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Oracle Removes Java Signatures, Breaking Webstart
sproketboy writes "It seems Oracle has decided in their infinite wisdom to remove digital signatures from the Java projects that they put into the open source community. Of course this breaks any application out there depending on Java Webstart using these libs. Looks like Java3D and JAI are currently affected — probably other APIs are as well. Oh Oracle! What are we supposed to do with you?"
Oracle only said they'd keep it open source. They never said they'd let you use it.
Why do we even need corporations to be involved and in control of our programming languages. Is it not time to rid ourselves as programmers from the tyranny of these greedy organizations by simply choosing to not use proprietary programming languages?
from FTA:
It's been several years since Oracle (previously Sun) stopped providing support for the open source Java3D projects. It was decided that keeping binaries signed with old Sun signing certificates represented a potential security risk, and because of this, we have removed the old Sun signing certificates for the binaries on download.java.net.
Cause you know...that makes sense.
Oracle is used to dealing with very large corporations. Now that they have their hands on Java, which directly affects many users, web hosts (large and small), etc, etc they just don't know how to handle things. Forcing major changes onto companies that Oracle has by the implementation & licensing balls is one thing, but trying to force major changes onto the real world will only lead to a backlash and the adoption of alternatives to Java.
It will take a little time to untrench Java, but the intertubes won't stand for this type of reckless and disrespectful behavior. A change is a commin'.
Die Java! Die! Go Oracle! Kill this shitastic language! Once it's dead, the horde of Java "programmers" can go back to being fry cooks like they were before Java was created.
fry cook! If only .... I was a C++ programmer
Sure, just like how all of the crap programmers left the industry when COBOL, and VB6 went out of fashion...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There are plenty of good Java programmers. Yes there are more crap java programmers. But I can't think of any language for which that ISN'T true.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Oracle shot themselves in the foot on this one.
Many of the Oracle enterprise applications are Web Start applications. What's going to happen when some big retailer upgrades their JRE across the business and all of a sudden, their HR app doesn't work? Or their cash apps start to fail. Oracle's in for a world of hurt in a Walter Sobchak kind of way.
Actually, Oracle might not have bought Sun if they could not sue Android:
" Miguel De Icaza has provided a very interesting insight into the case. His report has been confirmed by James Gosling, known as the father of Java who left Sun right after the merger. Icaza speculates that the potential to monetise on Java by suing Google was pitched by Jonathan Schwartz during Sun's sales talks with Oracle. Oh boy."
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/android-oracle-java-lawsuit/
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Aug-13.html
http://www.osnews.com/story/23684/De_Icaza_Sun_s_Schwartz_Pitched_Google_Lawsuit_to_Oracle
New things are always on the horizon
Serves JavaWebStart coders right for relying on third-party, online systems.
In that vein, one can consider what would happen if Google suddenly stopped hosting JQuery: about half of the javascript-using websites in the world would stop working. :)
Much as I love java, doing serial port comms with it sounds downright painful. I'd be using c/c++ for that if at all possible (and not through JNI ;p).
Right. Then just wait for the patent infringement suits to start rolling in. You can probably safely fork the language as long as you don't try to run the resulting binaries in a VM of any kind.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Yes, what did the "Rich Asshole" call Larry Ellison?
Come one, don't leave us hanging!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
For the love of god. Put Oracle out of its misery. They're killing a good thing.
I don't like oracle either. But if you are writing a webstartable application, you probably have the infrastructure to sign your own jars. So you could sign the Java3D-jars yourself and distribute them together with your application. Depending on availability of something like http://download.java.net/media/java3d/webstart/release/j3d/1.5.2/windows-i586/j3dcore-d3d_dll.jar - signed or not - isn't really advisable anyway.
What is wrong with being a fry cook? That can be a very demanding and challenging job. Java programmers are more suited for rock-breaking work, tbh. Maybe a job at Starbucks if they are hipster.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Python seems to think it isn't true.
Java assumes everyone is a bad programmer.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
A proponent of Mono/C# has damning insight on Java... Color me shocked.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
It's a 5 minute job to package the jar yourself and sign it.
And a how many minute job to earn money to buy the certificate from a CA to sign your signature?
Oh Oracle! What are we supposed to do with you?
Nuke it from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.
To blame is the infinite wisdom of developers that decide to reference libraries from Oracle servers. They could instead sign all the libraries themselves and put them on their own download servers. That has the added benefit that Webstart doesn't need to rely on dozens of third-party download hosts to be up and running, but only your own host must be up.
Yes, Microsoft tried and failed to do that. Google are in trouble with their Android implementation of Java at the moment.
INTERCAL.
Someone (Google?) should just make a language identical to Java and call it something else. Even existing Java compilers could compile it and existing Java VM's could run it! Then they should extend and alter it so we can call Vectors Vectors and use them like arrays, and do operator overloading, and other sugar that Javas "Everything is a Fucking Object, Now Shut Up" keeps us from.
Oh, and get rid of those damn fonts. The Sun Java fonts look like shit on any screen at any resolution. Oh and fix Java embedding in web pages, just fixing that we'd have a viable alternative to flash.
And this has no merit ?:
"James Gosling, the father of Java who left Sun soon after it was acquired by Oracle, writes on his blog that Oracle was eying the Java patents as part of the Sun acquisition:
Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer’s eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun’s genetic code. Alas.
I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over."
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/android-oracle-java-lawsuit/
http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/the_shit_finally_hits_the
New things are always on the horizon
Well, I guess that depends if you define it intra-language or inter-language. When you wield a butcher knife there are good butchers and crap butchers, when you wield a scalpel there are good surgeons and crap surgeons but if they all entered a precision cutting competition we'd see differences. And some languages are like juggling chain saws for no discernible reason. I'd call java quite middle of the road though...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It isn't a damning insight on Java as a language or platform, it is a damning insight how corporate minds work. I have no bout the idea was discussed off the record in several boardrooms but they were either too late, decided they could not afford to take the risk (of failing and being left with a company they didn't want for anything else and a large negative on the books from buying it), or decided the PR would swing too far the wrong way. Or perhaps had a moral objection (not every board is 100% amoral, just most of them).
Is Cobol so bad, compared to Java in the hands of Oracle?
no, I don't have a sig
I wonder if this is the real reason why Java gets so much crap. More generally, I wonder if this is the reason why there are so few programming systems that would be easy to use and produce efficient code.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If colleges had waited another five years to start teaching Java as the default "learn programming" language, the middle aged programmers turned IT managers who fanatically clung to java in a bid to stay relevant would have moved out of the language decision making pipeline and we could be rid of it by now.
Unfortunately that was not the case, and now we are stuck with it forever.
Oracle just gave us an 'affeine break.
Is that why Python doesn't have advanced concepts like threading? Is that why Python is considered a good teaching language? Do you really think there aren't mediocre Python programmers out there?
Oh Oracle! What are we supposed to do with you?
Absolutely nothing. Run for the hills. Anyone who sticks around for this kind of continued abuse and incompetence has Stockholm Syndrome.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
What landed on your head to make you switch to ....... java?*shutters*
Key words: "seems to think". I'd be more curious about how a language can seem to think at all... dancing bears, etc.
What landed on your head to make you switch to ....... java?*shutters*
If I'm honest it was money. But I don't miss pointers, references, destructors, the pre-processor and many other things in c++
In a smoke filled conference room, Sun and Oracle are meeting. The officers of Sun are anxious to get on with the transfer of booty to their personal coffers. Oracle asks about Java and how come Sun couldn't monetize it. Sun's lawyers and Mr. Schwartz blink at each other and Mr. Schwartz quickly opines: Oh, we simply are lining up our ducks...there are beeelllions and beeellllions of Google money just waiting for us. Now, if y'all could finishing signing right down there on the dotted line, we'll get on down to the martini bar and celebrate. Tell Eric and Larry we said "hi".
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Python-Charmer.aspx
There are bad programmers everywhere, but yes, the concentration of bad coders in Java, ASP, VB, C# and anything .net related is 10 times that of any other language.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
uh, my point was, the python language and indeed the community around python, make rather pretentious assumptions about themselves.
eg, there is no private/public properties in python. Instead the mentality is that the developer using an API will be smart enough to tread where they don't belong.
Java assumes the exact opposite, that everyone is dumb so this is why so much verbosity is needed.
there are pros and cons to both approaches.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Microsoft were sued by Sun for a breach of their licence - they added their own classes in to the java.* package hierarchy. If they'd put them in com.microsoft.* they'd have been fine.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The CPython implementation has a global interpreter lock that makes threading worthless in some situations, but the language certainly supports it (and other implementations can use it without restriction).
There certainly are mediocre Python programmers out there, but I hadn't seen "Java-bad" Python code until the most recent TDWTF: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Python-Charmer.aspx
F0 07 C7 C8
Yes. Modula 3, for example. has
Mandatory bounds checking, garbage collection and all that implies, and inability to break type safety combined with good execution speed
.
O = Obtuse
R = RAM
A = Abusing
C = Crap
L = Lame
E = Executibles
I was bored, and that came about in 1999 after dealing with some craptastic oracle products
that need more patches than a row boat made of fishing nets.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Python has threading. I've used it, a lot.
I believe the module you are looking for is cryptically named "threading".
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
umm, I can think of one example with worse programmers on average than any of those.
COBOL
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Eh. There are things to do in C/C++ that are trivial, that take some real creativity in Java or Python without invoking the C/C++. Likewise, there are things that are trivial in Java or Python that would take a lot of effort to program in C/C++.
I'm more inclined to think that each language tends to focus on a different mindset and skill set. Though I'd also argue that Java is a poorly thought out language, and I can't blame it's programmers for all the issues. Personally I find C to be less of a headache.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
If the Python community thought everybody was so smart then they'd just tell everybody to use C or C++, which allows you to do memory manipulation and isn't nearly as slow.
Merit v. Motive.
There is no proof and neither James Gosling nor Jonathan Schwartz have said that the sole reason Oracle purchased Sun was to sue Google. Nowhere did I see the ability to sue Google being a requirement for the sale. I can see this legal issue being a sticking point because of the possible liability not that it was an asset.
Oracle does want to monetize Java (just like most open source providers of software) and one way is to protect their investment through patent enforcement. The topic of Google's possible infringement of these patents were brought up at the integration meetings as reported by Gosling. I put this in the "no shit sherlock" category of information. Only a total moron would not bring this subject up at the meetings. Did Sun provide a license to Google? No. Was Sun interested in providing a license to Google prior to the possible merger? No. Now that Oracle was purchasing Sun would they finally decide what to do about this infringement? Yes.
Oracle was inheriting some IP conflicts with the purchase of Sun. This is not uncommon when any large corporation purchase another large corporation.
So how do you spin this information? Evidently you can take the tabloid approach that uses some fact out of context to justify a hypothesis that was pulled out of his ass.
Hypothesis: The reason Oracle purchase Sun was to sue Google.
Evidence Provided: At an integration meeting the subject of Google's use of Sun's patents was brought up.
Miguel: The evidence is proof that Oracle purchased Sun to sue Google.
A more reasonable explanation: Oracle purchased Sun for the hardware and software portfolio that would shore up it's position in enterprise computing. During the merger process the subject of Google's use of Sun's IP was discussed. It was probably decided that this loose end needed to be tied up for accounting reasons. Either sell a license to use these patents to Google and record it as an asset (accounts receivable at the time of the merger) or failing that sue Google for the patent infringement and record it as a liability (accounts payable at the time of the merger).
But back to your question:
Maybe not as much as you had hoped.
Motive?
To score points for Miguel's favorite platform: Mono.
Proof?
(From Miguel's blog)Too many engineering resources are devoted to Android at Google and at their partner companies, but I can not help to think that Google could migrate Android from Java to the ECMA/ISO CIL and C#.
Unlike the Java patent grant, the Microsoft Community Promise for both C#, the core class libraries and the VM only require that you have a full implementation. Supersetting is allowed.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Use the rxtx library my friend. It is very good.
Yay for Google reinventing Java
Java was better than Cobol to start with, and considering it hasn't changed in the last 6 years means it didn't get any worse.
Java is verbose because it's a statically typed language without type inference, duh! ( You know, like C or C++ or C# )
" There are things to do in C/C++ that are trivial, that take some real creativity in Java or Python without invoking the C/C++. "
And you've got wrapper generators for exactly those times. (Or use Lua + alien )
Both Java and Pyhton are glue languages. It's just Python is comfier in the command line while Java in the IDE.
Though I've been a professional Java programmer I never enjoyed it as much as the other languages. It died on the desktop, it died on the web, but got a good foothold in the enterprise web services side. Mostly thanks to Sun driving it very hard, and it riding on their reputation of Sun's rock solid hardware and Solaris OS.
Oracle has done a good job of killing it. It is clear the owners don't care about it, it's sinking in a legal mire, and now it breaks in ways that would never have happened under Sun's stewardship. Time to move on.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Sturgeon's law applies.
Is that why Python doesn't have advanced concepts like threading? Is that why Python is considered a good teaching language? Do you really think there aren't mediocre Python programmers out there?
Ahem.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I've heard so many complaints from Python programmers themselves about the Global Interpreter Lock that prevents real threading from occurring that I didn't know that they actually had a threading library.
Point taken, though.
"Self"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This affected Mercedes-Benz USA. One of their most important apps is a JavaWebStart. This explains the company wide failure we had.
What landed on your head to make you switch to ....... java?*shutters*
If I'm honest it was money. But I don't miss pointers, references, destructors, the pre-processor and many other things in c++
Same here. Actually not but... anyways. For me it was from C/C++ (from the days of C++ without anything resembling the STL) to Java (for the money), and like you, I didn't miss the segfaults and the "ooops, I forgot to define my function args as references, causing accidental pass-by-values" or the stupidity of the throws clause (which fortunately it is being deprecated in C++0x). With the Java standard library, productivity went off the roof.
But 12 years later, now I'm back to C++ ... also for the money (good C++ + embedded software = moolah), but also because I got fed up of the crappy Java developers out there. There used to be a time that to be a Java developer you were among the leading edge sh*t dudes. Now, bleh. The JVM work landscape is only interesting and challenging if one is done Scala, Groovy, or Clojure.
But now that I'm in C++, there are also shitty programmers there. And oh man, do I miss the Java standard library (no, Boost doesn't match it), and more than that, oh, I do miss the JVM's clear exception semantics, the JVM enums (and their semantics and capabilities), the ability rewind a call on the call stack when debugging, remote debugging right off the box, arguments passed by values where all arguments (sans primitives) are references.
I have my grips with some of the design decisions in the Java language, but man, there is some really good advanced shit in there, superior than what is in C++. C++ is a convoluted, everything-and-the-kitchen sink programming language.
If I had my say, I would work with plain C instead. Don't anyone get me wrong, I enjoy working with C++, not because of the language, but because of the technical challenges of doing object-oriented systems development as opposed to object-oriented application development. But if you are really objective, C++ has a horrendous numbers of warts. Syntactically, sometimes it makes refactoring a bit harder than what one would naturally do in Java.
That's my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.
Java is verbose because it's a statically typed language without type inference, duh! ( You know, like C or C++ or C# )
Uh, from someone who does both Java and C++. These two are almost equally verbose. Also, the primary culprit behind Java verbosity (and which makes it more verbose than C++) has nothing to do with type inference. The blame falls squarely in :
1) checked exceptions,
2) checked exceptions in the throws declarations of almost all the APIs for IO/networking and threading,
3) a lack of function handlers at the JVM level which forces you to create these nastily verbose object functors (at least in C++ you can create a functor object with a "()" operator, or pass a pointer to a function.)
C# is less verbose, but still (it's more elegant than Java, though, it has lambdas and delegates.)
Scala would have been a better example of a compiled-time statically typed with succinct syntax due to very advanced and sophisticated type inference.
Or C programmers doing C++ without understanding OOP concepts (there are a shitload of those out there.)
Why do we even need corporations to be involved and in control of our programming languages. Is it not time to rid ourselves as programmers from the tyranny of these greedy organizations by simply choosing to not use proprietary programming languages?
This is a clueless post. This is not fine arts where you choose to paint oil on canvas or watercolor. Rarely do you, as a programmer, choose the implementation language, even for new development. Rarely, rarely, rarely, only if you are in a small shop, or you are entrepreneur or your own business dealing with small clients or small contracts.
Again, to reiterate, this was a clueless post, full of rhetoric at the expense of everything else.
Right, they need Google's distributed database patents so that the Oracle DB can scale. Java/Android is the hammer intended to bludgeon those patents into a cross-licensing agreement. UltraSPARC is a stop-gap measure.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Unlike Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Oracle; Oracle has never filed a frivolous IP lawsuit against it's competitors.
In fact, Google has not even filed lawsuits in retaliation to the obviously coordinated, and bogus, legal attacks against Android, and companies that use Android.
Much as I love java, doing serial port comms with it sounds downright painful. I'd be using c/c++ for that if at all possible (and not through JNI ;p).
It's not that bad. I actually used it myself for a java implementation of the DNP3 protocol stack. Not that it was my choice (it was in the contract that we had to use Java). But javax.comm is not a bad alternative. It is certainly not painful. At least that's how I remember when I last used it 11 years ago.
Oh god, who was the idiot who started a language war in Slashdot?