Slashdot Mirror
Corporate vs Open Source:Sun Stealing Blackdown?
An anonymous submittor droped this in the inbox: "A Linux Today story talks about how Sun repackaged Blackdown's porting of JDK 1.2.2 and called it their own. Even the script wrappers for this thing are the ones Steve Bryne wrote for the Blackdown effort and even have the name of the Blackdown developers in it. This is ridiculous! Is this what happens when corporate meets open source?" We all knew something like this was going to happen eventually. Hopefully Sun and Inprise will realize their mistake and take steps to correct it. If they do not, though...what steps can the Blackdown team take to protect their work?
well, not too surprising i suppose.
my guess is that more companies do this than we realize, just probably on a smaller level.
one example: that disk compression utility microsoft borrowed in dos 6.?
it seems like companies wouldn't be so hideously stupid about it though...
An important question, and one which I haven't seen answered anywhere, is what type of license the Blackdown folk had from Sun to work with the Sun code. It sounds like this is not really a violation- just that the Blackdown people were desperate enough to finish the product that they accepted a crappy license and have now paid the price for that. While this is not very "nice" of Sun, it's what you get for not working on a project with a strong, protective license like the GPL. Oh well... ~luge without his login
logan
I am unfamiliar with the blackdown project so I don't know what liscense they use. However, did the sun team release an open source tool (i.e. the source code is still freely modifiable) and just not give proper credit or did they actually make it proprietary? If the first is the case don't jump on them too hard yet. The fact that the names of the developers is in the README is a good sign. This might have just been a marketing screw up (maybe whoever wrote the announcment didn't know anything about this). Besides it is a good thing if Sun puts its name behind an open source project (it gives it more credibility) of course they should have given proper credit (and should be urged to do so).
The later (making the code proprietary) is more worrying and of course (whether you like it or not) is what the GPL is designed to protect against. Of course some developers don't mind this and hence release their code under differnt liscences (their choice).
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
Please also note that Sun has decided to PULL JAVA from the ECMA standards process they were putting it through. Look here. IBM (and probably others) are rightfully pissed off. When is Sun going to learn? The funny thing is, despite all the bad press they get from pulling these stunts, they seem to keep getting worse each time! Must be McNealy's ego.
Devil = 1
Isn't this perfectly legal under the Sun Community License? It's not real nice, but I was under the impression that all changes to the Java source belonged to Sun.
Devil = 0
Overall though, even if this is ok according to "the law", it still bites the big one. I really like Java, it has a great deal of potential, (INMHO) both as a language and as a VM... stuff like this just makes it look really bad.
RobK
Myddrin
Though Sun touts itself as the Java company, I think Sun's behavior (and this incident is just one of may) shows that the real Java company is IBM. IBM has a quality JDK 1.1 implementation and will soon have their JDK 1.2 implementation done. Their JDK is developed in-house, and they don't put their name on other people's efforts.
Disclaimer: I don't have anything to do with IBM -- just an observation.
Can any one tell us what the licence that the original code was released under? From the text it sounds more like a direct copyright violation than a license issue
Most open source licenese don't seem to prohibit repackageing and sale but changeing a copyright notice to say it's your own is breaking the law in anyones book. Any additional information would be most apreciated, I havea feeling that their is more to this than meets the eye
It should also be rememberd that this may not be sun's fault, for all we know some rogue employe grabed some source code of the net and told the boss he wrote it to avoid getting fired, I've come accross stories like that before, I guess however that sun would still have a degree of responsability for not checking
When the Sun Source Code License was first introduced, there was a thread on /. stating that Sun would behave in exactly this manner. You would make improvements to the Code, and Sun would then claim the benefits, and wouldn't even have to acknowledge you or your work.
The article is exactly right; it's legal for sun to do what they did, and it is helpful to both java and linux. HOWEVER .... some snaps to Blackdown in the press release would have been very appropriate. From sun's point of view, other's contributions to Java are small compatred to the $ and effort the've put in to something that costs them money at an accelerating rate. BTW -- I'm using the blackdown JDK becase I want native threads on my SMP box ...
The Blackdown folks did release their code back to Sun you know. And, the Blackdown project is not an open source project, they license the reference implementation of the JDK from Sun and modify it to run on Linux. Thats why its called the "Java Linux Porting project". Everyone should consider it a good thing that Sun is now taking interest. That means we will finally get a good JVM for Linux, something we have needed for a very long time.
The big question here is - what licence was the "stolen" software written in ? And how are they presenting it? If it was released under the GPL, then other companies may use the source, and I remember correctly, they ONLY need to provide the source (and licence it under GPL), but they don't need to give credits. .. I think..
If the software was released into public domain, then sun has done absolutely nothing wrong legally, but of course a lot wrong morally.
Wasn't this what happened to emacs? Someone made xemacs and made it closed source. Then Richard Stallman made the GNU licence and distributed all future versions of emacs under that licence - simply because the corp behind xemacs "stole his work". It wasn't stealing in the legal sense, but it was in the moral sense.
Wellwell, I don't know enough about this to say for sure, but I have a feeling Sun has talked a lot to their lawyers before doing this, and thus - I guess nothing can be done.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
The article suggests that code from the Blackdown project was stolen. Is there any evidence to Support that claim? As far as I know, this new port from Sun is an independent port done by Inprise (who is eager to port their Java development tools to Linux) using the Sun's base code.
In any case, isn't Blackdown's whole port based almost entirely on Sun's code? I don't want in any way to diminish the good work done by the Blackdown folks. I'm not sure if this Sun/Inprise venture puts Blackdown out of business either. I don't think we should jump on the wagon and assume that Sun is somehow being unfair to Blackdown.
If we want to blame Sun for anything, it should be for writing a bad Java license. If we agree to that license, anything that follows is our own fault.
Really now, the point behind free software is that it allows others to build upon the experience of others. Why complain about what free software does best? Sure, the Blackdown people made their contribution. But the point of free software is to offer up a sacrafice useable by anyone including corporations or individuals. And afterall, Sun invented Java. It is their intellectual property. Live and let live, that's the spirit! Sure, sometimes a few toes get stepped on, but don't let that ruin the dance!
But it stinks, methinks.
Companies do not mistakenly distribute other companies' commercial products as their own. If they did, they'd be in deep shit, so they're careful that way. Companies don't seem to feel they need to be careful with open source software. What are open source authors going to do about it?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
I'm sorry to say, but Sun is using the Java support to grow into an arrogant monopolist.
StarTrek.org Free Webmail
Which is here.
It basically includes "do the work for us for free, and we will take it for us, and it won't even be stealing because the work will be ours, not yours". It is nowhere near open source, it is nowhere near fair either, and I really wonder why the people at blackdown have accepted to sign such a thing.
And this is bad for real free software because of the "why bothering writing a free java sdk, blackdown's one is good enough" effect.
OG.
I was reading the article that anonymous coward was pointing to, because somehow I got the feeling from the discussion before that sun had been allowed to include Blackdowns code.
Now the article does not mention any *stealing*. It just talks about Blackdown not being mentioned in the press release. And then it's not even Blackdown members who are complaining.
(Since when are AC's allowed to post storied anyway?)
There's already an active thread on this at blackdown's java-linux mail list. Blackdown developers, some Inprise developers, and just folks. My impressions:
- Inprise knows they started with Blackdown's work
- The initial PR did not mention Blackdown. Could have been the stupid marketing departments
- The Inprise folks say they are mentioning and crediting Blackdown in press interviews at the Java conference in NY
- everyone agrees more communications between the teams would help
- The SCSL apparently allows Sun to do anything it wants with any code provided back to them.
And BTW, a new release candidate of blackdown's port was released yesterday!
I'm concerned about Sun, too. Don't attribute to deliberate malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity [paraphrasing Pournell]. But keep your powder dry [anon.]
The blackdown code is sent directly back to Sun, so this is definately allowable. Indeed, changes the Blackdown team made (bugfixes) have been merged into the java code already, at least for Solaris.
The problem comes just in that Blackdown has been around for four years, and Sun releases a new jdk one day (without cluing anyone in beforehand), and don't give Blackdown any credit.
Technically, they don't have to give credit. But Blackdown has done a _hell_ of a lot more than Sun or Imprise have in getting java working on Linux.
Note that although Sun would be to blame for not having Blackdown listed in the press releases, Imprise would be to blame for using code, scripts, and readme's from Blackdown. Imprise did the port to help get JBuilder out for UNIX platforms, Sun is just taking over the source tree.
It says quite clearly on a page pointed to by the Blackdown FAQ about licensing that Sun owns all changes made under the non-commercial internal use agreement that the Blackdown team have agreed to.
If they object, having accepted the agreement, then that is their silly fault, frankly. To be honest though, I don't expect they will object as long as Sun give credit where it is due, and I imagine that their not doing so immediately is just a screw-up.
So the LinuxToday's article that Sun "stole" Blackdown is simply wrong.
And yes, the spirit of free software is in the giving. If it was not the intent of the Blackdown developers, they are going to have a hard time taking back what was their effort.
Just for the record, Sun still is the company who actually made the Java SDK. Blackdown just reconfigured it to work under Linux. Now, perhaps they should have put the proper acknowledgements and links along with the download. They could at least have asked the Blackdown-crew first. I'm assuming here. Anyone who know if they did?
./ers do nothing but file complaints all day. Before this happened, Sun got criticized for not having a Linux version of the Java SDK on their pages. Now that they do, we complain about that. As long as we get to complain, we are happy ./ers?
But is it really more wrong when a company does this thing, than when individuals or groups of people do it? I think the reason we react so harsh on this is mostly because Sun has ignored Linux support for so long concerning Java, in favour for their own OS.
It seems
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
So the sudden moves (no licence fees, linux support) may in fact be defensive maneuvres...
Almost since the start of Java, we have been hammering on them to support a Linux port in house. Sure they didn't Blackdown much of the credit that they deserve, but we all know.
The important thing is that you can now download the Linux port on Sun's page, moving towards having the Linux as a choice along with windows and solaris.
relax a bit. This is just a sign of big corporation snafu. The press office didn't talk to the developers. That's all. /.)
They'll put it right - because right now, I'm sure they're probably getting a serious bollocking (due not in small part to
what's slightly more interesting is the question about whether people would be so upset if it was another small company - and not the big'n'scary corp like Sun...because GPL does mean that one day some big incumbent corp will publish a boxed something and stick lots of money behind its marketing and sell more than anyone else.
Hi, My Nale is Scott Mc Nealy. You've probably seen me before in such films as "The Backbone of The Internet", "A Rainy Day In WA", or "Everybody Says I Love You Bill".
My PR dept. here at Sun kept telling me about this great website, Splashpot.
So I am going to tell you about those allegations of us ripping off Blackgowns. Lemme tell you one thing. It cost us millions $$$ to come up with that cute steaming logo. Our lawyers keep crying "hungry" in our ongoing lawsuits. Our marketing dept. is glutonning millions still to hide the fact that we can't produce a stable VM. But let me tell you something -- we had to take that money from somewhere. Clearly, engineers are way overpaid.
Love, dudes.
--Paolo Ciccone , JBuilder dev.team, /.
I think one has to accept a certain amount of crap from a press release. The PR guys might not have known better. Still, a public acknowledgement of the Blackdown work seems in order.
the same code? Why is the release by Sun 21MB while the largest JDK 1.1.* release by Blackdown only 13MB? If you want to discuss the Blackdown 1.2 releases, the largest of those is 19MB in bzipped format. It doesn't appear to me to be the exact same package.
One of the things you're going to have to consider that these corporations have been dealing with TIGHTLY CLOSED source for the last several DECADES.
Any large corporation is very slow to change beneath it all (that's just the nature of the beast)--even though it would seem that they've changed thanks to marketing hype, etc.
If we voice our opinions (politely, preferably) about such things, most likely the changes will take place.
It's impossible to expect someone that has put nails into the top shelf of a cabinent for 20 years, to get up, go to another part of the factory and start painting PERFECTLY.
It takes JOB TRAINING. Who trains the corporations? The public does. Who trains the public? The media does. Who trains the media? Hmmm I'll stop before I start ranting..
Just raise the 'penalty flag' tell them the mistake politely (especially in public), and wait a bit. They'll learn.
With thanks,
Tenement
--
At first, when reading this, I decided that I should start to abandon my Java work. Then I realized the awful truth of the world.
Every place I've worked has happily used proprietary tools.
I work for a consulting company. 1/3 of the people do mainframe work, about 1/2 work on VeeBee, and the remainder do training or work (like I do) in Java, C/C++, UNIX, etc. Our business is based on the fact that companies produce proprietary languages like VB, Powerbuilder, Delphi, Visual C++, etc. They may be based on standard languages, but they are NOT standards except to themselves.
As long as there is money to be made in Java, I'll end up continuing to work in it. I might really want to be doing projects in Python or C++, but I'll end up working in Java because that's where the money is. And it's the same way for business. My clients don't care if Java is proprietary or not as long as their web-apps get done on time, just like they've always approached client server development.
So, in the end, it doesn't matter to the people who really matter--the people who pay for my paycheck. If you want this to change, the staff people in these corporations need to convince their managers that only standards-based and open-source products should be used for development.
Chris
Compare this to "Back to the Future" with the bully and McFly making him do his homework for him. Bastards..... Hello!?! McFly!
J-
Suppose I license my source code to you (and anyone else who wants it) on the condition that any works you derive from my source code are licensed back to me (and anyone else who wants it). Suppose further that you actually DO produce code based on mine. I think I (and anyone else who wanted to) would have every legal right to use your code.
Specifically, if you produce code based on my GPL'd code, then I think I'd have a real solid legal basis for assuming that what you produce is GPL'd, regardless of what license you try to put on it. If you tried to fight it, I think you'd rapidly find yourself in MASSIVE hot water over your technical, legal violation of my "intellectual property rights," since you used my code in violation of my license. If you didn't want to share your code, you shouldn't have used mine.
In this instance, if it were Sun (or some other big set of pockets) that did this, I'd definitely go for the big tamale - damages, treble damages, punitive damages, and criminal charges (despite what many think, willful violation of copyrights can be treated as criminal matters).
The headline for this story is completely wrong. As is clear from some of the comments the license under which the blackdown team have done their work has always allowed this to happen.
The real story is that the FSF and everyone else who has criticised the Sun community licence has been proved right. This licence has now been proved to be anti open source as we expected.
Calling IBM a saviour in this situation is also naive. Their JDK is not open source either.
Java must now decline as a language for open source/free software.
Dave
It was only a matter of time until this happened. Considering how "big business" has traditionally had a ruthless streak (like certain companies who shall remain nameless, because we're all tired of hearing about them) I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. It may have already happened and who would know? I would think this would be one of the problems with open source vs. closed source. With a piece of software being closed source and provided to the public only in binary form, who's to say some open source code hasn't already been "borrowed" without credit being given to the original author or any changes that were made, being made open. As well, this case or a similar one is bound to end up in court and what will happen then? I, for one, hope we will have some good lawyers who can argue effectively for the open source position. Lawyers that understand what it is really all about and can convey that message to a judge effectively so he can make an truly informed decision.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
At the risk of treading on etiquette, here's a snip from a post made by one of the BlackDown contributors on a Sun mailing list:
Well, as I said in another mail, it looks at least a lot like they started out with the results of 4(?) years of Blackdown porting efforts. You need to have been on board in order to get a feel for the awful amount of work necessary to convert Solaris' threading to Linux' threading, etcetera. That this results in a comparatively small patch file does not mean that they weren't 90% jumpstarted by the Blackdown effort, and indeed only added a couple of patches and a few bits of functionality.
Of course, the really great thing is that a) we (Blackdown) were unaware of this effort, and b) we still have to see these fixes contributed to Blackdown. Not that it is really necessary, because the first team member already resigned so I think Sun and Inprise can maintain the port all by themselves in the future. I certainly won't lift a finger anymore to debug the Intel port...
I can GPL all I want in my spare time, but at work I'm in the hands of my management. Those guys think money first, ethics later. (at least they think etics) SO... How do we get management types to realize that open source is good for more than hobby?
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Should'a, Could'a, Would'a..
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Its not like Visual C++ uses some mutant strain of C++.
Maybe it is not connected with this issue at all, but as its being announced just along with it,
Id bet that the cancelling of a Java stantard plan is something to worry about.
Ok. This withdraw would be a sad thing at any time.
-><- no
If you consider this a slap in the face think of the money lining RedHat's pockets. Money earned on the blood and sweat or many anonymous contributors backs.
Don't get me wrong, Open Source can and should be profitible, but not if you are not adding any real value.
VALinux builds great machines and provides support. Corel is bringing an excellent office and graphics suite to the platform. RedHat, when you look at true value added vs the amount of benefits that they are receiving-- its sickening.
Talk about taking credit for the work of others. SUN just did it with one of their many tiny (in terms of revenue) products. RedHat is 90% based on Linux and taking credit for 99%.
While your hypothetical is correct, GPLed code has the feature (or failure depending on your POV) that it forces derived code to be GPLed.
The code in question was not GPLed. Therefore the point is moot. In fact it was originally based on Sun code which was licensed with the requirement that changes became the property of Sun. Sun apparently used this to their advantage, as one might expect a business to do. You may argue the political sagacity of their move, but it seems perfectly legal to this non-lawyer.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
This story needs to be updated to reflect the actual situation, but since this is and Ask Slashdot:
:)
If Sun & Inprise don't ever credit them (I realize somebody said it's likely they will, but hypothetially..), then Sun is still within the terms of the liscense. Therefore, the most effective action to take is to do what this article has accomplished already: raise a huge stink. Make sure nobody will ever work under the exploitative SCSL ever again. (which should have been done from the beginning, IMHO, but whatever) So: problem solved.
This was covered in the comments about the release of Java 2 earlier today. The posters have commented on this several times. Wonder if LinuxToday is just quoting SlashDot sources...
Blackdown mistakenly thought that Java was the next big thing, and that for Linux to remain viable it *needed* Java. They reasonably agreed to whatever license Sun would grant, simply to get a JDK available for Linux before Linux missed the bandwagon completely. A reasonable, indeed selfless act, which, had Java really been as important as Sun convinced many of us it would be, would have been critical to Linux's success.
In hindsight it turns out to have been the other way around. Java, while a nice language in some respects, was basically just so much hype. Linux on the other hand quietly attracted 10-20 million users and snuck its way into corporate server rooms everywhere. It's growth rate appears to have not slowed down in the least, while Java languishes for lack of mindshare. Java needs Linux far more than Linux needs Java, and Sun successfully suckered good people into doint their work for them at no cost.
Very unfortunate, but a good lesson why one should really think twice, or even ten times, before contributing to a project under Sun's "community" license.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
By now most of us agree that Sun is completly within their legal rights to absorb the project. We also agree that it will probably help the Linux community. So why are we all upset?
/.'s and the refrenced news article's both begin with calling into question the morality of Sun's actions. They have planted the suggustion in our minds that Sun has done a big bad no-no and violated someone's rights. Once that suggustion had been planted they could go ahead and tell what really happened and the truth appears very different when seen under the light of our preconceived notions.
/dev/null
The way I see it is, we have been the victums of mininformitive news realease. Had the realease stated "O happy Day! Sun going to support Java for Linux!" We would, for the most part, been completly supportive of Sun. However the headlines,
Questions? Comments, email me.
Flames, raves, rants, complaints? Redirect to
Little Brother, watching the watchers
The lack of credit to the cool efforts of Blackdown sucks - but I also wonder how quickly the changes made by SUN/Inprise will become available to Blackdown? If they are slow to get things back out to people like Blackdown then its a pretty onesided deal.
What's the deal with Anderson.net's IPO, as far as I can tell they should be trading on the secondary market right now, but there not.
Thanks
Isn't this what open-source is supposed to be about?
If you want to keep your code to yourself, don't give it away. If you do give it away, someone's going to use it for something. Is this a surprise? Is it a problem?
Is this just Sun-bashing (or a broader corporate-bashing)?
Is open-source only open with proper credit?
But they should care if their chosen tools do an about-face due to some unforseen strategic shift on behalf of the single code maintainer.
Sun owns Java and will take it where they need to take it to continue to undermine Microsoft.
You currently have no protection against this.
Once again, please look past the "pie in the sky" aspects of open source and try and understand how opening the source protects your strategic investment.
Many companies demand the source even for commercial software they buy, precisely because of this.
Kaffe is a GPL'd cleanroom implementation of a Java Virtual Machine and libraries. Also support the Classpath project, a cleanroom implementation of the Java standard libraries.
I was expecting Great Things from Sun's release given that Blackdown's JDK1.2 RC3 performance can be described as mediocre as best. But not bad. In fact, I pay little attention to "raw speed" benchmarks. Scalability and reliability are everything for me and in my anecdotal opinion Blackdown rocks (solid)! And so to the benchmarks:
http://www.volano.com/report.html
They show that in raw speed Sun/Inprise JDK is marginally faster than Blackdown but whereas Blackdown at least jumped the first scalability hurdle, Sun didn't even make it that far! This is bad. I'm not gonna bother downloading Sun's JDK until it improves.
Wot will put a smile on your penguin-loving face is that TowerJ's Java compiler for Linux tops performance and scalability tests. Also, IBM's JDK1.1.8 for penguins is near the top. I can barely wait for their 1.3 release which is slated for Q2 next year.
-teik.
and my perennial whinge - when are we going to see better Java support for non x86 Linux? Specifically for my 533MHz Alpha... :)
Why is this marked as flame??? sometimes i wonder if moderators even read comments!!!!!!!!!
I have no idea how this can be construed as flamebait. Once again, the moderetards have pulled a collective brain-fart.
If you come up with some genius peice of work in today's market, and open source it, say goodbye to any money you might have made. On the other hand if I'm a smarmy company, all I have to do is cruse through open source stuff, find something marketable and wrap it up with some documentation and make some money.
But hey, it's just my opinion.
crazy dynamite monkey
My take is, the worst thing that they're doing wrong is that they aren't giving the blackdown team the proper recognition. They admitted that this was a snafu, and that they were going to resolve it.
But, all they did was take the codebase that the blackdown team worked on, and started working from there. Can't I do that with the Linux kernel under GPL? It's not like they're selling it, and I'm sure the source will be available under their (albiet restrictive) licensing agreement.
Besides, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't blackdown do the same thing to begin with? Blackdown identifies itself as the Java-Linux Porting Project, I'm guessing they took the Solaris Reference release source base to begin with.
I agree with the others here who have said that as long as Sun and Inprise haven't broken the law, no one has a right to complain. This is the fundamental flaw of open source and free software that no one wants to acknowledge: When you let people use your code for free there is nothing to stop them from doing things you don't like with it, as long as they abide by your license. Bitching that it's not "fair" or "nice" is horribly naive and even childish. If you want to protect your work via the law, then do so; if you use a weak license that allows for things like this, then such things will happen, and you have only yourself to blame.
No estabilshed company is a friend of open source.
Redhat, etc owe their existance to open source programs, but Sun, Oracle, HP, Corel and even Inprise are just using us to get what they want.
Perhaps IBM is different.. They have at least tried. Maybe SGI, too - it looks like they need Linux to survive, now.
But understand this: MS should no longer be the primary target of our flames, and matching Windows should no longer be the goal of our development projects.
With the DOJ and the press watching MS like a hawk, we need to refocus.
Linux is now, without a doubt the premier Desktop Unix thanks to GNOME and KDE nothing against *BSD, but Linux is slightly better here, if only because that is what most developers use.
Next year Ittanium (sp?) comes out. Linux will be ready, for sure, and it will probably run flawlessly sooner than Windows2000 - but that ain't the game any more.
World Domination, remember?
Next year Montery also arrives. I still havn't seen even any speculation on how well Linux will compare to that.
SCO, HP, Intel, IBM and Compaq makes a pretty impressive team - all (except SCO) have Linux projects, too. What's going to happen when Montery and Linux go head to head for the same space?
Don't think that "Montery will be high end, and Linux will take the low end", either. That is just market speak for not having the features, yet. Both Linux and FreeBSD will, I believe, be very close to Montery (and Solaris) on Intel by next year.
What's going to happen then? Can we rely on Red Hat and VA Linux's money to compete?
Don't forget, these companies aren't like MS. They make pretty good software (for the most part).
Things like StarOffice are dangerous to Open Source, because they give the power back to the companies - and yet they are just as cheap (to the consumer) as Open source.. until Sun changes the file format or something like that.
Maybe it is time to play the Windows card? Linux does operate well in a Windows environment, and Windows computers are easily converted to Linux. Perhaps we need more open source software that interoperates well with MS stuff. Samba is great, maybe we need something that can provide DCOM services?
My Enemy's enemy is my friend. Sun was a useful ally. Lets not get stabbed in the back.
IT seems that the once-mighty Slashdot has fallen to the inevitable forces of money and all the convenience that comes with it.
No longer under ANY tangible pressure to make the Slashdot content even vaguely synonymous with the word "quality", the past few months (quite coincidentally starting with the injection of well over a million dollars into the pockets of the Slashdot founders / main (only?) fulltime employees, with the promise of more millions to come) Malda, Hemos and co. have more or less abandoned any pretense of being a provider of "quality content". It seems that every other "story" posted to Slashdot in the last few weeks is based on at least a serious misunderstanding and quite possibly, (although this is only my humble opinion as an observer and not meant to be stated as fact, but speculation) gratuitous flamebait.
Reading the Andover.net prospectus on openipo.com (which I strongly recommend y'all read...very telling stuff!) we learn that the dynamic duo that brought us the once uber-cool Slashdot are effectively (on paper at least) millionaires today (or darn close to it) as a result of the Andover acquistion. Further reading of the prospectus tells us that the Slashdot founders can look to realize more millions in income based on their statying onboard, and the future "performance" of Slashdot.
But sadly, as we all know in the world of corporate internet media, "quality reporting", "journalistic integrity", and "objective editorial presentation" mean zero to "performance" of a web site owned by a corporation. As indicated in the Andover prospectus, 95 PERCENT of the revenue of Andover in the past year (I believe it was stated for last year, please correct me if I have the timeframe wrong) was AD REVENUE. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that AD REVENUE is most easily derived by getting a group of people in some common demographic (in this case, technology) to view your pages. A lot. And rather than take the high road, Slashsot appears quite comfortable with letting an ever-increasing mob correct the gross inaccuracies in its "reporting" , and realizes the inherent human instinct to participate as a spectator and a player in these flame-fests that are all too often the heart of Slashdot discussions these days, get the all-important PAGE VIEWS. In great quantities. Admit it. How often do you read a "story" on the Slashdot front page that seems so clearly wrong, or so destined to invoke a passionate (hostile) repsonse that you're just hooked, and you HAVE to continue reading the discussion. In the process generating many, MANY more PAGE VIEWS for Slashdot, more $$$ in the pockets of whom I submit, in my humble opinion are corrupted by said $$$, and , I also suggest, in my humble opinion, will be less and less motivated to improve the quality of the Slashdot experience the more we inevitably line their pockets supporting the all-to-typical Slashdot flame/correct-the-editors-fest.
Don't even get me started on the sad lack of interest in maintaining a healthy relationship with the developer community exhibited by Rob Malda with regards to the "open" Slash engine. Check out the "code" page. Note that the current "production" Slashdot uses code almost, what, a year older than what is posted on the "code" page?
To take the stance that you're opening the code you've written that drives the Slashdot site, and then turn around and refuse to update the page for many many months at a time is NOT the way to look genuine, like you truly have some skin in the open source game. Granted, it may be a VERY busy life running Slashdot, but the occasional half-hour of posting the current code with warnings to how dangerous it may be to use in its current state is NOT too much to ask. If you don't feel you should be imposed on to do that, REMOVE the Slash code from the public domain, open-source, or whatever category it's currently in. But don't just try to "look" like an open-source player. Walk the walk AND talk the talk.
Okay, I'm done ranting for now, and probably just earned myself a lifetime ban on Slashdot. But boy, was it worth it, and boy, do I feel a LOT better now.
-el Dougo
"Most people are even picking up on the fact that Sun was well within their rights under their license to do what they did. But it still sucks that they couldn't make at least a token reference to Blackdown to acknowlege their contribution.
....
So, the apologists are out. God forbide we should take Sun to task
One wonders if MS would have gotten so much slack?
But then, Slashdot is closed source too and no one seems upset.
Wasn't this what happened to emacs? Someone made xemacs and made it closed source. Then Richard Stallman made the GNU licence and distributed all future versions of emacs under that licence - simply because the corp behind xemacs "stole his work". It wasn't stealing in the legal sense, but it was in the moral sense.
Uh, no.
xemacs and emacs forked but both remained under the GPL (which had been created long before this event occurred).
Its not like Visual C++ uses some mutant strain of C++. I doesn't? What the heck do you call goofy abominations like lstrcpy() lstrcmp() lstrcat()? Maybe the core language syntax is marginally ANSI-like, but their library implementations are highly wacked, not even including Win32.
And if you use any of VC++'s code generation, you are going to get stuff that is MFC dependant, which is in turn Win32 dependant.
Personally, I had a lot better luck with the Powersoft (Watcom) C++ compiler when I had to generate binaries under Windows. Their library implementations were much more normal.
dear slashdot,
i have had this happen to me as well. as you may know, i am the anonymous coward with the open source natalie portman and open source drew barrymore project.
as it turned out, i found out recently that natalie portman and drew barrymore had obtained my open source natalie portman and open source drew barrymore project.
shamelesly, they repackaged the project, not even bothering to change the names from natalie portman and drew barrymore to something unique.
now, natalie portman and drew barrymore look cool as they walk the streets.
"look, it's natalie portman and drew barrymore!" the random onlooker would note, "look how cool they are as they walk down the streets!"
"yes!!" the onlooker would agree.
"yes!! indeed, we look cool as we walk down the streets!" natalie portman and drew barrymore reply, "and you will all be handsomely rewarded!"
i will be looking forward to any legal advice i obtain here. you will be handsomely rewarded.
thank you.
Steve Byrne is a Sun employee.
Have there been any documented cases where somebody takes legal action based on the GPL or similar open licenses and forced somebody to comply with the license's terms?
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Yeah, it bites that team Blackdown gets little recognition for their heroic efforts.
Since 'tis the season, you can help Blackdown by going to their website and ordering books. It's not much, but it may be all they ever get.
How can they feel the rain but not know of the flood?
It's really nice when the first post has content.
Anyway from what I gathered from the relevent posts Blackdown aggred to give code back to sun and SUNs people are trying to do right by Blackdown and give credit but something went wrong and posably some market droid just skipped over that detail.
So it's not like Sun is being an evil Microsoftian tyrent or anything it's just some minnor mistake and something Blackdown aggred to anyway. It's not Sun just walking away with an open source project and saying "te he it's ours now buddy".
But don't be so harsh on Slashdot for jumping the gun. There is a pritty good reason for having a GPL in the first place [thow Blackdown code is not GPL but thats a diffrent story] it's not an abitrary liccens saying "It's free". There have been a few cases when someone would "port" public domain code and copywrite the results or take public domain and modify it and sell the results.
On the surface this looked like exactly what Sun did.. but that isn't the case at all. Blackdown has an aggrement with Sun that LETS this happen Sun didn't just grab something becouse it's convenent.
Accually it dose urk me that it's totally legal to sell public domain as commertal but try to give away commertal and you go to jail. Thats just wrong. I don't advocate stelling commertal software but I think theft of public domain should also be illegal.
Also there is something of an advantage to burrying thies rants.. there is far more cogent data in the mod 3 to mod 5 area and I'm down here ancered by a score -1.. a "first post" post number 4... First posters beware slashdot dosn't update very fast you may not be the first poster after all.
I don't actually exist.
I've been using Sun hardware and software on projects for over 10 years and it has done a pretty good job scaling way beyond the wildest dreams of Bill and not crashing as soon as a load appears.
If their marketing and communications were as good as some of their technology then we'd have MCPs sitting on street corners with cardboard signs offering to reboot computers for food.
It's partly Suns own fault and this looks like another PR own goal but it's sometimes sad to see the slagging they get here no matter what they do. Among other things Sun created Java, not the dancing paperclip or the ten minute uptime. Take your pick but I know which camp I'm in.
The SCSL isn't a great deal in my opinion but they have yet to force people to sign it at gunpoint.
This was posted to the linuxppc-dev list a few days ago. Today, he posted to the list again, saying he had left Blackdown and asked if anyone wanted to take his place. For LinuxPPC users, this just plain sucks, as there is now no active jdk development for the platform. We can't blame Kevin, and I see this as a bad move by Sun all around.
A few things are reasonably clear... first, the Java licensing agreement Blackdown accepted allows Sun to do just what they've done... claim someone else's coding as their own work without crediting the coders. That's why SCSL isn't Open Source.
Second, this was almost certainly an oversight by ignorant marketing/legal staff, not a deliberate attempt to steal Blackdown's work and market it as their own.
So i think Sun should be judged by how they *react* to this criticism. Will they admit they were careless, and give proper (if not legally required) credit to Blackdown? Or will they get defensive and say that this is within their rights? Let's judge them by how they manage their errors, not by the errors themselves.
And, if anyone from Sun is reading this (especially Sun management)... my trust in Sun as the guardian of Java purity, and the trust of many members of the community, is on the line here. If Sun demonstrates now that they will acknowledge the contributions of volunteers to Java, i'll feel a lot better about the justifications Sun has made for not turning Java over to an independent standards committee. But if you take the Blackdown volunteers' work without properly crediting them (even if it is legal to do so), then i will not be able to trust Sun with Java anymore, and will turn to other sources. And i will advise my employer to do so as well.
Think about it, Sun.
---
Maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains that you refuse.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
IBM has just released a version of its JDK for Linux ver. 1.1.8
I wouldn't be surprised that Sun's decision to support a platform they would prefer to ignore is largely due to the fact that IBM seems to be keen on Linux.
IBM has a linux developer section here too.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
It's wrong to say that they just repackaged the Blackdown work, however. Certainly the bulk of the package is Blackdown, but it appears that the Inprise part of this work is a new JIT system -- one that actually works. The JIT included with the Blackdown port is hopelessly broken. This has historically led to Linux JVMs having pretty much the poorest performance of any available JVM since you had to run it in interpreted mode.
This is not the only change we noticed. We had all kinds of problems using the Blackdown code with native threads -- serious performance degredation and unreliability. Not so with the Sun/Inprise version.
In our testing all run modes worked -- green, native, interpreted, and JIT. (Though there are some debugging messages that prove that this stuff is still not production quality.) This is a welcome change. Our testing shows a 60% performance improvement using native threads and JIT over the best we could get out of Blackdown RC2. That, my friends, is terrific news.
I still want to look at the IBM JDK 1.2 when it finally comes out, but for the moment we have something that's good enough to perhaps be used in a production environment. Now if I only had a debugger that worked...
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Rob only gets these whines because there's a reasonable expectation that he'd give back to the community that has made him a millionaire. Frankly, we all should have such a huge problem as that.
Hmmm, thickly spread Marmite? Very manly indeed!!! I'm still experimenting on how to get a monomolecular layer on my toast.... I am a wuss! :) There. Now let the USA based moderators (tuh-wisted MODER-AY-TAH! Cuuuuuuuhm mark maaai posts! Slashdot addicted, nerdgeek insane! - with apologies to Keith Flint... :) slam me for that because they don't understand breakfast can be eaten without 10 tons of Laaaard! :) (Californians excepted - but do you really call half a sour grapefruit & a bowl of sawdust food?) Posted with Karma Bonus included because I'm feeling saucy! And Marmite is bound to stir up some powerful flamewars on /.! We should have a /. poll: I like marmite: * spread thickly * spread thinly * spread all over Mars so I don't have to be anywhere near it * spread all over Hemos Go to it!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Sorry, but the only thing that has gone downhill since the sale, that I've noticed, is the greatly increased number of comments bemoaning Slashdot's descent into corporate evil.
:). You want accuracy -- maybe you'd like a real corporate news outlet like ABC or CNN better. Compare their Linux coverage for example, and see what you think about accuracy then. They check *all* their stories before release (and still manage to get them wrong -- go figure.)
You shouldn't come here for accuracy. You might come here for breadth of view and new insights -- or just a place to rant
If you want easy to use, predigested news, you're simply in the wrong place. Slashdot news requires thought, and sometimes research, not just passive acceptance as truth.
If this article is so bad, why not tell us why? Do you have facts that contradict it? Yes, the title is hyperbole, it was the credit that was stolen, not the code, but it's as accurate as most newspaper headlines. Seems to me this is an important story and I'm glad it ran. For a better written article try the place it broke, LinuxGrrls .
Anybody that is surprised by this hasn't read Sun Licensing agreement. From the beginning it has stated that ANYTHING you develop in JAVA they have FULL right to use and implement it in anyway that they see fit. They could have even done this with the changes that M$ made in their VM and J++, they just decided to make a legal issue out of it instead. This one reason is why I have stayed away from JAVA - why would I want to put effort into developing an application that Sun could just come in claim as their own?
LRJ
I remember a time when everybody in the open source community worried that Microsoft was going to mash Linux into the ground. I also remember the huge slant given to Netscape and Sun, the "good corporations" by Slashdot and all the other hip computer magazines out there, saying that Netscape and Sun were battling the great satan to help the open source community.
What a bunch of HORSESHIT.
Im happy this happened. Because maybe now people will finally realize that Sun is NOT their friend, nor is Redhat, nor is any other corporation out there that professes to love open source, and then trys to commercialize open source every chance they get.
Sun is in business. For those of you computer science types out there who dont understand this, let me elucidate. They dont make money by giving software away for free unless there is a catch. Shareware is only availible because it has been proven to increase sales. If Sun is giving Java away for free, they sure as shit expect to get money back from sales of workstations and Java creation tools. If you make something that they can take and make a buck off of, they are going to take it.
Look at IBM. They are more then happy to be a Linux parasite. They didnt make it, dont develop it, but yet they sell their services in installing it. Same goes for Corel. And everybody knows what a "friend" Corel has been to Debian.
Sun is not your friend. Neither is Redhat. Neither is Caldera, or IBM, or any other corporation who has to make money to survive. So stop clapping your hands about the fall of Microsoft for one little minute and realize Microsoft is the LEAST of your problems.
The issue here is that the Blackdown team has been working porting new versions of the JDK source to work on Linux for YEARS in good faith with the understanding that Sun would consider the results of their efforts the "unofficial but blessed-by-Sun Linux JDK". Blackdown trusted Sun to play fair and Sun turned around and stabbed them in the back.
The amount of ill-will on the java-linux list is impressive. I wouldn't be surprised if the Blackdown team finishes their port of the Java2 JDK and then simply walks away from the whole thing.
Sun has probably lost what little confidence Java-Linux proponents have had left and garnered the ill-will of a tremendous number of people.
Now it's plainly obvious why they engineered the SCSL the way they have and why they are continuing to stick with it despite protests that it's not truly Open Source. They don't give a rat's ass about Open Source - they just see its developers as a resource to exploit. Good luck exploiting it any further now.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Hmmm, thickly spread Marmite? Very manly indeed!!! I'm still experimenting on how to get a monomolecular layer on my toast.... I am a wuss! :) :) slam me for that because they don't understand breakfast can be eaten without 10 tons of Laaaard! :) (Californians excepted - but do you really call half a sour grapefruit & a bowl of sawdust food?) /.! /. poll:
There. Now let the USA based moderators (tuh-wisted MODER-AY-TAH! Cuuuuuuuhm mark maaai posts! Slashdot addicted, nerdgeek insane! - with apologies to Keith Flint...
Posted with Karma Bonus included because I'm feeling saucy! And Marmite is bound to stir up some powerful flamewars on
We should have a
I like marmite:
* spread thickly
* spread thinly
* spread all over Mars so I don't have to be anywhere near it
* spread all over Hemos
Go to it!!!
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
That Sun is currently re-using code contributed by the Blackdown group is fine on my book, because it is allowed by the license, and get real, the people whining about this tend to forget what free software is all about IMHO.
The only problem here is that they are just not crediting the Blackdown group for their work! No matter what the Java license is, this is just dumb in my book.
Everybody just calm down. Sure it's a matter of fairness for Sun to give credit where it's due. But the Blackdown folks should still take pride in the fact that they made a significant contribution to the success of Linux. Without their hard work, there would be no up-to-date Java implementation for Linux. (Jikes and Kaffe are still 1.1.x.) Even if Sun threw lots of programmers at doing a Linux port, without Blackdown it would probably have taken another twelve to eighteen months. That's huge at this critical time when Linux is on the verge of mass acceptance.
Thanks Blackdown. You made a big difference. And those of us who care, know the truth.
Has anyone even thought of seeing if there were any code changes between the Blackdown code and the one Sun released? It was Sun's code to begin with, who's to say the Inprise didn't add/change code to update it? Also, didn't we want to have Sun support the JDK for linux in the first place? Now that we have their support we flame them? It just dosen't make sense...
just my 2 cents...
Remove -spam in email to send me a message...
Congratualtions Sun. You have _finally_ done what more than 1500 Java developers have clearly been asking you to do for two years, TO THE DAY.
Bug #4097810 was posted on December 8, 1997. The number one bugfix request (now request for enhancement) for the entire period, indeed the request that has had more votes than the rest of the top 25 requests COMBINED has been to treat Linux as a first tier platform, to handle the releases for Linux in-house, instead of the arm's length (although increasingly more direct) support that, to date, has been given to Blackdown.
Today's announcement is great. This is what many hundreds of Java developers have been looking forward to, and what Blackdown and Sun have been working towards. I think that Sun and Blackdown deserve kudos for achieving this excellent result.
The focus of clueless slashdotters, who literally don't know how Blackdown came to have access to the code in the first place, how much direct assistance Sun has given to Blackdown, and who haven't noticed that Blackdown is actively involved in what's happened today is on an equally uninformed opinion piece in LinuxToday.
Wake up people, this announcement is what Sun, Blackdown and hundreds of Java developers have looked forward to for years.
This story is not about open-source, it never was, Blackdown was working with confidential code from day one, and it is apparent from looking at Blackdown's site that today's announcement isn't a problem, it's just part of what they've been working towards.
A biology site explains it better than I can:
:)
The major and extremely significant difference between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that eukaryotes have a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles, while prokaryotes do not. The DNA of prokaryotes floats freely around the cell; the DNA of eukaryotes is held within its nucleus. The organelles of eukaryotes allow them to exhibit much higher levels of intracellular
division of labor than is possible in prokaryotic cells
I pretty much cheer for everyone except the bacteria (except the good bacteria that helps us digest stuff). But now that I think about it, I like your definition better
Dana
Don't contribute code to software licensed under the SCSL. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
(Learned that the hard way using UPS for my 8-way KVM...)
Your Working Boy,
The GPL expressly does not forbid what Sun did to Blackdown. There is nothing illegal in taking a GPL'd program, making zero or more changes to it, and calling it your own, as long as you preserve the original copyright (of course, you may copyright any changes you make). The very fact that GPL does not require you to make mention of the original developers is what makes the "old" BSD license incompatible with GPL.
As to whether people will offer you good or ill will is another story, as ESR has discussed many times.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
I used to like sun and planned to purchase a machine from them one day. But after seeing the crap they have been pulling I'll stick with good old, clunky PCs. At least Intel doesn't try to cover up what it is. Hell, you can always get a CPU from somewhere else.
I hope someone from sun is listening. Slashdot is the present/future of a rather large portion of the *NIX market, and if other people feel the same way that I do then sun has done some serious harm to itself.
Also could have been the stupid techies who never bothered to let marketing know about Blackdown.
You MAY rip out your code only, copyright only that & release it under the Microsoft EULA if you feel so inclined.
You're certainly right: we all appreciate the fact that Sun may begin treating Linux as a first-class, supported platform for Java.
However, the process by which this was accomplished was nothing short of abysmal. Sun did not coordinate with the Blackdown team in any way to arrange for a smooth handover of responsibility. They also did not give credit to Blackdown for their years of dedicated work.
This has led to a bad situation in at least two ways. First of all, the Sun/Inprise JDK is seen to be tainted by Sun's lack of basic courtesy and integrity. More importantly, Sun may have lost its chance to take full advantage of Blackdown's accumulated experience. Blackdown has made many substantial improvements since the point where the Sun/Inprise code forked away from it, especially in the area of the native threads virtual machine. Because they did not coordinate their actions with Blackdown, Sun produced a lower-quality release of the JDK.
I hope that Sun is able to reconcile its differences with Blackdown. They need to keep this in mind: they may have alienated a group of people who could be very useful to them in the future. The Blackdown team is a collection of the world's foremost experts on the subject of porting Java to Linux. Sun could benefit from working with them rather than against them.
I hope that another press release is forthcoming from Sun that will make clear the extent of the contributions from Blackdown and apologize for their previous oversight.
Blackdown got all the code that would be necessary to do a port from SUN. They got it under Suns community license. After a really long time of development, blackdown was unable to finish the port. So SUN took its code , together with blackdowns improvements, back to finally finish what blackdown was unable to do. So what is blackdown complaining about? Havent they read the license? If you actually do something in the corporate world as an example do a port of Java) you cant behave the GPL way: "Oh by the way the beta will be out half a year later thn scheduled (Mozilla style)" In the end SUN did the right thing.
It's not more unfair than what most Linux coders do. A great deal of Linux apps are intruding on patents etc. So lets clean up our own backyard before we rant at anyone else.
Community license my #$$!@ Well I hope the community learned a valuable lesson here. The underlying problem is the SCSL and nothing else. Under the SCSL, SUN is getting all of the development done for them and reaping all of the profits. I long ago jumped off of the java train. It is nothing but pure hype. The performance just plain sucks and cross platform with java is a total pipe dream. Go ahead an write code for SUN and INPRISE I am sure they will love you for it. Not to mention a month from now they are going to charge you for your own code. Suckers!
Heheheh!!! God Bless You American Moderators!!! I wuz right!!!!
Well, Blackdown does this job for us, people, not to please Sun. They should make some protest to Sun, but I hope we can continue to enjoy their work.
I have Linux+Java job, and I depend on those guys efforts (Thank you very much, Blackdown).
BTW, we need more full-time hackers here, drop me a resume, if interested.
Andrew
Additionally Microsoft themselves do not clain that tracking the C++ standard is one of their primary goals with VC. VC is primarily for developing windows applications. (That said VC is getting closer, but what is with not fixing the scoping of local vars in for statements?).
pth
My name is not spam, it's patrick
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
Woo! Our first slashdotting! How exciting! The server's just fine by the way, load average isn't going above 0.50, we're basically being throttled by our 64Kbit line, though that is at least set up pretty optimally, so if you're having trouble getting through, just persevere. :-) Who knows, if this starts happening a lot someone might want to give us money for a fatter line. :-)
I thought I'd better address some of the comments that have been made. Not actually anything more than is in the article but I suspect some people haven't read it properly:
- This needed to happen: Sun taking control and putting proper resources into Java on Linux was important and necessary and was going to happen. The Blackdown team have done good work, but the importance of Java on Linux is now such that a proper full-time development effort is clearly needed to catch up and keep up.
- Sun did not steal anything. According to the SCSL under which (I understand) the Blackdown team are operating, they have behaved entirely within their rights.
- Which means the question at hand is the suitability of the SCSL for community projects. Sun have basically demonstrated again their lack of understanding of or sensitivity to the community development process.
- What stinks is that the work of the Blackdown team over all this time is getting no public recognition from Sun or Inprise. Reading the Java-Linux mailing list, it's clear that the Blackdown team don't have a problem with Sun/Inprise using the code like this, but credit should go where it's due. A lot of bad feeling has been generated, quite unnecessarily.
- By the way I'm sure it is just thoughtlessness on Sun/Inprise's part. If they wanted to hide Blackdown's part in it I expect they would have done a better job of it!
Also, for what it's worth, the LinuxGrrls.Org site is being driven by the Sun/Inprise JDK, and it's holding up just beautifully even under green threads (but then, the server just has a single AMD K6-2/333 processor so native threads wouldn't make that much difference anyway). I would be running the Blackdown JDK1.2.2RC3 but it requires a later glibc than my current distribution/version allows.But I'm just waiting for IBM to release their JDK1.3 for Linux next year. :-) I understand that's going to be made available on a proper open source license and if so, that should be the one we get behind.
Yes, this is the same James Gosling who is now famous for inventing "open" Java by combining subsets of Eiffel's best and C++'s worst.
Java is to Eiffel as C++ is to Java. We have GNU Eiffel (which compiles to C or to Java byte code). Can we have GNU Java?
What happens when corporate meets opensource? Microsoft.
Um, can we say flamebait? SunOS is based on Berkley unix, not on linux at all. It also can run on the >64 processor, 16 processor/memory board E10000 whereas Linux can't scale even close. Get your facts straight before you start spouting off nonsense.
That is all I have to say!
Sun has bitched so much about JAVA that I am becoming sick of them.
As far as I am concerned, there Java tactics have been as evil if not more than MS tactics in other places!
But if you really like Java, then you should bitch about it like you did with Corel.
Slashdot them for Blackdown's sake!
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
Pardon me while I weep for a moment.... not.
Was Berkley, with a /usr5 directory tacked on, IIRC. Solaris turned into SysVR4, and according to some sources there isn't a crumb left of UCB in there. Caveat: I don't have access to a Solaris-box myself to check whether /usr/ucb is gone.
Where I worked we developed a large web based product. The deployment platform choice came down to linux and windows. Windows won thanks to the VM (1.3 from SUN) on it. Had linux had a good VM at the time, we would have gone with it...
You seem to forget a basic fact.. as a developer I chose an API. If that API is portable so much the better and then "who supports it better?"
you get it?
While reading your post, I couldn't help think of the Perl's mantra there's more than one way to do it. Skilled Perl types can look at code and, quick as a flash, code up something that does the same thing but looks vastly different.
Python on the other hand positively begs for everybody to do things in a similar way, if not the same way. This makes six or 12 month old code very readable and developers can continue to develop instead of helping maintainers maintain. But does it make small chunks of copyrighted Python code the building blocks for copyrighting the whole language? It's as dumb as copyrighting a sentence but we live in dumb times when it comes to technology.
I know that's an extreme thought but who would have thought that Sun -- of all companies! -- would stick it to a seemingly non-threatening entity?
As I posted on a related thread, Java is very widely used by large corporations (e.g. most Wall St. firms) for high-end server apps. This is why a lot of application servers these days are written in Java.
--
At least Microsoft puts the time and effort in to recreate all your stuff so they can call it their own. Sun just plain stole Blackdown's code.
I just hope they've learned something here...
Look, /. is a community, that like any 'movement' has a power. ./ effect to influence it. /dev/null, is a valid form of communication. If you are thinking of sending such an email then i will explain in terms you can understand. Fek off and learn some rational discorse before the lack of it does you a personal injury.
:)
This issue is a problem, and possibly the first of many. So why not use the
The idea being that an email address is posted for someone qualified/responsble to address this issue with.
I beleive that once the feeling is known that this is a sh*ty thing to do, the big PR blunder they have made (./ being a linix users reference) then its self evident. Enough people saying oy and a message to the effect that we will not stand for this kind of thing, then they have to change their ways (or similar). Because we are after all their target market with this product Even so, their PR people will still have a nightmare on their hands once this spreads to the mainstream media. You can just imagine it.
So, the idea is, the muscle is there, why not flex it.
But, the other issue is there. the community contains alot of '1eet haxxors' that feel that an email composed to be sent diretly to
Tim.
and then God said: 'void *universe; while(1) if(create_order(universe)) create_chaos(universe);'
I'm a huge Sun fan.. Have been for a long time, but lately they've been doing things that have been pissing me off. My friend registered sparc5.com, because he was interested in paying tribute to the almighty sparc5 system. Sun attorneys contacted him last week with a letter which pretty much stated if he's gonna use it for profit, they would take legal action. Also, what's up with this .com advertising campaign? Sun has never been able to advertise, or build a desktop gui. They still insist on writing proprietary lame-ass terminal packages like dtterm, shelltool, and cmdtool. Ok. What developer is the real tool? Help them, Obi-wan-McNeely. You're our only hope.
...and I'm gonna have a few beers and go piss on their sign!
Urinators for Open Source unite! (not unite that way you silly homos)
When you've finished rambling, go over here and read what Sun really has to say about the Blackdown team effort.
Kaffe or something equivalent is our only hope in the long run.
OK, a lot of posts on this thread have been to the effect of "Sun's bad, because they didn't give credit to the Blackdown guys." Not all of them - some people are making other points - but that's ONE of the major complaints that I've seen.
In fact, some people have been saying that "while (in regard to the credits) Sun may not be doing anything ILLEGAL, but they are being IMMORAL."
Isn't "giving cridit where credit is due" one of the points of the (old) BSD license?
Isn't it also a frequent complaint on Slashdot that "BSD is bad, since it requires giving credit; that's not FREE!"
Who else sees the contradiction between those two statements?
Much as it is possible to completely take a BSD-type product and commercialize it, the bsd licence ensures that the original authors will get their due credit ad infinitum. I very much prefer the fact that there is true freedom, without the loss of fame or proper credit when developing a product that turns into an international or even national success. I suppose it's mostly political, but the BSD licence is far less restrictive than the GPL. Sadly, it's just not chic to program for the sake of programming, for the love of the algorithm, instead of an ideal. When will we realize that programmers are not gods, and are probably less qualified to decide what ideology the rest of the world should follow than their peers? (He who lives in basement has no idea what is good for his neighbours.)
It's still there... on Solaris 7 /usr/ucbinclude
/usr/ucb and
The GPL permits you to do what you've said as long as the new product is also available under an open source license
Nope, with the GPL your derived work MUST be under the GPL, any other license, even Open Source, won't work, otherwise I take Linux, re-license it to the BSD style and then relicense the BSD style version to proprietary, would be too easy.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Ok, now we are down to offtopic administrivia, but the ucb package is not installed by default. It was probably put there by a sysadmin who likes typing "ps -aux" or "/usr/ucb/shutdown -r now" instead of "shutdown -i6 -g0 -y".
;)
I happen to be one of those sysadmins.
John.