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Quick Death for JavaOS
Bill Brooks writes "Sun and IBM announced that they are bailing out of working together on JavaOS for Business. If you've
never heard of it, JavaOS for Business was a project that Sun and IBM
agreed to work on together to produce a new version of an operating
system that would run Java software on so-called 'thin clients.'
The operating itself has only been around, in an embryonic form, since
May of 1995, and the Sun/IBM joint venture started in 1997, shipping
its first release in August of last
year. A commercial operating system axed a year into its first
release. Is M$ the only software company that can give a commercial OS
time to find its market?"
Methinks the rise of Linux has a lot to do with this. If you a need a thin client to provide basic OS services to a JVM you don't need to look any further than Linux which runs on just about everything already, and is modular enough that it can easily be slimmed down as much as you need for each platform.
As both companies now see Linux growing happily in similar niches it doesn't really make sense for either of them to be spending money on developing and maintaining yet another proprietary "open" platform.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The drivers are also written in Java. I think C was an option, but the idea was that you would be able to write your driver entirely in Java if you wanted to.
> Thin Clients are dead.
My understanding is that in common parlance, the web browser is considered a "thin client". That being the case, I would have to dispute your above claim.
Also, in the web development industry, Java is all the rage for building applications in the form of Servlets and (presumably soon) EJBs. In that industry, Java is vital.
Yes! I think I could write an ext2fs driver in two lines of perl code.. "Today PerlOS came out, written in an astounding 34 lines of code (with each line being approximately 80k characters long)
As others will most doubt suggest -- why not just stuff it atop a (possibly cut down) Linux kernel?
John
John_Chalisque
Surprisingly, I didn't see this mentioned. There already IS an Open Source project to write an OS in Java. It's called JOS (www.jos.org).
I don't know where people here have their sources from, but javaOS isn't written in Java. The name was simply a marketing ploy, and to indicate the fact that it would have been "The best platform to run Java on".
,hacker Perl another Just)'
JavaOS was purchased by Sun. It was originally called ChaOS, by some french company. A small real time OS IIRC. Do a net search for it - there may still be some URL's left about it.
Matt.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
You're absolutely right. IBM is screwed up. The thing they're currently hyping is Linux. What does that tell you about Linux? Straight to the dustbin like Java, if you ask me.
If Sun and IBM really wish to make a splash they sould open source the Java OS now. By open source I don't mean any BS restrictive version of GPL. But release it as a true Open Source code now that would be big. I have no doubt that in a very short time it would be used by thousands.
Yep, the JavaStation never sold well. However, thanks to some great people in the sparclinux group, you CAN run Linux on them! :) Where I go to school, our COSC department has over 100 of the machines running Linux on them. They make great diskless X-terminals. When they ran JavaOS it was an embarrassment: it gave the aura of an incomplete product rushed out to market. Now the machines fly. As a former user of JavaOS, you won't see me shed a tear for its demise.
Java speed isn't all that bad with hotspot (still room for improvement though). Main area were it could be improved is with the graphics subsystem. It's just been implemented badly. So far most improvements have been targeted at the VM, not the platform.
I was one of the contractors at IBM that was working on the JavaOS project. It was doomed from the get-go. Management didn't have a clue, often delayed my work simply because they could. IBM's marketing design behind JavaOS was relatively stupid - e.g. the IBM thin-client had a PCMCIA port, they even wrote SCSI drivers for everything /except/ hard drives because it was a thin client. The marketers made the programmer who coded the PCMCIA SCSI support go back and disable the hard drive support for no other reason. They didn't want to "compete" with MSFT.) All in all it was a pretty nice platform, with the majority of the drivers in Java. It was fairly snappy on a PowerPC 603 processor, despite Java's reputation for being slow. Granted, launching eSuite took a while to load (but eSuite takes a while to load on anything ;-)
Anonymous Coward (this once)
Let's not forget about the blunder of M$ named Bob. That lasted maybe a year, and only two versions.
and I guess Star Divisions Java version (which is more of a Java-Client/C++-Server combo) is the main reason Sun bought them.
There is already an open source project called jos (http://www.jos.org). They could probobly benefit from this, of course.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
Maybe I've had too much coffee this morning but I can't for the life of me understand why people keep trying to push this whole thin client thing down our throats. Sheesh...I think TC's are great for some industries but for the majority it will never be popular. So I'm glad they pulled the plug. Blah
:) I get so annoyed at all of the people who jump on the bandwagon everytime something new hits the streets...technology often times needs to mature before we can see the best fit for it. It's sad today that we are so driven by what's best for the stockholders and not what's best for technology.
Why is it that companies like Sun can come up with these great ideas ( Java ) and then try to plug it into all of these areas where it doesn't fit. Why not let Java evolve a little first, then try to shove it down our throats
Imagine how badly tcp/ip would have been screwed up if it were developed by a company whose goal was to beat another company to the punch. Luckily when they developed tcp/ip the goal was to get it right. Look at how long it took ARPANET to evolve into what it is today...I'm sort of on a tangent here but some of these ideas just seem so bad that I have to wonder what drives these them.
Now...I've got to get back to writing my real-time nuclear reactor web based monitoring system (Written in Java of course).
I think you are on the right idea, but might be missing the target.
Yes a corporate desktop has dropped from around $3000-5000 to under $1500.
This had led partly to the failure of Java.
But on top of that, the problem with Java and the thin-client idea is that it relies on fat network pipes. While the costs of more powerful network hardware(gigabit ethernet, etc.) has come down... The main chunk of cost of deploying a better network primarily lies in rewiring the building. Replacing all your Cat-3 with Cat-5, bringing in fibre-optic cable, etc.
And that cost hasn't gone down. The cable costs are about the same, and the labor prices have gone up.
When you start deploying more and more computers in the organization, it doesn't make sense to place everything on your servers and then beef up your infrastructure. Not when computers are so damn cheap, and you can push and store the binaries at the client level.
Yeah, Be and BeOS have been around for some years now, but you have to wonder how much longer they'll have to make a go of their OS. They recently reported revenue growth, but their net earnings are still losing about a dollar per share. Their share price has dropped since their IPO.
I really like BeOS and I hope it succeeds, but it doesn't look too likely that they can give their OS too much longer to find its market.
--JT
definately the monitor ;) Who needs more than 12" anyways?
JavaOS was always a stupid idea. For example, it had almost no driver support. You couldn't print from it.
I never heard of it called "JavaOS for Business" so I don't know. But yeah, you definately have JavaOS on there. I wish I could mess around with JavaOS.
uh, hmmm . yeah.
Juln
I've always wondered how difficult it would be to embed the Perl engine into the Linux kernel. Then people could use people to write their device drivers. Most device drivers just slice and dice data streams, which is exactly what Perl is great at doing!
While not quite a PerlOS, some Perl Mongers are rewriting the classic Unix commands in Perl. It's called the Perl Power Tools:
The Unix Reconstruction Project. Many Unix commands, like more, ls, grep... use C to dangerously reimplement functionality that is already in Perl. Using Perl would put an end to buffer overruns and other accidents in Unix commands, improving security.
cpeterso
Java is bloated slow and can't intergrate with windows using dcom/com and ole and the language cant even handle pointers. Who wants a language like that? Microsoft cool is whats going to make everything intergrated. People who use java use it as a client/server technology and not to make cross platform apps. I like my pointers.
I cannot think of any project that IBM didn't screw up. Participation of IBM in any software development effort is pretty much a kiss of death. I sincerely hope that they not going to jump on Linux bandwagon.
Hehe, I think I'll write a SmallTalkOS. With a FORTRAN kernel.
You've already touched on the fact that they had an NT killer in OS/2 years ago and basically pissed it away.
And now Monterey, which is basically SCO for RS/6000.
I can see that IBM is already in the inital stages of killing this technology - if you go to the IBM web site you'll notice that Monterey documents are few, very understated, and hard to find.
Maybe linux has killed Monterey, maybe just lack of hype, but there is no doubt that this baby is going the way of OS/2.
Ok, I've played with one of them JavaStation NCs for a few minutes, and they seemed to run some sort of Java-based OS. Was that the same JavaOS that Sun and IBM are now canning(sp?)?
The whole point in Java is that it should run on any hardware. If you have to create special Java hardware than there's really no need to use Java at all.
Get it right. The share price has NOT dropped since their IPO. It's been up and down but never day-ended lower than the IPO of $6. It's been as high as $10.93 and is currently trading at $6.30
Don't know if it's still there. Need to be in the developer pgm. though.
It actually worked pretty good. But it's fairly obvious from the article that Sun is pulling away from IBM, since IBM is dropping thin clients and going with "industry standards", probably winterms.
Obviously, the PC market has stiff intrenchment against Java. I bet their consumer devices mini-jvm's are doing pretty well.
Java is such a sweet language, with a wonderful API, it was a natural to be used for the upper layers of an OS.
All the ignorant posts about speed are so sad -- such people don't even qualify as nerds. If you interpreted C, it would probably be ten times slower than native compiled C.
Native compiled Java is nearly as fast as C++, and further improvements would eliminate the remaining slowdowns.
I think this is the result of several things -
at least one of which is Linux.
But Sun and IBM certainly didn't help themselves
any - there were not one, not two, but at
least three competing products they were
posing in varying guises as a Java OS:
- JavaOS for Consumers
The original - and I assume still continuing effort at an OS.
- JavaOS for Business
Dead
- JavaPC
Developed by Sun's Israeli division to
"rescue" low-end PCs; an environment that ran on
DOS, AFAICT.
Oddly enough, the JavaPC idea had some features
that made it superiour to its more marketed
cousins, like the ability to use a local hard
drive.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Ed., Vol 2
Thin Clients are dead. Check out the lovely work by hive.www.media.mit.edu or something like that. I never understood how they intended to empower people by thin clients in an industry where if you don't have the software and hardware you are nowhere and powerless. The Internet is not a storehouse for just e-mail, greeting cards, sports, stocks, and porn.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Of course the idea behind Java is nothing new. So, it is the implementation that counts. When the implementation is bad, so is Java. Nobody wants to use something that is slow "because it's just been implemented badly", when they can have faster alternatives instead.
Perl is an excellent tool for CGI programming and other similar tasks where the system vastes a lot of time to communicate with some SQL server or open/close files.
But using Perl engine to create slow-and-dirty drivers... Don't think it's a good idea.
Speaking as an OS/2 user, I don't think the OS is as good as many OS/2 users want to believe it is. I think it suffers from the legacy of Microsoft and IBM's initial decisions for 16 bit OS/2. The foundation though relatively robust is nowhere near as robust as it should be. IBM did wonders with it, but in the end it was hobbled from the start with the requirement of binary backward compatibility with a lot of software. On top of that, IBM added a lot of complex software like the WPS which interested geeks like me with its nift abstractions, but confused the hell out of people who just want to get their work done. IBM should have followed the KISS path. The thing with Microsoft is they succeeded with Windows 3.1 by doing that, and that carried through to Win 95. But with Win 98 and WinNT/2000 and WinCE, they apparently have failed to heed to KISS philosophy. That will be their downfall.
Posting this a day late, so I'm not sure that anyone will read this :(
One of the reason for Java not being as fast as C (apart from the fact that it is usually interpreted, not compiled) is that it is running on OSes (when i refer to OSes here, I mean OSes/Kernals) optimized for making C style code run fast, and some Java things will run inefficently because of this.
To be more specific:
(1) Most OSes don't have low level support for garbage collection. This means for example that the virtual memory model can't be easily tuned to use information that the garbage collector might provide about which pages can be swapped out. An OS with gc either built into it, or considered in the design may result in much faster gc.
(2) In OSes with protected memory, calling any function in the kernal requires a context switch, and there is a lot of overhead required for context switches, and for managing this protection. A lot of the reason for this protection is because C is a dirty language that can do horrible things with pointers.
This overhead slows Java down, when Java doesn't _need_ much of this sort of protection, because it is built into the langauge model that things like pointer arithmetic aren't allowed.
(2a) A Java OS would only need threads, not full processes.
(3) Java checks for errors at runtime like writing off the end of an array. Ok, there is not much that can be done about that overhead. This point is not relavant to my argument, but is added for completeness in explaining why Java is slow.
Therefore, it is circular (i.e. incorrect) reasoning to say that because Java doesn't run fast on sytems designed for C, that Java is no good, therefore don't use it for an OS.
If a Java OS was built that was tuned for Java, any C code that was run on it would have to be run in a 'sandbox' where things were protected against that process, and I'm guessing that in this case Java might well compare favourably with C.
Aside: such a OS might be really good for LISP too, which has some similar properties.
Another point is that Java code tends to be much less buggy (no buffer overflows, leaks, double deletes), so even if it is a_little_ slower, it is well worth using to get a more stable result.
Disclaimer: I haven't been following JavaOS, so my arguments might not apply to that specific project.
That's kind of sad. I'd love to have seen JavaOS, especially if it had been sold for a good price.
I don't think it's that Microsoft is the only company that can afford to let a commercial OS find it's market. It's more likely reaction to the general development community realization that Java isn't that well suited to interactive user applications.
Java has found a home in servlets, not applications.
Java will never be as fast as C. It simply isn't appropriate for an OS. I believe that the JavaOS was to be written mostly in Java, with device drivers etc. in C. However it makes much more sense to start with a functional, speedy OS (say, Linux) and wrap the kernel/libc functionality in Java code.
--
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
****Gfx Scrollbar Special case hit!!*****
Sun and IBM should have given javaOS more time and maybe promoted it better..
havn't BEOS been around since around some years now??
Well, i feel much better now. For a minute there I was afraid sun would make a Java version of Star Office. I feel much better now.:)
Make it open source and it will live on happily ever after.
Good thing that the world has gotten rid of one more potential OS and "universal-language" pest.
Before you knew it, the perl mongers will clamor about a PerlOS. _THAT_ would be a show.
Xah
xah@best.com
http://www.best.com/~xah/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"New Programing Paradigm: Parallel execution of bugs and C/C++ programers."
Is M$ the only software company that can give a commercial OS time to find its market?" Microsoft are the only ones that don't seem to know any better to drop the bad idea when it's realized it is bad...
With 20GB IDE drives running less than $300, memory between $1 and $2 a megabyte and nice processors available for under $150, there are only 2 areas left where you can expend a substantial amount of money. A monitor can run you upwards of $1000 (You can get a nice 17 inch-er for between $250 and $350) and the software which can also run you upwards of $1000. Where do YOU think the next logical place would be to start trimming fat?
Never has anyone been so proud of a period.
The first JavaOS was essentially a research project, writing an OS in Java to see what was missing from JDK 1.0 ... slow as all get-out. The outside world heard about it because Sun was crazy to pitch Java as usable for everything. (I mean that in multiple senses!) So it jumped straight from research to "product".
The second JavaOS ("JavaOS for Business") was basically JDK 1.1 hosted on top of a real time OS that Sun had bought, "Chorus". Somehow that never got ported to enough different platforms to make Chorus a better choice than one of the better established real time OS configs. It was the right idea, but the core OS wasn't portable enough to be interesting to its target customers - they couldn't create commodity hardware and compete purely on the cost of the resulting "thin client" systems.
Sun has a curious attitude towards Operating System Software. They want to own it, since if it integrates smoothly with their hardware, they can get some competitive advantages. It's not so odd, really, it's pretty traditional; but it's also far from their Open Systems for Open Minds roots. So they keep trying to do OS research to create some proprietary value. Going for a "big win" of some kind without understanding that customers still value the "open systems" model, still value the fact that Sun's competing on execution (and fumbles sometimes) rather than relying on vendor lockin. (They go to MSFT for that game.)
The Spring OS was nothing but a research project, and it never performed well enough to make anyone really want to run it. But it got funded for years (instead of layered software products) as sort of a mascot for a proprietary OS technology. When Spring got canned, many of the same folk went to do JavaOS I (the research project), which got canned for the same reasons Spring did: it was a big, slow non-solution to a non-problem. So nobody would choose to buy it. It got forced down their throats as the guts of the first JavaStation, and they chose not to buy.
JavaOS for Business wasn't needed either. Just take an off-the-shelf RTOS and slap a JDK on it. You're in business. Just -- Sun could never control that hardware infrastructure, it'd be too open. Great software model; but they want to make hardware money instead.
Canning this project was overdue, and is no loss at all from the business or technical perspectives. None at all. (Though doesn't it make you wonder what will replace it? :-)
- Jojo
They ought to... I mean, just because Sun/IBM couldn't "do" it, doesn't mean that the rest of the programming community couldn't.
Then again, I can't/don't program, but if I did, I'd help out.
And that, dear friends, is my $0.00002 worth.
Insert mind here.
Let's write this down: OS/2 survived WinNT on Alpha and JavaOS. The good thing about the JavaOS death is that resources from that project might go into OS/2 which seems to be an ideal plattform to run Java applications. The OS/2 Java VM has been a top performer for a long time. I believe that their has been a lot of Java hype and some of that is about to burst. Java is perfect to write applications but an OS? I doubt it.
The hardware is no different. The PC Company lost $1B last year. That's a staggering amoung. And the people who make AS/400's don't do ANY marketing whatsoever - they don't even know how their products compare against other computers, because their marketing people just sit on their fat asses and don't do anything.
I used to be a programmer at IBM, but I left disgusted. I can't understand how ANYONE would want to be a programmer at IBM - no one really gives a damn about your product, and entire multi-million dollar projects involving dozens or hundreds of people can easily get cancelled in one day.
Don't blame JavaOS - it's a great idea. But the people at Sun who thought that IBM would stick with it are completely naive.