Java To Be Opened For Christmas?

MBCook writes "At the Oracle OpenWorld conference, Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced on Wednesday morning that Java would be opened within 30-60 days, which would would mean about Christmas Day at the latest. Sun first announced they would do this back in May at JavaOne but didn't give a date. We've seen rumblings before on this topic. Schwartz also commented on the companies Sun Fire servers, Sun's relationship with Oracle, and general trends."

Comments

Re:64-bit

[EmperorKagato]

or Java that utilizes the 64 bit arch as well as take advantage of dual core processing and hyperthreading.

An open source VM isnt much use

[jonwil]

Open source VMs already exist, what we need is for sun to open source the java libraries.

Finally

[Ajehals]

FTA it looks like it really is, finally about to be reality (:)), Java under an OSI approved license. Not only that but within 60 days and all because of pressure from the community - I wonder where else that might work (drivers? - nah need a bigger market share...).

It looks like Sun Microsystems are starting to see the benefits of Open Source technology, first Open Office (Under the GPL no less) then Solaris and now Java, - I can only hope it catches on throughout the industry.

Just a couple of points - I know that Java isn't being released under the GPL, and that there are still some interesting debates going on about the CCDL and interoperability with the GPL (I wont even pretend to know the precise issues), but it is definitely a good thing. Since Sun Microsystems is primarily seen as a hardware company, and presumably isn't too worried about the revenue's it is losing from the software sales it could have had (I know this doesn't apply to Java but it could have to Open Office and did to Solaris) it does mean that nothing that they are doing can be readily applied to a Software company. So anybody suggesting that Microsoft et al should start Open Sourcing their code because it works for Sun Microsystems is probably a little off the mark.

Well anyway - Be a good day when it *actually* happens and his is very good news. I wonder if I should look at using Java...

PS: By the way (and slightly random) my spell checker in OO.org attempts to correct CCDL as CUDDLY and GNU-GPL as SNUGGLE, how sweet.

Re:Finally

[lokedhs]

And I think you are giving the Open Source alternate implementations of Java a little more credit than they deserver.

The fact of the matter is that they for the most part suck. As you mention yourself, they are only now close to becoming 1.4 compatible. The problem, of course, is that 1.5 was a huge improvement over 1.4 and it came out over 3 years ago. 1.6 is in beta 2 and will be released soon.

You can spend a lot of time discussing performance comparisons between the different VM's like SableVM, but that's not really interesting. It doesn't really matter which "free" VM you use, you still don't have a modern class library available until Sun releases theirs. That is why an open sourced version of Java is interesting for these parties.

Personally, I think the Sun VM is fantastic, but giving the "free" alternatives the ability to use the same class library will only increase competition and that is good for everybody. Today, they are playing the catchup game, and that must be really boring, since no one that really matters actually use their product for anything important.

Firefox : Iceweasel :: Sun Java : ???

[Gracenotes]

The dichotomy that exists between Microsoft Java (which is pretty bad) and Sun Java is, if not jarring, quite irritating. Thankfully, Sun Java is the norm. But if Sun Java is released under the GPL, I expect to see several more versions of Java, most of them incompatible with each other, coming out soon. Iceweasel, anyone?

Re:Firefox : Iceweasel :: Sun Java : ???

[Shados]

Yeah, that would be pretty bad. This is something that has always been bothering me, but I just thought about something while reading your post.

While not 100% true in all cases, the beauty of java isn't really in the base JVM, its in J2EE. At least, it is what pushes it in the corporate space, where the money is. With that in mind, a specific J2EE implementation usualy has a couple of "supported" JVMs (sometimes only one even). So I suspect even these alternate JVMs, at least the serious ones (which would want to work with J2EE, or else be forgotten), will stay in line (read: compatible) with the commercial J2EE implementations, or die. So while we WILL see a bunch of weirdo useless JVM/Java implementations (I realise both aren't the same thing, but the logic still stands), there should be a couple that stay at the top, and we'll just use those.

Re:Firefox : Iceweasel :: Sun Java : ???

[DragonWriter]

But if Sun Java is released under the GPL, I expect to see several more versions of Java, most of them incompatible with each other, coming out soon.

So? There already are several more versions of Java. What keeps the ones that succeed largely compatible isn't licensing (as the non-Sun, non-Microsoft ones are reverse-engineered, not licensed) but the fact that there is no interest in incompatible "Java". Releasing Sun's implementation under the GPL (or the CCDL, or, heck, into the public domain) isn't going to change that.

Re:Co-ffeee...

[kevin_conaway]

Between Azureus and a few useful web applets, I use Java far more than I'd like, as it's the slowest thing on my PC (3ghz/1GB RAM). Would definitely like to see it slimmed down.

Using Azureus as an example of memory problems in Java is like using Firefox as an example of memory problems in C++

Re:64-bit

[gameforge]

We need one less programming language, that's for certain.

Re:IBM Trolls

[EvanED]

Is there something wrong with the CDDL that's not wrong with the Mozilla license? From what I understand, the CDDL is similar to the Mozilla license but simpler. I invite every single one of those armchair critics to stop using Firefox if they're so adamant

In all fairness, FF is dual-licensed under the GPL.