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The Curious Incident of Sun in the Night-Time

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-to-read dept.

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."

6 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Before all the.... by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Before all the.... by oscartheduck · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the amazon.com review: "He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers."

      Perhaps RMS is suggesting that a lot of people took the overhyped media version of what occured at face value, instead of looking into it for themselves and seeing whether this was truly an open source license?

      --
      How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
    2. Re:Before all the.... by Y2 · · Score: 3, Informative
      You need to know Watson's reply to Holmes.
      "Consider the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

      "The dog did nothing in the night time."

      "That was the curious incident."

      --
      "But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
  2. Re:Okay, so I know that RMS is a little out there by Spaceman40 · · Score: 4, Informative
    With his title, RMS is quoting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, "Silver Blaze," where the exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson goes as follows:
    Watson: "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
    Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
    Watson: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
    Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

    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.
  3. Stallman still doesn't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  4. Where is the "blasting"????? by MadHungarian · · Score: 4, Informative

    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 ;)