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RMS on Java and GPL
EmilEifrem writes "A JavaLobby member asked RMS [?] about his opinion on Java and GPL. Interesting, as always." I think my favorite quote is the intro: "It is strange to argue for ensuring compatibility in Java by keeping implementations non-free. Even if you accept the choice of values
(compatibility above freedom) this idea is based on, which I don't, it simply won't do the job."
As is so often the case, RMS is right on the money. In many ways, what's most surprising is the way Sun have successfully stayed some way ahead of the free implementations in their commercial offering, especially in the class libraries: given what Java has to offer, you'd normally think we'd snap up the chance to create a free implementation. Perhaps dirty tricks like the SCSL have successfully divided us and our efforts.
I look forward very much to the major release of Classpath he mentioned!
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Xenu loves you!
Sun has not shown itself to be a good supporter of Java even in the realms they champion. If they believe in write-one-run-anywhere, they have not made that a success. Running Java through the browser is a highly substandard and unrobust solution, but at this point few people have the libraries, VM, or whatever else they need to run Java programs any other way. WORA is a complete myth, and Sun's efforts are pathetic in this area, particularly distribution.
As far as standardization, we already know what Sun thinks about that. But even then Sun has the ability to create a defacto standard if they released complete specifications. They haven't. They also haven't released reference code, since code under the SCSL is clearly not usable in this fashion. Even a poorly documented and implemented Free J*va would provide a better basis for standardization.
As far as forking, Java already has forking because Sun licenses Java code to other companies for other purposes. Besides the fact that Java can't be run at all in many environments, the various implementations of Java run it differently. Sure, Sun can reel these implementations back in, but it hasn't. Anyone could reel these implementations back in if Java was Free.
I don't know about JavaYou(tm), but JavaMe(tm) thinks that if we(c) just got rid of these trademarks, we(c) would have noproblem.com creating a Free Software(tm) version of Java(tm)(r)(c) which would run perfectly.
Open sourcing java and removing the standardization process would aggravate the embrace and extend problem that they are already facing from microsoft
Who said anything about the removing the standardization process? You seem to be a little bit confused about this. What we're hearing now is a lot of key groups expressing intentions to get together and proceed with Java Standardization whether or not Sun cooperates. This could ony be good for Java. As other posters have stated in this thread, we have to keep both Microsoft and Sun from playing their little twisted corporate games, now that we've all been kind enough to consider adopting Java as a standard platform for business computing.
I'd like to make it clear that for years I was an enthusiastic supporter of Sun's stewardship of the Java standard - and this was based on mainly on the quality of the api designs and documentation - but now I, like many others, am pretty much disenchanted with Sun and tend to lump them together with Microsoft in terms of the self-interested games they play.
Sun has to let go of their baby and let it grow up. There chances of being able to win this fight are exactly zero, and the longer it goes on, the more it hurts java. Billg must be very happy about this.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Furthermore, it's suprising how many Slashdot readers seem to be missing the entire point of reverse-engineering Unix -- Software is supposed to be source compatible with any Unix system.
Indeed, leaving all of the politics aside, one of the biggest real-world freedoms granted by an Open Source Unix platform is that you are not tied to specific hardware, a specific vendor, or even a specific OS kernel. It shouldn't matter if you are running any given Linux or any given BSD OS, because the cost of migrating between them is relatively low.
Instead, around here, it's always Linux versus BSD versus Solaris versus the world. Which I find odd, because considering the tiny market share Unix has on the desktop and low-end servers, it would seem that Unix as a platform should be advocated, not necessarily any specific implementation. The message to the NT-using rest of the world is getting drowned out in the noise of the fraternal politics.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Most of the pro-nonfree posters there Just Don't Get It.
Opening up Java won't destroy the language. If anything it will make sure Java remains compatible across platforms by keeping the standard out of the hands of a single company (whether it be Microsoft or Sun).
Many argue that the only reason RMS wants to free Java is so he can fork it. That's rubbish. The point of a free workalike implementation is to guarantee compatibility irrespective of a single company's shareholders' views.
Take a look at the relationship between Mesa and OpenGL for an example. Although the Mesa project cannot use the word "OpenGL" (big deal), the project is most notable for the fact that it is for all intents and purposes API-compatible with OpenGL. I don't think we'd see Mesa diverging from OpenGL if it wants to maintain its base of develpoers and users.
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I don't think is too worried about other people implementing Java. It's a secondary concern. What there are really scared off (amongst other things) is people changing the language.
M$, for instance, added new keywords to J++ because they didn't like anonymous inner classes. (Apparently, Sun tried the Delegate keyword that M$ added in an early version and didn't like it). On Javalobby this summer, there was a long debate about someone who had created a pre-processor and was trying to add Generic types to the language.
Yes, open source would allow new features to be added quickly, but it's different when you add features to software. Having a bunch of people adding cool new features, or their favourite things from other languages, will break the language specification.
I'm sure Larry Wall keeps a fairly tight fist over what new keywords (not APIs or libraries) are added to Perl, and that is what Sun is trying to do with Java. (That, and make a lot of money...)
Dana
...going on over at JavaLobby, which is where I believe this was first posted.
I am no philosopher of science, but it seems to me that putting users in control and allowing code forking is to encourage incompatibility.
Then how do you explain the fact that projects like GCC, GDB, and the Linux kernel have not forked? The only big free software package that I can think of right now that has had a major fork has been Emacs, but I don't believe that anyone has suffered and died from incompatibility between the two. Plus, the GPL ensures that users can take whatever they want from each and make whatever suits their needs best. How is this bad?
ESR writes in the Halloween Document about how projects with the most open source distribution have the least tendency to fork -- I refer you to the commentary there on opensource.org.
The most popular pieces of software, word processors and web browsers, are perpetually crippled with respect to backwards and forwards compatibility, much less interoperability. What the market favours is price, availability, and support. Compatibility, it seems, has been left by the wayside.
This is evidence of the competing closed-source products and the business practices that drive them, not of a failure on the part of the marketplace to demand compatibility. The users have no *power* to enforce compatibility if the source is closed. If the source to both browsers were open, I think RMS would say that the incompatibilities and extensions would be written out or merged. In any case, his point is that the lack of freedom for the users creates an environment where such incompatibilities can arise.
"Honey, it's not working out; I think we should make our relationship open-source."
I truly admire what RMS has done in the past. Emacs, GPL (truly a thing of beauty), and the entire GNU project in general.
/. postings are any evidence, there are thousands of RMS followers that will jump to action over anything he says. That scares me, especially now that he's showing signs of using his power in a hardcore political fashion, rather than selling GPL on the strengths of truth an beauty.
However, I sincerely wish that he'd stop the FUD. As a visionary, I believe that he has a responsibility to try and be above the rest of us -- to be clear, calm, a master of self control, a Jesus figure if you will. But lately he has been doing what I consider "mean" things: calling for a boycott of Amazon, throwing FUD up against Java.
Now, whether Amazon or Sun deserve it is besides the point. He should be taken a more careful, thoughtful position.
Maybe it's that I'm starting to get the sense of hatered coming from him lately, and that saddens me. I'd much rather see a person that I'm following be gentler, calmer. Instead, he's becoming political and using his power to hurt.
Case in point is the Amazon lawsuit. Now, first, I HATE that Amazon is sueing over it's one click patent. However, they do have a legal right to enforce their (crappy) patent. The right way for this to fall out is in the court system. I hope they lose. But RMS's call for boycott really bothers me -- I'd much rather that he'd reiterated his stance on the enforcement of patents and stated that he was disturbed by the Amazon lawsuit.
I'm also worried that there are too many blind RMS followers out there. If
With regards to java, it seems that sun has every right to do with it as they please. The wrote it, they have a copyright on it. I wish that RMS would say things like "I really wish that sun would GPL Java, but of course it's their right to do what they wish and I respect that".
Contrary to what many seem to feel here, TELLING companies to GPL things and boycotting them when they don't is NOT truth and beauty. Asking them calmly and with an understanding ear for why they may seem put off by the notion of giving away their IP is the right way to go about it, IMNSHO.
Well, sorry for running off at the mouth. This whole turn of events just makes me sad.
Now I love open source and free software as much as the next guy, and while Sun's decision to pull Java out of the standardization process kind of pissed on my cornflakes, I can take it in stride.
But whats with RMS's insistance that open source will fix every ill known to man? Open sourcing java and removing the standardization process would aggravate the embrace and extend problem that they are already facing from microsoft.
Every little embedded java implementor would go off and add little extensions to improve their implementation and it would fragment into a ton of insular groups each convinced that their way is the right way, like early c compilers.
Java's licensing is all about maintaining a portable compatible development environment. I agree their methodology is a little flawed, but throwing standardization to the wind is not IMNSHO a good policy.
If you want to implement your non-Sun 'java' implementation, go ahead, just don't call it 'Java' and you can change until your heart's content.
I suppose open sourcing java itself wouldn't be all that bad from a bug-fix standpoint, but RMS's call for 'permitting unlimited technical changes' is opening a can of worms that Sun (understandably) would rather keep well sealed.
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.