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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.
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.
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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...
I thought only Microsoft was run by the undead.
Totally not true. The undead actually pursue people with brains.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
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!"
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
And that's exactly the problem. 20 minutes after Java goes "free", some idiot will start adding pointers to it. Sun's stewardship of the language is the only thing preventing this.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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.
not if they wan't compatibility with existing jvms they won't.
If you can make a pointer system that gets past the bytecode verifier then there is nothing to stop you implementing it now. Free java compilers are not in short supply its the libs that are the issue.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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.
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.
"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.
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.
IBM legal counsel is not handwaving
Yes, yes it is. The exact same "residual" issue exists with any source code that isn't in public domain. That includes GPLed code. I could write a module that's extremely similar to GPLed code, and the original author of the GPL code could sue me for failing to observe the licensing restrictions imposed by the GPL.
I hate to break it to people, but merely existing is a legal risk. The only way to mitigate that risk is to attempt to only do business with entities you trust. Now in the entire time that the SCSL code has existed (7 YEARS!), Sun has never lifted a finger against ANY entity over similar code. Nor have they lifted a finger against free Java or J2EE implementations for other licensing restrictions. In fact, they've tried to be helpful. (As helpful as you can expect a large, slow-moving corporation to be.)
Now that Sun has tried to address the concerns levied against them about the SCSL code, they've been demonized for trying to help. Well I'm sorry. I can't help people who are naturally distrustful of those that are trying to help, while simultaneously falling into a trap of the enemy.
For comparison, what's Microsoft's history? Oh yes: use any means necessary to CRUSH each and every threat posed against their dominance. This includes bad licensing, theft, bad-faith negotiations, "aqusitions", misleading advertisements, etc., etc., etc. And the OSS community has just gotten into bed with them.
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Yeah, that's why I never use Python, Ruby, Scheme, Lua, Perl, Sed, Awk, m4, sh, batch files, etc: Someone might add pointers to them one day, and if that happened, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to control myself, and then I might end up falling off the no-pointers wagon. I just can't accept that risk.
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
Below is a representation of your head, and above, the grandparent's point:
(Grand parent's point) ---> (whoooooooosh)
(your head here)
But why listen to the grandparent? I for one can't wait for there to be a million different versions of Java that aren't cross compatible, with various open and closed source projects using specific copies of each one, resulting in mass confusion.
... 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
What I was doing was disagreeing with its validity, and alluding, through sarcasm, to facts in the real world which suggest that the concern it articulates is empirically unsupported.
Whether Sun open sources its implementation of Java is pretty much irrelevant to whether or not this happens (except that it not doing so creates a barrier to Sun incorporating innovations from other versions, making a split of the language more likely.)
See, the thing is, once there is one clean room implementation open-sourced -- which there is now -- Sun doesn't have control of the language as used based on its control of its implementation. People can take it anyway they want, and the only control is what people to choose to use, Sun or something else.
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!
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.
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.
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!
Worse yet ... someone might add operator overloading! And you'll be able to concatenate strings with the addition operator! Anarchy!
Oh wait, they did that already? But isn't operator overloading evil?
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
OSS isn't immune to this. If the maintainers of a program stop maintaining it then it can also become unusable. Look at all the unmantained device drivers in the Linux Kernel that are causing issues.
And yes there are alternatives to Sun's Java
http://viva.sourceforge.net/runtime.html is a list of free Java run times.
If Sun dropped off the face of the earth and Java was still important you can bet someone would help the OSS version catch up.
Not saying it doesn't matter at all. Just that to the vast majority of users it doesn't matter.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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
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.
OSS hasn't posed a serious threat, yet. But if Mono does take off, Microsoft will be looking to crush it. Which means that they'll use any dirty trick they can think of, including patent warfare. While they're pretty new to patents these days, I have no doubt that they'll abuse them if they need to. Some examples of former history:
- Microsoft promised "royalties" to SpyGlass for each copy of IE sold. IE was released for free, thus Microsoft didn't have to pay.
- Microsoft refused to license Windows 95 to IBM in time for the launch if IBM didn't sever their relationship with Netscape.
- Microsoft "offered" to make Netscape a Windows-only product, and threatened to crush them if they didn't agree. (We know what happened there.)
- Microsoft annouced the non-existant Windows product when Visi-On became a threat to their DOS market.
- Microsoft refused to license NT 4.0 code to Citrix so that Citrix could update their NT 3.51 product. Instead, Citrix was "graciously" offered to give their technology to Microsoft in exchange for the ability to market their ICA protocol as an add-on to the Windows Terminal Services product created with Citrix's technology.
- Microsoft sics the BSA on companies who refused to upgrade to the latest version of Windows. (Because they must be pirating, you know.)
Those are just a few off the top of my head. There's a whole backlog of Microsoft's misdeeds that I could dig up. The scary part is that former Microsoft employees often admit to these misdeeds with pride! (see: Barbarians Lead by Bill Gates for an example.) Microsoft will do anything it takes to ensure dominance. They are not an entity you willingly trust if you can help it.
There are plenty of Java libraries that are not part of Sun's source, and whose specs are not even freely available.
Name one. I dare you. I'm willing to bet you'll find the specs right here.
Of course if you RTFA, you would know that this is what Stallman means when he refers to the "Java trap".
No, this is not what Stallman refers to. He believes that Java is a trap because the source code is not "free as in freedom", and that you'll be "trapped" by the convenience. He also complains that Sun doesn't allow him to call his software an implementation of a standard unless he's 100% compliant with the standard. (Duh.) God forbid that Sun require that implementations of a standard actually implement the standard.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Yeah, Free languages like python, perl, ruby and php are incredibly fragmented.
You want to be able to rely on something unified like Java ( and sablevm and kaffe and jamvm and microsoft java and ibm java and gnu classpath and gcj and jikes and apache harmony and jupiter ).
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
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.