different terms).
:P
Are you saying that the GPL is an NDA? Perhaps you should that that up with Stallman.
If RMS had bothered to listen to Jonathan Schwartz's keynote at JavaOne, he would know that Sun is interested in open-sourcing Java. Not just their implementation, but apparently the language itself and the platform that goes with it. I was there, and I clearly recall Mr. Schwartz saying, "It's not a question of whether, it's a question of how."
So yes, this "non-incident" is the first step. One thing RMS has never been good at is understanding political and corporate realities. You can't just snap your fingers and expect the world to instantly conform to your ideals; it takes time to overcome corporate inertia. In the meantime, I'm willing to show Sun that I appreciate the steps they've taken so far, and I will continue to prod them along toward the future I think we're all hoping for.
I wish I was a Trust Fund Baby. Then I wouldn't have to work as a programmer for a living and I could give it all away for free instead.
"The sun was on fire."
I hope that Java never became "free" in Stallman's definition.
Personally, I agree, but that's only because I spent 5 years in the J2EE trenches and would much rather see Java dead dead dead. OTOH if you really like Java and want to use it 10 years from now you should support the efforts to make it Free Software, even if that means ultimately moving to GNU Classpath.
This states that Stallman doesn't understant hoe JCP works. There is no "Sun-only features" as standard libraries, SUN's VM implements the specifications that are avaliable to everyone to implement in his way (the specification garantes the interoperability).
RMS isn't talking about classes in the com.sun.* tree. Developers who use those are indeed stupid. Rather, he's talking about the classes in java.* and javax.* that don't (yet) have equivalents in a Free Software environment. Not too long ago that included things like servlets, crypto, and EJB. If you don't routinely test your application on a non-Sun-derived JVM then you are right now inside the Java Trap. Sun-derived JVMs include corporate JVMs from IBM, Sun, and HP, and the "free" Blackdown JVM used on BSD and Linux. If you are dependent on any of the classes shipped with these then you are at Sun's mercy.
Java is already open, as open as it is usefull to the open source community. it is not as open as stallman's dogma says it is desired, but that is another matter.
Well, it's "open" in that any user can go to java.sun.com and download it after reading a nag screen, and maybe soon a distro can put it in a repository (but probably with a different nag screen). But if Sun gets bought, or goes bankrupt, or just changes their mind about Java then all the people whose code can't already run on Classpath are SOL until those idealistic hippies come around to bail them out.
Freedom includes freedom to fork. The battle should have been about standards, not about proprietary right to dictate others compliance. That is why they have such a hard time getting it all this time later.
Java is already open, as open as it is usefull to the open source community. it is not as open as stallman's dogma says it is desired, but that is another matter.
To many in the open source community, it could be far more useful if it were more open. You do not speak for the open source community or me in any way, as you parrot Sun's tired old excuses and whining for better acceptance without being willing to do what it takes.
Going to the Apache site, I see tons of projects in Java and very little with mono. .net has Microsoft. Who else makes a .net appserver? (Apache mono doesn't quite cut it)
Perhaps, its because people can take the Jakarta projects and use them on WebSphere, Weblogic, Sun One (or whatever its called today), Oracle App Server, or almost any other J2EE server. Developers are using free software on proprietary servers in huge numbers. Perhaps, just perhaps, the majority don't really care about the license issue. If they did then maybe there would be a lot more people working on the CLASSPATH project.
Java probably has a huge market because that market has so many players and is so damn big. OTOH,
Most businesses (in my experience) choose proprietary over open source because a salesperson SOLD it to them and they want somebody to blame when things go wrong. You'll argue that this is stupid. You are right it is. Sun's not going to pay them anything for a bug in the VM (neither will IBM). But, when their boss comes down with the hammer, they want someone else to point to.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
In the end, Sun has the right to use any license they want, and the ethical choice in a free society is to support that. Anyone is welcome to try to convince others to change the social contract, but the good guys shouldn't do it by demonizing Sun, etc, because they won't accept someone else's non-advantageous license terms for their own work.
And then we have to hear them whine in court and elsewhere, for example, that they don't like Microsoft's embrace and extend, that they don't like being excluded from distributions, that they don't understand why their platform is not trusted, etc. when GPL would have made it clear at the start that any extensions would be publicly distributable and could not be used to trap people.
Perhaps my mind is simply drawing a blank, but how does Microsoft crush free software? I can think of many companies (Sun, Apple, Eolas, etc.) that have sued MS over petty things, but I can't think of any major lawsuits that MS has started. Sure, they file trademark and copyright infringement suits, the occassional contract dispute, and even sued a spammer.
.Net that are not standardized, and may have to be reverse-engineered in order to implement. However, as long as they don't copy MS's code, they'll be fine. Sure there may be patent issues, but MS has never filed a patent infringement lawsuit.
But I've never heard of MS suing an open source project or programmer. All MS can really do is change their software so it no longer interops with OSS (which hardly "crushes" any OSS) or distribute GPL software without making the source available.
It's not like MS can underprice some OSS project and drive them out of business!
You're right that there are many parts of
Besides, Java has the exact same problems. There are plenty of Java libraries that are not part of Sun's source, and whose specs are not even freely available. The only way for Classpath to implement them is to reverse-engineer those APIs, which puts them at risk of a Sun vs. MS type lawsuit. Of course if you RTFA, you would know that this is what Stallman means when he refers to the "Java trap".
dom
It would be nice if rms would distribute to docs to hurd under the GPL - but he doesn't.
Why is that?
And to redistribute the modified copies, which means "free-as-in-GPL" implies in practice, even if not in theory, "free-as-in-no-charge", because as soon as somebody gets ahold of it that is willing to redistribute it free-of-charge, the ability to charge anyone for it (barring the ignorant who may be unaware of the free-of-charge vendor) goes away.
(Of course, a free software developer can profit from the software by other means, leveraging their unique depth of knowledge of what they developed into payments for support contracts, books, etc., but the nature of the "freedoms" with which Stallman defines free software makes it unlikely that anyone is going to be able to do much selling "free software" except in exceptional circumstances (such as when the freedoms aren't particularly realized despite a notionally free copyright license like the GPL, perhaps because of patent or other restrictions), particularly any piece of "free software" that has much exposure. And, whether or not Stallman says so, or even cares himself, I think that's a big -- and not necessarily bad -- motive of much of the "free software" movement.)
"How many people installed .Net 1.1 on their Windows 98/2k boxes? All it took was a checkbox on Windows Update...but I NEVER saw it installed on a desktop until XP required it."
.Net, but it would make things a lot easier for .Net developers if it did.
XP doesn't require any version of
RMS has some very good ideas but we don't have to treat him like some sort of hero to follow blindly - we can listen to his ideas and decide which are the good ones. If you go back a way you'll see the conference name tag stunt was done a couple of times - with ordinary paper ones as well as RFID tags.
How did this get modded "insightful"? RMS is not complaining about "open source" vs. "free", nor is he disparaging Sun for what they did or didn't do. He's simply pointing out that Sun did NOT make Java into Libre Software, despite many reports that they did. That is true. His comment about the term "open source" was clearly an aside (but a valid point nonetheless).
:)
I see no criticism of Sun here; merely a truthful observation that Sun did nothing (from the perspective of the Free/Libre/Open-Source communit(y|ies). Yes, Sun did say that they plan to release under an OSI-approved license someday, and that's good news, but that's not doing, that's merely saying.
> "Whats funny is I don't understand the confusion here."
That's the whole point! You clearly recognize that Sun's new license is NOT free/libre/open-source. I also recognize that and RMS recognizes that. But a LOT of people seem to be confused about the matter, and those are the people RMS is addressing. You and I and he are all on the same page about this point (if nothing else).
As for why RMS won't give up the whole "anti-'open source' label" thing--I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that ESR is a major jackass, but I'm not completely sure. Me, I dislike the term "open source" because the word "open" has been an industry synonym for "loser" for decades. But I mostly ignore these stupid labelling squabbles. As far as I'm concerned, FreeBSD is a fine version of Linux.
The term "open source" is ambiguous as well. A company could claim that some app of theirs is open source, yet twist the definition to mean something completely different (we see this with "free software" all the time). The only difference here is that IIRC, the Open Source Initiative holds a trademark on the term "Open Source", which allows them to sue people who use it in ways they don't approve of.
Java is not "open source" or "free software", as those terms are generally used in the open source or free software communities -- open source is more than "available source".
Now, "available source" is a good thing (it means, for one thing, that you aren't relying on security through obscurity.), but its a different thing than "open source".
The trademark and compatibility certification Sun does now don't rely on Sun's implementation being closed (even if available) source, and it is that certification and control of the Java name as a trademark, not control of a closed-source reference implementation (though control of a reference implementation -- independent of source licensing model -- is an essential component to the credibility of Sun's certification effort) that safeguards, inasmuch as anything can, against fragmentation of the standard for the VM and the language and assorted related technologies. Its the specification and certification program -- and the fact that users, developers, etc. continue to find value in the standards it enforces, that keeps Java Java, not the fact that Sun happens to have a proprietary implementation.
Which is probably why they've said that they plan to open-source it, and that its a matter of how, not whether, that will happen. But there are choices of open source license to make, and different pieces of the implementation may need different licenses.
Sun gives the JDK away for *free*. So why would they care if a different group was doing developement. Sun can still offer support for the GNU Java. All they have to do is release the source to some lower-teir Java platform and someone else will implement all the features Sun would ever want to put in. They save on development with no additional costs! Win-Win situation here.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Why? You are not smart enough to be able to understand them? So why does it matter?
He's like the runner-up in democratic elections: his sole purpose is to rattle the cage. Like the idiots say, bad press is good press. RMS may be a babbling hippie, but he is drawing attention to topics of interest. Some people with greater minds just might spend a moment in profound thought.
I'm just sick of him claiming everything should be free, but not free fre, GNU/free. He reminds me of most rap artists, same beat, same profanity, different track name.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Wow, what a completely null argument. You might as well say a movie ticket and a parking fine are the same thing because they both have dates and times on them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=448031
iksrazal
My question is where are the C# equivalents for Java 3D, Java for embedded systems, Java for distributed computation, etc, all those offshoots of Java, in the .NET world ? GDI+; and what else? Honest question...
o ftware form kinda license, like Trolltech's Qt has. That would garantee that if Sun goes out of business, code Java lives on (I'm thinking here of a 20-years horizon). Because there are long-lived applications out there in C, Fortran, Common Lisp (one conspicuous open source case in point: Maxima CAS), etc., but I'm not sure there can be long-lived Java applications.
I, for one, think it would be great if Sun came up with a If-I-cease-to-exist-I-shall-be-released-as-Free-S
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
The fact the Java shouldn't be forked only makes sense because Sun oversees its development. People therefore learn what to expect from the JVMs, and Sun offers some "garantee" in what regards that behavior.
Because people expect consistent behavior of Java code in various platforms, it's something that pleases everyone and all agree it is to each one's best interest.
If Sun were to release Java as FOSS, there would be forks, and competition for the niche space, because Java has shortcomings, like everything else does. However, not one would really know what "NewJava", "ExpJava" or whatever means. I don't think the corporate market likes that idea. In the end, you would have a language war.
Think about the languages that have survived all these years: C, C++, Smalltalk, Fortran, Lisp, etc. You will see a pattern: they have a kind of standard, a kind of agreement. Now, this new languages ("scripting" languages) are surging. They are moving targets. They are language experiments, written by people learning how to write programming languages. By comparison, they are just hacks. They keep web programmers employed, but some stuff needs software for decades: medical, telecomm, military, financial. Etc. Java caters much more to the same market that C/C++/Smalltalk/Fortran/Cobol/Lisp caters to than to the market served by the likes of Ruby on Rails or PHP.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
That was long ago, try looking a something recent.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Which is not an NDA.
I've signed NDAs before, this is not one./p.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
To elaborate, this is a distribution agreement.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Unlike you're BS; both the GPL and CPL are distribution agreements.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
The claim was that .Net was just a "reimplementation of Java with different semantics." Whether the features in .NET that weren't in Java have been "floating around for years" doesn't support that claim. In fact most ideas in Java had been around for years and most of them had been implemented before Java was created. This is true of all new languages. So what?
That's a good point. I was, really, referring to ways that (like license sales of non-free software) capitalize on the post-release popularity and success of the software rather than pre-release expectations (though that wasn't spelled out), and I didn't intend, in any case, for the list to be exhaustive. But that does often get overlooked, so its good that you point it out.