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Apache Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee
iammichael writes "The Apache Software Foundation has resigned its seat on the Java SE/EE Executive Committee due to a long dispute over the licensing restrictions placed on the TCK (test kit validating third-party Java implementations are compatible with the specification)."
Sad that it has to come to this ... I can't begin to say how useful the Apache libraries have been in past Java development. Why reinvent the wheel and plumbing when Apache is providing really awesome libraries for free that cover much of the "grunt work".
I fear Oracle is doing far more harm than good to Java.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We'll still get great java and other JVM based language libraries from Apache.
a good explanation at Stephen Colebourne's blog
a) Real Soon Now
b) The square of the processor speed as expressed in Hz.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My understanding is this...
Long before Java was GPL'd through OpenJDK, Sun was trying to claim that it was an open standard, and published specifications for the JVM, etc - kinda how Microsoft does with .NET. The dirty secret was that they also held patents on the technology, so they could still sue you for implementing their spec. If you want access to the patent grant - you can have that too, for free even, provided your implementation of Java passes the compatibility kit (TCK) tests (which disallows sub-setting). Those tests are the problem though - they are decidedly NOT open source, and you can only get access to them if you follow Sun's rules, like not building a mobile device and a bunch of crap like that. Apache (with help from IBM) has implemented those "open" specs via the Harmony project, but all the TCK rules make them mad.
Separate from all that, Sun then went and GPL'd the whole thing as OpenJDK. You can do anything with OpenJDK that you can do with any other GPL code - an important thing to remember in all this. Rumor has it, the GPLv2 license may even grant you some implicit protection against any patents Sun has on the technology - at the very least they would have a hard time suing you for building something based on OpenJDK as long as you adhere to the GPL
Unfortunately, Android isn't based on OpenJDK, it's based on Harmony, so it doesn't have any protection from Sun/Oracle's patents on Java (which also may apply to many virtual machines for other languages), so they are getting sued.
Last I checked, you can run Tomcat with the Sun, er, Oracle JDK.
This seems to be more about alternate implementations of the JVM itself, though, the more Oracle craps all over everybody else, the more I fear some of the goodness about using Java will evaporate.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Thanks. Looks like two sticking points:
- Replacement JVM, like Apache Harmony, disallowed through definition of "product"
- Can't be used in embedded, phone, etc.
Dang, I hate IP/legal issues.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
It means that Oracle controls Java on embedded devices. Google can not take Harmony and have it run its Java apps in the next Android OS. Instead, Google has to say Pretty Please to Oracle first, and then buy the binary or source code license from them.
For Java, it means what has been speculated all along has now been confirmed, that Java is NOT an open standard and is in fact controlled by one company, Oracle. This was of course, the same situation while under the control of Sun, but Sun was a bit less "evil" in that they did not enforce the restrictions. Not surprisingly, Oracle is a different beast. It's too early to tell what the long term implications will be, but a lot has to do with the outcome of the Oracle/Google case.
This of course, brings us to Android. Depending on the outcome of the Oracle/Google legal maneuvering, Android could be killed off (or retooled to remove Harmony from the equation), or Oracle's restrictions and/or patents could be vacated. Most likely the result will be something in between, where Android lives on, but is subject to the indirect control of Oracle. Of course, the IDEAL situation (the one I'm rooting for) is that Google wins. This would, in effect free Java from Oracle's greedy control and allow Android to develop into the truly remarkable platform it has the potential to become.
(Disclaimer: IANAL nor a tech analyst and I have no particular insight, other than I tend to follow this story, so my views are my own as a simple small time developer).
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
It's Oracle, of course they will.
Well, following a link that another poster so graciously provided, it would seem that:
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Earlier up in the page, he says:
So, what I read is that Oracle basically wouldn't allow anybody else to make a JVM if its sole purpose is to be a replacement for the Oracle one.
So, yes, I think everything you ask is likely true.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, for Dalvik (and thus Android), there's a legal dispute between Google and Oracle about whether Dalvik infringes Java patents. As far as I know, copyrights are not in dispute. Google says Dalvik is not Java. If Dalvik is not Java, then the issues surrounding the JCP and TCK are completely irrelevant to Google, because Dalvisk is not Java. There's one other bit of important trivia: "Desktop" Java is nominally open-source. "Mobile" Java is a proprietary product which Sun/Oracle licensed to handset makers with somewhat traditional licensing fees.
The TCK is a conformance test that a JVM which wants to call itself "Java" and be officially 'blessed' by Oracle (and thus, immune from patent and copyright lawsuits) has to pass, and I believe that Sun and now Oracle charge developers a LOT of money to get and use the TCK. Thus, to have an official "Java" implementation, even though you don't have to pay for a license from Sun/Oracle because it's nominally open-source, really isn't free, because you can't be "Java" unless you pay up for the conformance test and then pass it. (Which, in my mind, means that Java fails the basic criteria for being open source - it's not really freely licensed, it's only licensed contingent upon passing the TCK which you must pay for).
If Oracle prevails in the Google lawsuit, it may be able to force Google to declare that Dalvik is Java, pay for the TCK, pass the conformance test, and additionally pay for Java "Mobile" licenses (or perhaps, that burden will be passed on to the handset makers, since the handset makers are more the 'point of sale' - e.g. I don't believe Google gets per-handset licensing revenue for Android, they make their money off of the tight integration of built-in apps with Google's advertising supported search and web services). Or, Oracle might settle for allowing Dalvik to be "Not Java", but demand a patent licensing fee from Google or handset makers for use of their patents, but acknowledge Dalvik as a seperate, derivative technology.
If Google prevails, and the courts don't find that they've violated any patents, then this Apache/Oracle JCP thing means absolutely nothing to Google, Dalvik, or Android. Dalvik will continue to be "Not Java".
Or hopefully use a different language and not pay Oracle a dime. Use python or go or something.
I work at a nearly pure Java shop and last week attended a Java technology related conference (not run by Oracle/IBM). Not one single person there or at my work seems particularly concerned about the future of Java. If for some silly reason Java 6 was the last version of Java ever released I'm pretty sure I'd be writing code for the platform for the next 10 years and it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I hate seeing the Java community tear itself apart like this, internal rifts have now become vast canyons thanks to the demise of Sun and the acquisition by Oracle.
Don't get me wrong, the tinder was plenty dry in the Java world but recent events have poured on the gasoline.
It also possible that this is case of the distrust of Oracle is far greater than that of Microsoft. Its possible that we are all being too reactionary, for something that is simply not that bad, but because we are talking about Oracle we need to look and the facts with more care and see what really is at play here.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Maybe google will now seriously invest in developing a new language that delivers on the promise of openness that sun/jcp always talked about but never delivered upon. Of course there is always c++
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
If you are implying that Apache has some anti-Oracle grudge, I think the conflict probably started after Oracle launched the first-strike by suing Google over its use of Apache's Harmony in Android (and other stuff. Oracle is being represented by BS&F who mastered the art of being unspecific when they represented SCO vs. the Free world). If Oracle hadn't violated the terms of the JSPA, their law suit against Google would have had no merit because according the JSPA, Apache was supposed to get an irrevocable, license to the very copyrights and patents Oracle is suing over.
If I had to dole out blame I would give 2% to Sun and 98% to Oracle.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
While resorting to name calling is the sign of a weak mind and/or weak argument, it's apparent from the rest of your post that you, my friend are the one with an intelligence deficit.
For that reason, I'll spell this out as if you were completely clueless (which nothing in your post would indicate otherwise).
You are wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start, but I'll give it a shot.
First, Java was not a temporary measure for Android. Among other things, Java is a computer language. Android applications are written in the Java language. Even if Google declares Go the "blessed" language for developing on the Android, they will continue to support Java since nearly all applications up to that point will have been written in Java.
Second, Android is open-sourced (under the Apache license) and is not owned by Google. While they do have a great deal of control over it (mostly by way of their dominant influence in the project), they are part of the Open Handset Alliance which controls the project.
Third, while I will grant you, Google does not need Java (however you defined "need" here), a statement like "Google does not like Java" is a completely nonsensical statement. I don't even know what it means for a corporation to "like" something. Google adopted the Java language because it immediately gave them an immense base of software already written that could be ported to the Android platform. Google's continued development and investment into the platform (Android SDK, GWT, acquisition of Instantiations) show no sign of abating.
Fourth, Google's response (to the Northern California District Court) regarding the Oracle suit makes the following points:
The patents weren’t valid
Android didn’t infringe on the patents
The patents had been open-sourced
Oracle waited too long to bring the suit, and
Oracle has no right to sue since it’s not being damaged by Android.
What part of "The patents weren't valid" do you not understand?
Fifth, as far as their "own" language (Go), only time will tell how popular it becomes.
According to the Tiobe index ( http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ), which tracks computer language popularity, in 2009 Go had just surpassed Pascal in popularity moving to #15, but in 2010 it has dropped to #25. Java has been #1 since the index started (in 2002) and it's rating increased again in 2010 by 0.14%. If Go is to replace Java, it' better get "go"ing.
Finally, my advice to you is to see a therapist about your obvious superiority complex.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
I develop a lot in python, and can tell you that no you don't see many bugs due improper indenting, at most it requires some manual adjusting to fix someone's code if he doesn't indent like the rest of the team, as long as everybody in you team uses the same indentation (which is why a 4 spaces community standard exists regardless how you feel about spaces) you shouldn't get any problems.
But... the future refused to change.
The question is not if Java is going to disappear in those 10 years or not. Of course not. The question is whether or not Java is going to go the way of the mainframe: still alive and doing well and making tons of money, but also a niche, certainly not taught in schools and only a matter of time for it to be replaced by a compatible and cheaper technology. By cheaper here I mean cheaper programming labour - something that IS taught in schools, so it's easy to recruit 100s of people to throw at a problem.
If Oracle gets too greedy, or if the process take too long, we will certainly move on to another platform.
Oracle's already too greedy, and progress impeding, IMO.
I've already moved to Perl6 Parrot VM & Postgresql for my personal projects instead of Java and MySQL. I couldn't be happier! (Lets see Oracle sue Parrot as being a Java VM).
My (feeble) understanding is that the Java license grants the right for anyone to develop their own "clean room" implementation of the JavaSE platform, but to claim it to be "Java compatible", it must pass the TCK certification. However, in order to test for compatibility against the TCK, one must license the it from Oracle. Since Oracle refuses to license the TCK, the effect is that no one can legally claim Java compatibility. It's sort of a catch-22. One of project Harmony's stated goals was to be Java compatible, but without the TCK, it's illegal for them to make that claim.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Oracle owns the rights to TCK and will not license it to the Apache Software Foundation under terms that the ASF will agree to.
No, Oracle (and Sun before them) are refusing to provide the TCK under terms that are required under the JCP agreement, making the JCP a bit of a sham. And it's not so much that ASF doesn't agree to the terms, it's that they are incompatible with the Apache license, so they would not be able to distribute Harmony.
sic transit gloria mundi
Just an FYI: That's a little like saying "They can release a Python version of C" or "They can release a Windows version of Unix."
Dalvik implements an entirely different, incompatible, virtual machine system to a JVM. Yes, you can compile programs written in the Java programming language to Dalvik codes (and like a JVM, the Java programming language is the primary development language for Dalvik systems), but the same is true of .NET (the name of the Microsoft's implementation of the Java programming language for .NET is J#)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Yeah, Except why would Google want to keep Dalvik if it infringes Java patents? If you're replacing one VM with another, why not the Python VM? If they can do Python to Java Bytecodes, why not the other way round? Then people who hate Python's syntax could keep developing in the Java language with the Python VM, and you probably could also get a pretty big level of backwards compatibility.
The patents in question could just as easily apply to a Python VM. If it were that easy, Google could just rewrite the "patent offending" portions of the Dalvik VM (assuming there are any). The Dalvik VM is drastically different than a standard JVM (i.e. Dalvik is register based while JVM is stack based, Dalvik uses a drastically different executable format, very much unlike the JVM class format, etc). The problem is that the patents are broad enough that they can apply to nearly any VM.
The main point I was trying to make is that the source language is not at issue, it's the VM. Whether it's a Python or Java compiler that generates the byte-code is immaterial to the issue.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
> Good performance? Check
Holy. Freaking. Crap. Seriously? Maybe when compared with shell scripts, but speaking as an 8-year python developer, I can tell you python is slow as all hell. Even Ruby outruns it now, no kidding. It also makes Java look lean with the amount of memory it takes up. It's a pretty decent language, but those are a dime a dozen.
Google does have unladen which does speed it up a bit, but there are pieces of the Python language specification that are simply actively hostile to being optimized because they assume a level of mutability in the object model that is "the definition of anything could change at any time for any reason". It doesn't typically happen that way, but the core language is still designed around binding so late it can never be optimized away.
I see Google going with an enhanced Javascript VM before adopting Python.