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Sun backs off Open Java Plan
Josh Baugher wrote a line to point us over to this Wired article. Sun has backed off the original plan to have Java submitted as an open standard to the Internation Standards Organization. Sun and the ISO have been arguing over things, because the ISO is a bit less then happy with having one company retain control of the technology.
Eric, how many patents encumber MP3 and the MPEG-4 standard? Is there a reference on the web where I could look them up?
BTW: I consider the ISO's policy of allowing patented standards simply awful. The IETF will accept nothing as an internet standard that is encumbered by patents. The ISO working groups are dominated by companies and works for their benefit. There is no point in a "standard" that you are not free to implement unless you pay royalties. That's just my opinion, of course.
I think both Kaffe and Japhar+Classpath are committed to providing a fully compatible Java implementation. This will not extend to replicating JDK bugs possibly, but I think all of those projects are committed to the Java wora concept.
Microsoft applied pressure behind the scenes and got ISO to change the rules for PAS submitters so that once the technology had been submitted and approved, all control would be handed over to the ISO subcommittee. Sun, of course, has said from the beginning that they would always maintain control of Java(TM) and would vigorously defend it against all who would try to wrest control from them. As indeed they have.
And now that ISO has changed the PAS rules to force Sun to either relinquish control of Java(TM), or drop the ISO standardization effort, Sun has chosen the path that is consistent with their stated goals of retaining control of the evolution of Java(TM), one of the most important new technologies of the Internet era. Bye bye, ISO.
I agree with Sun's position, especially in light of the fact that the rules were changed out from under them in a sneaky back-room deal.
Java(TM) will continue to evolve. Sun does need to a better job of public relations, and to help more people implement Java(TM) for their platforms of choice. While I agree that a GPL'd implementation would be best, I don't expect Sun to just throw in the towel and give up its control. They are way too 'corporate' for that. From a Sun shareholders perspective, that would be the equivalent of flushing money down the tubes. And lots of it.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
For more information, check here:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/1 6/ns-7955.html
Apparently, Sun is upset because the rules were changed on them. See if you can guess who lobbied for these changes. They have not given up on standards processes in general; They've just given up on MS-ISO.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
The situation was much different with Java. Sun wanted simultaneously to have Java be an International Standard, but also reserve the right to make unilateral changes to the technology if they decided that it was in their interest to do so.
The difference is clear for MP3 -- no individual company controls the MP3 standard; if revisions need to be made, this is decided by MPEG as a whole, not by Fraunhofer or any other individual company. Sun could not accept letting the other ISO members share in the role of deciding the progression of Java. This is their right, as they own the Java technology, but then the technology can't be an International Standard.
-- Eric Scheirer
Editor, ISO 14496-3 (MPEG-4 Audio)
That's a completely self-defeating attitude. Java is a great language/platform/whatever. Development times are greatly reduced, stupid pointer bugs are a thing of the past, and the class libraries are pretty robust. I could also chant "cross-platform" until I'm blue in the face, but that's not the most important Java feature, IMHO. Making life easier for developers produces better software. The time I used to spend tracking down errant pointers is now spent improving my code. It's that simple.
If you don't want to use a superior tool because you don't like the fact that it's not an officially sanctioned standard, you're making a serious mistake. If you're a professional, your competitors will just use the better tool and beat you. If you hack for the love of code, not using the most elegant tool pretty much defeats the point of writing elegant code. Use the best tool for the job; being a platform/language bigot is boring.
-jon
Java hacker since 1996
Remember Amalek.
Java is still a young language, and even the best designs have problems that become apparent with use. I'd give Java some time to mature under the direction of an entity more nimble than the ISO. Rigorously enforced standards are most important for constraining the future of languages with a lot of extant code (C, Fortran). A young language should be able to make some deprecations and fix some mistakes because the tradeoff of making some amount of JDK1.0 or even 1.1 code incompatible is small compared to the importance of getting it right for the long run.
Any notion I had of adopting Java for any project is hereby dropped.
Sun is demonstrating that they are the Microsoft of the Unix world - they will manipulate Java in arbitrary ways to forward their goals, regardless of whether the users see any benefit.
Beware closed languages. This lesson has been learned well by developers who have been bitten by closed 4GL languages in the past, for example (yes, I know Java is not a 4GL).
Java could have ranked up there with perl as one of the great languages of the 90's, but now, at least in my mind, it has been resigned to bit bucket with all of the other closed go-nowhere languages that clutter the development landscape.
The discussions of the Java Standards Group (JTC 1 SC22) can be found at ftp://dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/JSG/. Looks like anyone can join the mailing list, and anyone can read themail. ftp://dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/JSG/926 and up are the messages since Sun formally chickened out of submitting, and the reaction on the list is consistant: what the hell is Sun talking about? There's also general dismissal of Sun's assertions that Microsoft did any lobbying at all on this issue.
You can also see the members of the list at ftp://dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC22/JSG/list.