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Sun's Java Will Be Free This Year
Ian Whyde notes that Sun is finally coming to the end of its struggle to open up Java completely. Simon Phipps, the chief open source officer at Sun Microsystems, said: "There were a couple of holdouts there. One was the area to do with raster graphics and 2D graphics. That turned out to be owned by a company that didn't want us to release that code as open source. We negotiated with them and because they've said 'yes, you can open source the code'... The only element that's left now is actually a sound-related component within Java. We finally decided that the vendor that's involved there just isn't going to play ball and we're rewriting the code from scratch. That's going to be done within the next couple of months." In another sense the milestone of a free Java was reached this week when IcedTea passed the rigorous Java Test Compatibility Kit.
64bit Support? Well I guess that will be trivial when we can at least build from source. Then into packages and Repo's :D
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Am I the only one who loves Coldfusion?
-Jim Bastard
Yoohoo!! wait a second...ARGHHHHHH
Sun Java will be available under a GPL license, but it remains dual-licensed. Dual licensing means that Sun still has special rights and Sun is still the only company that can control the future of Java.
Sun's Java will only truly be free if Sun drops dual licensing and releases it under a single license for everybody (GPL, Apache, LGPL, whatever).
I hoped it was going to be declared obsolete this year.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Why don't they just optimize the needed lines from IcedTea and glue them to their licensed code?
isn't that supposed to be the way OSS benefits the community?
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
I think I'm with everyone here if I give Sun a big "Thank you!" for all their trouble and effort. Java would probably one of the biggest wins for the community and its release when it comes will be worth a celebration.
This is also the year of Linux on desktop.
irc network. The implementation to appeared...saying Series of exploding filed 9countersuit, benefits of being for successful world will have
What do we need Sun's Java for when we've got IcedTea, which is essentially Sun's Java with patented code (and other parts which could not be open-sourced) re-written? Is Sun's release better in any way?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
... people recognize the scale and generosity of what Sun have done in GPL'ing their crown jewel.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
According to http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/sound/soundbanks.html that looks like Thomas "Dolby" Robertson's Beatnik, Inc. -- or who "isn't going to play ball"?
Indeed. That and the risks still involved with this whole movement.
Does anybody know who they are?
I think we should get the rumor mill started with things like "actively discouraged open-source" and so on, after all Sun are doing a good thing yet it seems this one company have been holding it up with an over-zealous attitude to I.P.
RMS has decried the GPL'ing of Java as being a major assault on free software advocacy.
"For years we have warned people to steer clear of writing free software in languages that require non-free VM's or other components to work by calling this the 'Java trap'. Using this well known example with a VM that is slow and bloated and used for software that doesn't fit into any OS anywhere and which nobody actually liked, quickly got the point made and we could then more easily make the point about things that some people actually enjoyed like educational games written in flash... now SUN has GPL'd Java they have made removed our greatest example of the evils of the erm flash trap ! This may still have been a win for free software if only anything usable had ever been written in Java - but seeing as nothing has, it was only ever good as an example. Universities used the language as an example of good object orientation, we used the license as an example of the s/java/flash/g trap" the FSF founder said in a press release.
Despite his hardcore geek nature the release will more likely be remembered for his attempts at a verbal sed script than for it's actual point.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The kind of free that doesn't turn intelligent computer scientists and engineers into retarded politicians whinging about intellectual property and patents rather than just getting the fuck on with it.
I hope the GPL doesn't save this big steaming pile of shit. Nowadays you can browse most of the web without retarded applets popping up.
If we are going to go back to 1998 Microsoft could release ActiveX under the GPL as well. Ready for inclusion in FireFox 4 "GrandHole".
Once again, I thank SUN for all efforts in this direction. My request to other OSS evangelists is to let existing Open source implementations of Java die so that efforts can be spent on this SUN implementation alone. The availability of multiple implementations of the same idea is not getting us very far so far. I hope we have learned from this.
This is funny, not interesting.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Sun's stock is likely to be free this year, too. As if being 95% off its 2001 price back in 2007, Jonothan Schwartz's brilliant renaming of the ticket and 4:1 reverse split has accomlished an almost 60% loss of value in the last eight months.
With this idiot at the helm and the board which obviously could not care less what happens at Sun, I wouldn't doubt if the current price ($2.85 in pre-reverse-split prices) drops another 50% by 2009.
I thought the sun just did light...and..stuff...
I hear everybody mentioning Java being the top programming language, and reputable sites everywhere seem to agree.
However, where is all this Java being used? Every program I use (when source is available) seems to be C++, a .NET language, or PHP/Perl/Python/ASP for websites.
Are all these developers compiling the bytecode to native code when they distribute? Where are the results for this huge demand for Java?
Thanks,
Danny
Methinks it speaks very ill for Java, if the sound support is so deeply woven into the language that this becomes a major problem.
Back in 1973, when Dennis Ritchie created C, the decoupling of I/O from the syntax by using libraries was a major advantage over the languages of the day, such as Fortran and Cobol. Today languages such as Perl or Python have further perfected this concept. In Python there are standard APIs so that in many cases you can switch to another library without changing the function calls.
Java may be more used than Python or Ruby, but so is VB, too, in the corporate applications. Perhaps Sun will find that it takes more than a free-as-in-speech licence to catch the spirit of free software.
the way it has been going.
May I suggest Myths and facts about 64-bit Linux for your reading pleasure ?
I Have enjoyed writing software in Mono for the past year or so and developing .Net applications at work a little longer.
But one thing bothers me - you know what I going to say next.... ..Patents! or MS derived technology.
Now, to be fair it seems pretty much most software is 'perceived' to violate a patent of some description today.
As I understand it the mono vm apparently is o.k. but some of the libraries(e.g. ADO, Windows.Forms, ASP and even c#) are suppossed to violate patents and this is unfortunate.
Some of the software I have written will have commercial applications and the *uncertainty* of the status of mono in general is in question. Even the MS 'agreements' signed by Novell purposely *exclude* mono in any protection.
Personally I prefer Mono(and some great apps are available-e.g. Banshee, MonoDevelop) compared to Java but because of the huge amount of work by Sun and the community to fully open-source Java I will switch to it immediately.
My reasons to switch are: .Net's direction from v2.00 to v3.5 is becoming more tied in to Windows. From v3.0(or v3.5?) Microsoft included Vista libraries are part of the default installation. It's the old MS Treadmill(tm) all over again.
1) Java is open-sourced and the actual company(Sun) that created it are fully involved and are a positive influence in the community.
2) Java is present in almost all modern mobile phones. There is great potential to leverage this and I'm sure there are many ways this can be used with the Desktop.
3) The development tools are free, full versions and are very powerful. Visual Studio Express is free but it has reduced functionality compared to the full version.
4) 'Peace of Mind'. I can develop my software without looking over my shoulder wondering 'will I get sued'!
5)
As far as I know both Java and Mono are very capable technologies. It is difficult to choose one on technical merit alone, it comes down to the licensing - Sun has fully committed to the community and Microsoft has been fairly under-handed.
If Mono is to survive and be taken seriously within the community it must take a completely different direction. Start developing open-source equivalents of the libraries (e.g. gtk# for gui controls).
Like I said before I prefer Mono to Java (concerning the gui Mono just 'feels' more responsive than Java).
What we should do as a community is to fully get behind Java and push its development and start using it on the desktop. We can create some great applications for it and keep open-source software 'untainted'.
Sun have made a great long-term decision by opening-up Java - it will be seen as a safe option and is available for many platforms. .Net's long-term future is in doubt because Microsoft will not open-source or allow competing versions to exist. Many forms of computers now exist today in mobile phones, pdas, laptops and many different types of CPUs. Java(in various forms) runs everywhere. By using Java as a common standard all these devices can communicate together and develop interesting uses.
Just the insane ramblings of a elderly programmer (I'm 38 you know!).
P.S. 'Get off my lawn!'
My school insists on using a java applet for its email The Ohio State University. Needless to say, it's the worst email system ever devised and has lots of cross browser incompatiblities. To top it off, they really think the java applet is a good idea, because they just did a major update to it, overhauling the entire program.
I avoid it like the plague by using pop3 and smtp
Do you guys and gals remember when Richard did a short stint in a video for Sun following the announcement that Sun had decided to GPL Java ?
I can only imagine how happy Richard was on that day. He had every reason to be so. Not simply because Sun had chosen to use his license for Java-but rather because of a little bit of historical trivia that most Free Software users are too young to remember.
Now surely you know the name James Gosling. He was the one who created Java. But did you know that there is a rather interesting relationship between him and Richard ?
One of the single biggest reasons that Richard wrote the GPL and created what we now know as Free Software has everything to do with James Gosling.
"In the early years (1984 to 1988), the GNU Project did not have a single license to cover all its software. What led Stallman to the creation of this copyleft license was his experience with James Gosling, creator of NeWs and the Java programming language, and UniPress, over Emacs. While Stallman created the first Emacs in 1975, Gosling wrote the first C-based Emacs (Gosling Emacs) running on Unix in 1982. Gosling initally allowed free distribution of the Gosling Emacs source code, which Stallman used in early 1985 in the first version (15.34) of GNU Emacs. Gosling later sold rights to Gosling Emacs to UniPress, and Gosling Emacs became UniPress Emacs. UniPress threatened Stallman to stop distributing the Gosling source code, and Stallman was forced to comply. He later replace these parts with his own code. (Emacs version 16.56). (See the Emacs Timeline) To prevent free code from being proprietarized in this manner in the future, Stallman invented the GPL."
http://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/Many people who are ignorant of this history have always been affronted by Stallman's use of the phrase "Java Trap". But is it really any wonder that Richard chose to use that expression-given what personally had transpired between him and James Gosling.
Bill Joy was the cofounder of Sun Microsystems. He is also the guy who originally wrote Vi. Bill Joy was also friends with James Gosling- and made Gosling's baby practically synonymous with the name Sun.
This little bit of trivia adds a whole lot to all of the flamefests over the years about Emacs vs. Vi. SunOS, which we now know as OpenSolaris, was the first heavily commercialized version of what we now know as BSD. Bill Joy used the code written at Berkley to create the original SunOS.
That Java is now GPL is nothing less than Sun saying to Richard-"Richard, you were right". And if one day OpenSolaris embraces the GPL Richard's victory will be complete.
You may think this is nothing but propaganda-but I encourage you to actually *learn* about the history of these giants of the computer world.
Now that the OpenJDK is %100 Free, %100 GPL, Richard has received the kind of vindication that hardly *anyone* in life ever gets. Cheers to you Richard and Cheers to Sun for seeing the light.
Duke Nukem Forever.
This software should have been freed up years ago.
Too little, too late, IMHO.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
It seems like the only responsible thing to do when so many (often free software) developers are getting into Java for platform independence and something relatively easy to work with that won't die out with a new version of [Proprietary Operating System].
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I've downloaded Java from Sun a couple of years ago and didn't have to pay a dime!
(ducks for cover)
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I know, I know, free beer vs free speech, RMS etc.
Seriously, though, does anybody know of significant Java apps that use that javax.sound API which is the problem in OpenJDK?
Seems like this is the least frequently used (and least important) part of the J2SE API.
Yeah, I can't think of any common desktop app that does extensive decompression, image scaling and SSL. I'd have no use for an app like that if it did exist, telnet fits all my web browsing needs. What's more, 640k should be enough for anyone!
Once the GPL version is out there it's out there, having a closed source licence version won't stop that.
Yes it will, because Sun is the only company not constrained by the GPL and therefore has a huge commercial advantage over any potential competitor.
Now they only need to get the OCAP standards open sourced.
I thought Sun was doing this when Duke Nukem Forever was released.
Exactly - as soon as Sun put code in to it (i.e. the start) they had rights on it in terms of having control over people re-licensing it.
Yes, but they could give up those rights by no dual licensing it and accepting contributions under the GPL.
The fact that they do everything in their power to retain those rights is what makes Java non-free and what make Java not an open source project, even though it is under an open source license.
IDE & tool support for Swing is generally still better than for SWT. I wish there was anything like NetBeans/Matisse and GroupLayout for SWT...
Competition is good. Now other people can take a look at how Sun did it. This is especially useful if some stuff in your own impelmentation didn't work. Or you could even take code out of Sun's Java, or even make a fork. Forks don't have to be a bad thing for Java. The embrace, extend and extinguish fork from MS was bad for Java. But I fail to see how an OSS fork (without the leverage of a desktop monopoly) could ever be bad for Java. Worst case for Sun: Many different vms that are all strong would force them to define clear standards and would force everyone to be compliant to those. How is that bad for us?
Remember: In OSS they don't have a monopoly like MS has.
As someone whose "programming" experience goes no further than html, I'm having difficulty understanding how you can have code sample A in front of you (under NDA) but write code sample B "from scratch" that does the same thing without infringing on the copyright/patent of code sample A.
Can someone explain how this is done? Or give an analogy of sorts?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Java is not a toy, it is an enterprise application. It is running in many financial institutions, many of which are not known by the general public but that handle tons of money, supporting back office operations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Which explains the popularity of Visual Basic....
My guess is that nowadays is C# with healthy dosages of C++ and a bit of C.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But many folks around here forget that far too easily.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Satire has to be funny to be such...
At least now you know you are rubbish at telling jokes, not all is lost.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you are a consultancy relying heavily on a given piece of software and it brakes or you need enhancements, who are you going to ask to do the work for you?
Maybe people working independently in FOSS projects do not know how to market themselves as gurus of a given project, but this does not mean some people actually doing the programming will not benefit.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There's more kinda of RAID than RAID-5. But thanks for playing anyway.
ZFS can do stuff that's pretty much like 0,1,5,6, and the 10,50,60 variants of that. It can also do multiple copies on a single disk, and does round-trip checksumming.
What other sorts of RAID do you find useful?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Yes, unfortunately, the Visual Editor for Eclipse wasn't updated to work with Eclipse 3.3. I wish I knew why, as it was one of the key plugins that was pushed to work with Eclipse 3.2 prior to its release.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Thanks for the info.
Correct me if I am wrong but Java 6 SE now uses the native drawing routines of the underlying widget library (e.g. gtk)?
Is gui performance - particularly 'Swing' less of an issue now?
I am primarily interested in whether JDK 7 is going to make it out this year or not. For the longest time it's been forecast to arrive in 2008, and yet, the existing binary snapshots seem very immature (ie. completely missing major features supposedly in Java7).
The silence is starting to concern me, I think Java desperately needs the updates in 1.7 to keep it alive in the face of competition from more dynamic languages.