Slashdot Mirror
More Open Source and Linux Support from IBM
Neville writes "IBM moved its developerworks out of beta and launched it with a new Open Source Zone. Current open source projects include jikes, a java compiler that works blazingly fast in Debian, BSD, and RH. Jikes is tres cool - as usual, IBM actually implements java better than Sun. Maybe this is what it takes to finally get java and linux to mesh, and maybe I can finally convert my last Solaris x86 box to linux. They also offer a Linux Zone with info on Python and GNOME. "
I hope someone can explain this to me, but there seems to be a lot of dislike/hatred for Gnome. What is the basis of this?
Thanks!
Back in the 70's and 80's, IBM was like a tyrannical, abusive father, but it has turned out to be one hell of a cool grandfather...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
IBM, thanks for supporting Linux with a speedy JIT-enabled VM (see The latest Volano Report). But you could help out the entire Java world by licensing/GPL'ing the JIT for other platforms?
Just thinking out loud: Wouldn't it be great if you could get from IBM a GPL'ed VM and JIT for all known platforms? Instead of every platform rolling their own port, they could check out the VM code, make changes for their platform, and then check it back in. This is what, IMO, Java should have been - all one source - both VM and JIT.
Then Java would really run everywhere and it would run fast!
Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley.
This comment get to the heart of the divide between big companies and open source / free software / whatever (and capitalise those terms to taste, btw):
Although big companies are primarily about making as much money as possible, they know that to make a lot of it, power (a monopoly or other device) is required. Thus, in the long term at least, the sharing of knowledge is an anathema.
Of course, one can make money without such motives; just not as much. In this milleu, altruism, regrettably, leads to the local, but not the global, maximum.
So while open source is a useful tactic for small companies, at most it is a temporary ploy of large ones who are aiming for an entirely different prize.
remove the sz's from my email to use it
As it's shaping up to be a graceful end for Netscape??
I kinda prefer the chinese alternative to the expressions...
IBM has big bladder.
Hey, that would fit the mental image of a Big Blue having occasional incontinence problems...
Expect the trickle of Big Blue's Open Source projects turn into a torrent as the _floodgates_ open.
Also, IBM has some excellent bottom line reasons for wanting MS's lock on the desktop to be broken, not the least of which are all those license fees they're paying MS. I'll bet IBM is one of Bill's biggest customers, and perhaps the most reluctant.
They've figured out this Open Source thing pretty quickly, not that they only learned about it in the last five years, of course. This never could have happened under the Watsons or Akers, BTW.
guess and postulate mode on. I would say IBM has not yet got round to optimising the compiled output stream fully, until userland agrees that they are compatable, as in opt(1,2or 3)for say, LE. It costs a lot to change code if the base design is incorrect. Given the rave reviews, you gotta remember IBM teaches well designed, modular code, that has been well designed in the first place, plus more years in the compiler field than anyone else. They understand true competence, and snap up the Seymore Crays of this world. (wonder what mr borland is doing?) You could probably ask IBM which steps they left out, plus how much 'easy' improvements remain. IBM is probably scratching their heads why the other guys can't write a decent compiler (a first year university assignment). IBM also measures instruction path length, and the cost of core functions, the arcane art of software testing and metrics. The present IT world seems to value 'new functions and graphic calls' over actual code quality. Quality gets lipservice. If something runs 'slow', you should at least know 'why', and be able to quantify it. And that is a hallmark of quality. 3 baskets: Something put together that works (and $ells) Modular design done to a project/schedule Elegant Simplicity from the onset (high risk super programmers that can job walk) Java needs #3
I agree with most of those comments. I particularly liked the approach to patents - it really does make the licence orthogonal to the patent status, and makes that explicit. Explicit is good.
I see one problem with the licence, though. It covers, very clearly, what I can do with the program itself, and with modified forms of the program; but it says incredibly little about what I can do in terms of taking parts of the program and using them in my own different programs.
If programs containing some IPL'd code count as derivative works of the IPL'd program and have to have the "Copyright IBM" notice on them, that's actually quite a lot less friendly than the GPL. I think that section of the licence would benefit from revision (if I've understood it correctly) or explanation (if I haven't).
I suppose if IBM are being as Good as people seem to think, I should just contact them and say this to their face. Anyone want to tell me whether I'm talking rubbish before I do so?
AFAIK this #!/usr/bin/env trick originated in the Python universe. May be that the python people care more about portability and thus produce clever ideas like this one. ;-)
Peter Funk, Oldenburger Str.86, D-27777 Ganderkesee, Germany
I must note that there's one possible reason that /usr/bin/env is not used more often in the Perl universe. Try starting a script out with "#!/usr/bin/env perl -w". No joy, at least on the Linux and HP-UX boxen where I tried it. Works okay on FreeBSD. I believe that the disconnect comes in the way the loaders on the non-BSD systems package up the arguments for execution. Not as portable as one might think, at least in that case. Still a nifty trick, though.
In August IBM alphaworks released a second edition of their "alpha" JVM for Linux. The maschine implements JAVA Version 1.1.6 and doesn't seem to be alpha at all. It is blazingly fast, uses native threads and comes with a just-in-time compiler. JDBC with Oracle (THIN) and our Java Servlets work just fine.
Martin
>>This never could have happened under the Watsons or Akers, BTW.
I have to agree with this whole heartedly. IBM now has a CEO who is not in love with technology. He is not interested in creating proprietary standards. His only driving force is delivering 'solutions' to customers.
He is a man who became frustrated with IS companies who only wanted to talk about how fast their latest gizmo was. He didn't care. He wants to know how it can help him do his job better. That (not so) subtle point has revitalized this company. The 'not invented here' syndrome is gasping for its last dying breath within IBM. It's not about where it came from, it's about "how can we use this to enhance our customer's business."
Open Source and Linux fit well in with this new ideology. IBM can twist OS in all different directions to better support customers; whereas, they can't touch Windows without consent from Microsoft.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Open source code greatly reduces the ability of a company to screw a user community. IBM has been doing some good things lately, so why not forgive them some of their past sins and thank them for their participation?
I use jikes only for the development cycle, for production it is always javac. I did not look into the matter, but I noticed that my application consumes much more memory if compiled with jikes. Its also somewhat slower. Additionally jikes compiled classes break my obfuscator. Anyway for quick compile/test/debug cycles you can't beat jikes.
just my 2c
Thomas
Why don't they open source OS/2?
Why?
First, they're still making money off it now, just not in the end-user fat-client space.
Second, it includes code copyrighted by Microsoft, Adobe, and others, which are covered by all sorts of different licenses to IBM. That makes release a legal nightmare.
Isn't the Workplace Shell the part of OS/2 that IBM is most "single-handedly" responsible for, and the part that Microsoft and other companies had the least involvement in? It would be wonderful if this was the case, because the WPS is the part of OS/2 that would be the coolest and most useful to see made freely available.
Fuck Slashdot
Yes, some of us do have just as philosophical as pragmatic bents, and are annoyed by ESR's focus on the utilitarian to the exclusion of the moral. Obviously I'm including myself in this. My point was that "we" do not all share a monolithic opinion on anything, except that we want to live in a world where software doesn't suck. The cohesion comes from voluntary cooperation, and that's good enough for me.
Fuck Slashdot
writes it's most important java tool (the compiler) in java. *please* - yes java is cool, but don't push it. surely they could put in that extra effort to write an ansi c or c++ compiler to save hundreds of hours of developer's times.
i suppose real developers have already found a better compiler.
One of the things I like most about IBM's Open Source moves is the license.
This isn't a "It should be BSD/GPL/MPL" post. I'm not going to discuss which is "better" (ther is no answer). Instead, I think the the IBM license is almmost optimal for a commercial organization that wants to contribute to Open Source.
Why do I say this? Well, it not only is quite friendly to other licenses, it also adresses two critical issues for companies: Patent Licensing and assumed Liability. These are not really well defined in most of the other Open Source licenses. IBM did a good job with it.
I'd really like to see the Open Source community rally around 3 or 4 licenses. Rather than having the huge proliferation that we have now, I think it would be really beneficial to have a couple of licenses, each tailored to a specific group. That is, make a definative statement about the goals each of the 3-4 licenses, and really, really encourage (with a bat, if necessary (wink,wink)) companies to pick one of them, rather than make their own. I think the IBM license is good enough that it should be one of the 3-4 (I'll leave the other choices for you to war over...)
Now, I'd be really happy if IBM created a Open Source highly-tuned VM/java library set....
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
See subject
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
:-)
--
Infuriate left and right
Although I have not read the article I have recently started to do some Java programming. I have found that Java is pretty cool. The GUI is a bit slow, but command line is not that bad for the most part. There is one thing that I do want to caution you about Java if you are not aware, and that is its implementation of threads.
To share memory in Java you use a method called synchronized. This locks the memory that you want to share between threads. However the thread will continue to try to get this lock forever unlike C where you give it a value to 'time out'. There is no time limit in Java that you set or any way of makeing it time out. Thus if a thread already has a lock on memmory and another thread tries to get that memory it will wait and wait and wait forever until the app is killed possible causeing a dead lock situation. Other than that I have found going from C to Java a real thrill. It is very easy to learn once you understand what an object is as everything in Java is an object.
Cool that there will be faster virtual machines thou. This and the faster computers will surely make Java a more likeable programming language.
Only 'flamers' flame!
I also applaud IBM's foray into the OSD model.
This is welcome change from the days of yore, when IBM was the Big Bad Wolf (I've got the grey hairs to prove it!). They were a *real* juggernaut, right down to the having the most hard-nosed, market-dominating sales model I had seen, until Microsoft came along (they could teach even IBM some tricks in the market domination game).
Now I have an IBM TP600 (Linux) laptop and several IBM disk drives, all of which are excellent, competitive products that I would be hard-pressed to replace.
Good Job, IBM, and PLEASE keep up the good work!!!
CVS Mozilla does this. It was added shortly after the M9 release. So maybe Netscape 4.7 will have it too.
Civ CTP is awesome! Thanks Loki!
Romans 10:9-10
What do you expect a large company to do? NOT make money and watch out for the little guy? Companies are supposed to make money.
Blackdown has the only 1.2 JRE available today as far as I know. It's in the pre release 2 stage currently. http://www.blackdown.org is the site of course. AnyJ is a Free IDE for commercial or non-commercial use on Linux. I found vim to be more friendly personally. :) For a graphical debugger, go to freshmeat and search for jdbtool. It's a perlTk front end for jdb. Now go, and write much java.
Civ CTP is awesome! Thanks Loki!
Romans 10:9-10
Be vewy quiet. Kitsune knows all, didn't you know? Of course you didn't because only Kitsune knows that. Just because he flames other people's opinions with posts full of stupidity doesn't mean he doesn't know anything. Flaming with no knowledge of the subject matter being discussed is a sure sign of intelligence didn't you know?
Finally! This would/will be really cool - a platform-independent language makes no sense if it is really slow or simply doesn't work on a major computing platform...
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
It always strikes me that IBM, perceived as the Big Brother for the last 15 years, is in reality a really great company that does a lot of cool stuff.
-- The word "woman" is not politically correct any longer.
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
You should use "Female-American" instead.
FWIW, I grabbed Jikes a little while ago as soon as I heard about it. If you don't know, Jikes is a Java bytecode compiler, not a virtual machine. It won't make Java run faster on your Linux box (the alphaworks JIT JVM 1.1.8 is what you want for speed, but it's not open-source).
Jikes stresses compliance to Sun's published standards. It was kind of interesting to read through the source and find comments where they had run into contradictions in the standard. Beyond that, Jikes also reportedly compiles Java really quickly.
I built Jikes from source on a SuSE 6.0 install with a 2.2.9 kernel. I was pretty impressed with how well they set up the make -- it detected compiler options and built with no problems. Word of warning, though, it took several minutes on my P166 with 64 meg.
All I can say is that IBM is impressing the heck out of me these days. My sincere thanks for releasing such a strong compiler under an open license.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
> Maybe this is what it takes to finally get Java and Linux to mesh
Are all the pieces available for a full open-source Java on Linux environment? Let's see:
Jikes is the compiler
Kaffe is the runtime (or maybe Japhar)
classpath.org is the core libraries
Blackdown is probably the choice for a pure Sun-derived implementation, but they've fallen a little bit behind the Sun release schedule. Is there enough need for Java-on-linux to provide a business justification for a full-fledged, funded, kickass Linux Java implementation?
Disclaimer: I've built some Java VM technology, using Linux as a development base
Kudos to IBM for their JVM. Faster, reliable, small mem (6 megs). It is definitely the best JWM for linux. Now if only RH would do something this right instead of spending all its time making base rpm packages dependent on Gnome rpms and shoving its "partners" packages down our throats.
It really takes guts for a company as big and entrenched as IBM to do something like this. I really respect what they've done for the Linux community. When we dominate the world, IBM will be with us! >;)
I'd almost like to see IBM in an even more prominent role in hardware and software. I'm not talking about a monopoly, but as an equal to both Intel and MS. It'll take a very large hardware company to take Intel down to the notch they deserve to be in. As for MS, they're on their way out and Linux is on its way in. IBM has seen the writing on the wall. It's a good time to be involved in Open Source.
I learned about jikes a few months ago at my (NT-based) employer and was pleased to discover that it also ran on my RedHat Linux box at home, and yes, it IS fast. So fast I had to check to make sure that it actually compiled the files. The difference is that sun's javac is implemented mostly in java itself, while jikes is C++ (owch)
At the same time I discovered IBM's JDK for Linux , and I prefer it over Blackdown. The IBM jdk requires native threads, so if that's an issue get the Blackdown green threads jdk. (It's at 1.1.8, I hope their 1.2 shows up soon).
For you Visual Age fans, IBM has a Linux version available for preview now also.
IBM may be be the best Java tools company out there.
Jikes produces terrible bytecode. Try gcj, it also works great on Linux: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/java.
Note gcj doesn't yet support inner classes or most 1.2 features... for those jikes is still your best bet.
Now, first of all, I want to make something clear: I love jikes. It is blazingly fast, and the obvious choice during the develop/test/debug cycle. Plus I like its error messages on incorrect code better than Javac's.
However, I have a contention with the following statement: "IBM actually implements java better than Sun"
If this is a comment on Jikes (as opposed to, for example, IBM's JIT compiler), its a misleading comment. Jikes and Javac are like apples and oranges. Jikes was designed to be a fast java compiler, plain and simple. This means that it does few optimizations to the output bytecode when compared to Javac. Which in turn means that Jikes-produced code may execute more slowly than Javac-produced code.
(I say might because a good JIT compiler may be able to perform the same optimizations that Javac does on the output from Jikes, thus making the usefulness of Javac's work moot)
So lets just keep these sorts of issues in mind when discussing compilers.
That said, YAY IBM!
arvind rulez
IBM has done a lot of good stuff since getting knocked off of their pedestal back in the day. (Well, except that they didn't marker OS/2 very well). I often wonder if even (gasp) Microsoft could be "good" if they ever realized that they aren't the only option in the computing world.
So it looks like a lot of people are gushing about how cool IBM has become, what with Java and Linux and OSS and whatnot. Unfortunately, while they may have shed their Big Brother exterior, IBM remains what it has always been - a parasitic predator whose only goal in life is to get obscenely wealthy by feeding off the computer industry. They are only supporting Linux/OSS because 1) it pisses Microsoft off, 2) they see money in it.
So let's not get all dreamy about dominating the world and taking IBM with us. In the world that we want to build, information is free, which goes against every tenet of their corporate culture.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
For a company the size of IBM, they have turned to support OSS/Linux remarkably quickly. Unlike Sun who can't seem to relinquish control (witness their community source licence), IBM is actually willing to offer us (some of their) crown jewles.
...
Of course the fact that IBM has lots of (technological) crown jewels probably made this decision easier for them. Still, they have put their money where their mouth is. I hope that the Linux community appreciates their contributions and rewards them, be in with money or simply mindshare. A decent Java implementation would do much to further demonstrate the enterprise-readiness of Linux
As the Debian maintainer for Jikes, I have been incredibly impressed with IBM's serious adoption of Open Source. With the original Jikes release, there were problems with the license which prevented it from being included in Debian's main distribution. When these problems were brought to IBM's attention, they immediately agreed to get their lawyers to work on a revision. The end result is that Debian now has a completely free Java implementation available for those who can accept the limitations of Kaffe's runtime library, and a truly fast and robust alternative to Sun's javac even for those who use the JDK runtime.
Peace and love, y'all
GCC 2.95 (with libgcj) now has support for compiling (non-graphical) Java code to native binaries. If you had hoped Jikes would do this, well, look into GCJ at
Cygnus
and try using it. The binaries are indeed much faster than loading up a JVM, parsing bytecode, running it...
Jikes, on the other hand, compiles Java to bytecode much faster than javac. On the order of 10 to 100 *TIMES* faster. Use it instead of javac.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
"My point was that "we" do not all share a monolithic opinion on anything, except that we want to live in a world where software doesn't suck."
Too true.. ;)
Of course, as was pointed out to me quite recently, perhaps we should learn to disagree, as it were. We're all going to hold wildly different opinions, but as long as the end goals of all parties are being achieved, I suppose it doesn't really matter.
Hmm. New (?) slogan: "GNU/Linux: Modular programs for modular people."
Naturally you could replace "GNU/Linux" with Free Software, Open Source Software, or whatever buzz word/term you feel to be appropriate.
Of course, I'm sure many people would have no end of fun thinking up a counterpart slogan for Windows.. Hee hee..
~ Kish
I couldn't believe how fast it compiled classes on my FreeBSD 3.3 box. Really, this is an exceptional product. Sun is quickly becoming irrelevant to Java as far as Linux and FreeBSD are concerned.
Well, sometimes, anyway. "agree to disagree", I meant to say. Beyond that.. too much noise, not enough signal from me today. Time to sleeeep.. *cheers all around*
~ Kish
The release of Jikes by IBM is great news.
However...
It would be really nice if things (Netscape) would use the JRE of your choice (Read, your linux system JRE). The one that comes with netscape blows. All apps should use the JRE that is installed, and not their own implementation.
How far are we from this? OS/2's Netscape does it this way and it is the best way to do it.
Could someone point me to a free Java development environment? Ie, for linux I can use jikes to compile, Sun's JVM, but what's a good X11 IDE? I have to use Windows occasionally too -- what's the best solution? Sun's JDK + which IDE?
Hi, I'm in Austin, TX. Today was the end of IBM's first "Linux Summit". There will be more... If you have a problem with Jikes, visit us at http://ibm.com/developerworks/opensource and use the Jitterbug system to report it. We'll try to fix it ASAP. By the way, the machine that serves up the Jikes Project Pages from dW is running RH Linux 6.0, from outside the IBM firewall. We plan to open up the CVS tree for write-access from outside IBM soon. We want to wait until we get v1.07 out, as Philippe is currently making (lots of) changes needed to get the LocalVariableTable right, which will fix a known problem with debug support. Note that Jikes is now in the "free" part of Debian, is included in Red Hat's main distribution, and the license has been approved by OSI. The mail lists should be up soon. We are waiting for Ken Coar (IBM, Apache) to check out the Majordomo setup. By the way, I'm leaving soon to have dinner with the chap who manages the developerworks/opensource site. Exciting times indeed, and who would have thunk it...from IBM. I know I wouldn't -- a year ago. Now -- I LOVE IT! Dave Shields shields@watson.ibm.com Jikes Project Core Team Member
Thanks for the response. But what's so great about KDE? Redhat endorses Gnome and Suse endorses KDE. I'm not that enthused with Suse.
If you don't like the way it works... fix it! That's all I have to say.
It seems almost as though throught OSS IBM has finally proved that "everybody knows you make money off the hardware not this software stuff".
Excuse me?
I'm interested in hearing your example of an innovative company.
Note the subject: the **LINUX** port of Jikes. What's this stuff about how it runs great on only Debian, BSD, and Red Hat?? Last time I checked, SuSE, OpenLinux, etc. could run it as well.
Misleading descriptions don't do any of us any good.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Why don't they open source OS/2? In a manner similiar to the initial Mozilla source release.
This would be a graceful end for that operating system
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Personally, I'm waiting for jinkies -- the Java debugger that discovers what's behind run-time errors (and what would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids).
IBM has simply chosen to follow a path of enlightened self-interest. They built Jikes on their own dime, built OpenDX on their own dime (yes, I know full well that it was mostly to sell SP2's back in 1994, but they opened it and freely licensed the patents on the code), built a Linux JVM on their own dime, and support the Perl DBI interface on their own dime.
It's the customers, stupid. They asked for this.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Stupid moderators never cease to piss me off...
Anyway, don't you all get me wrong. I have nothing against self-interest, wanting to make money, or whatever. I am, however, against joyfully crushing anything or anyone that crosses your path.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
*That* I'm sure I don't know :) KDE was there first. It is also more mature. I frequently switch between Gnome and KDE, Gnome has a few bugs with the version I'm using, KDE has more mature applications. Actually, I need to upgrade everything here :)
-Brent--
Jikes is way cool. I've been using it since it was in alpha & am very impressed. IBM-jdk1.1.7 & 1.1.8 are way cool. Fast & stable. IBM Visualage for Java is way uncool. I have never used a more unproductive tool. It is extremely bloated, the 'version control' it provides does not prevent code getting overwritten, its bytecode is sometimes screwy (can't say I've ever seen false=true in any other debugger) and it misses compile errors in inner classes. We also had events disappearing in gui classes when the classes were jar'd, but working fine unjar'd. The problem goes away when compiling external to VAJ. Ran JTest against the generated gui code in VAJ. 3/4 of the static & dynamic errors found were in the generated code. I'm happy with IBM's commitment to Java, however I wouldn't want to live in a world where inferior technology like VAJ was crammed down our throats. (Wait a minute, there's another company doing that right now! What's that name again...:>) ps. for those using Windoze, the jdk1.3 javac is comparable in speed to jikes.
Don't get me wrong--as much as I love Perl, I'm starting to fall just as much in love with Python the more I use it. It rocks. But the /usr/bin/env technique is totally independent of which interpreter you are calling. It's not so much a feature of Python as a common behavior of Python script authors. Not a biggie, but it seemed a bit, well, off.
What about a fast VM (ie., faster than Sun's)? And preferably compatible with Sun's as well (the one in jdk1.2.2, or somewhere near there)
- Seth Finkelstein
I am reminded about
IBM and the short sighted rihno
linux surport people watch out
peace
john
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
One of our dev servers blew up in the middle of that comment. Lost track of what I was saying. Oops.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
If they really had guts they would quit their idiotic posturing about GNU/Linux being a "server OS" and discontinue the "wait and see" attitude they've adopted about preinstalled GNU/Linux desktops. IBM isn't all that innovative anymore. Now they just want to keep their head above water, and prey upon new markets as they open up (rather than forging new markets.. which would be a true sign of innovation) in order to increase their market share in a predictable, methodical fashion.
IBM doesn't care about free software or "open source" any more than Sun does. There's a reason why IBM was termed the Evil Empire before Microsoft was. They are also the company the modern-day usage of the term FUD was originally derived from. Microsoft is just as bad as they were in such a prominent position, and the same would hold true for Sun (and even IBM if they took an even stronger position amongst the Establishment once again).
~ Kish
I imagine the term "we" was meant to refer to either the free software movement, the open source software movement, or both. Some of us have more philosophical as well as pragmatic bents, and /do/ happen to care where the tools come from. Not everything is a matter of pure practicality. You end up screwing yourself if you don't think of things in more than a single perspective..
And don't kid yourself that the FSM and OSSM are simply "just" individuals doing their own thing.. It is still a cooperative effort on a number of levels. Or else there would be no cohesion, and thus no movement.. of any kind. Anarchic "we" may be.. /completely/ unorganized "we" are not. Several groups, or projects, are certainly not just individuals, for instance.. And there are a good number of projects among the FSM and OSSM.
~ Kish