Functionally, your eyes are good as they have to be to fulfill your role in the vast scheme of things.
Actually, no. Human eyes have blind spots, which would not be present if the eyes were better designed. Cephalopod eyes evolved independently, and don't have blind spots. Their eyes are very good indeed, and can see a wide range of colours (Octopuses and Squid hunt using binocular vision).
Well, I think the question has to be "good for what?" Dogs don't see in color, is that "bad"? For seeing in color, yes. For what dogs need sight for, apparently not, because they do just fine.
No matter how good, relatively speaking, the design of a dogs eye is, the nerve-in-front design of mammalian eyes is still bad. There are better ways, as is shown by the independently-evolved cephalopod eye.
Bzzt. Try again. Funny that anyone who actually understands how the eye is designed completely disagrees with your conclusion.
I am a biologist, and have studied the design of the eye.
Get off you lazy ass and do so honest research instead of repeating the evolutionist bs that does not, and never did have, any evidence to support it.
I think you are the one who needs to do research - there is vast evidence backing the various paths of eye evolution that have occurred many times over millions of years.
Actually, I'm a proponent of the theory.. And while I'm not an expert on the official "intelligent design" theory, I think it's completely compatible with evolution.
Its not compatible. The problem for 'intelligent design' is that much of the design is very unintelligent. For example, the design of the mammalian eye is awful - the nerves are in the wrong place, meaning we have blind spots. (If design were intelligent, we would have eyes like octopuses, which are far better). The are plenty of other examples of extremely bad design. Evolution is not about what's good; it's what's better than the competition.
Microsoft went from owning none of the server market to being the biggest server player, and it continues to grow faster than the market. That's a very interesting definition of "completely failed."
It depends on what you call 'server'. There is very little in common between a local filestore and print server (where Microsoft dominates) and an enterprise server handling hundreds or even thousands of accounts and users on tens of processors.
The first market was dominated by small server Operating Systems and peer-to-peer arrangements like Windows for Workgroups. UNIX was almost never used for this. This is where Windows (and also Linux) is growing hugely these days.
The second market was dominated by proprietary operating systems on mainframes and 'midicomputers', and is now primarily UNIX. Linux is definitely having an impact here. Windows isn't. This is a growth market, and is likely to expand faster as hardware gets cheaper and Linux evolves.
Its like comparing bicycles with trucks - both are 'transport', but to say that bicycles sales are impacting the truck market simply because more are sold is nonsense.
# Joe gives up and goes back to Windows, where he can install 2004 programs on a 2000 OS without any hassle.
Oh, and the funny thing is, that's a true story. And this was a guy to whom I recommended Linux. There are BIG problems with Linux on the desktop; this is just one.
Here is a true story:
Joe (name changed) installs an OEM version of XP on his desktop. He normally uses Linux, but games require Windows. He does this at the weekend. XP requires registration. Microsoft UK is busy, and its suggested he waits until monday. In an angry mood, he waits.
Some time later, having patched and updated his XP, joe is playing a game. The game seized as a video driver crashes Windows. Having not saved his game, Joe gets upset.
There are BIG problems with Windows on the desktop - these are just a couple.
why offer the average joe 6 different versions of apps - he just wants one
You get the version of the app that comes with the distribution. Most people just use Open Office for example. Generally, there are only a couple of reasonable competitors in a market: Evolution and KMail for example. Pretty much like Windows.
which distro is right for me - damn thing is getting fragmented.
There aren't that many for mainstream use. Fedora or Mandrake for desktop for example.
"...and you just (sequence of line noise) to install the driver, then..."
That is a years old problem, surely. I just put the Fedora CD-ROM 1 in, and wait. It does a better job of driver installation that some OEM Windows setups.
not everyone thinks that source code is a good thing in their hands.
Why would desktop users ever need to see source code?
for all the ills of "c:\Program Files", and least I know where to install a program. In linux, this is not clear; is it/var,/opt,/usr,/usr/bin,/etc... In many cases the correct answer is all of the above. The answer also differs by distro. eeeewwwwwww
Why do you need to know? On good Linux boxes, you just select the package to install and wait.
I think you are mixing up desktop users with hackers and developers?
I have had many experiences moving Windows users to Linux desktops and I think its definitely ready for commercial desktops: As long as you have a reasonable menu system, some icons, some apps that do general office work, e-mail, browsing, printing etc, what is the issue? In most cases, I have found that people can switch with virtually no training, and its a hell of a lot easier to maintain and support than the Windows equivalents (I talk from years of bitter experience).
it's business risk versus technical risk. Business risk includes securing ip issues, maintenance contracts, goodwill etc. You speak of technical risks.
No, I'm also talking about business risks. I can see there might have been a risk in switching to supposedly unsupported Linux systems years ago, but with the current backing of large companies behind Red Hat and SuSe there is little risk.
As someone who has been dealing with Microsoft systems for over 25 years, I would say that its their products that have the risks.
In the old days the mantra was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." In more modern times that has switched to "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft."
Not in the server room. Microsoft has made little impact in the enterprise server market. Just look at the phenomenal dominance of Apache as a web server, for example.
You point to Novell as an example of an "established" system, but Novell got absolutely slaughtered by Windows NT 4.0.
Actually, it didn't. Netware has continued to grow and expand it's market - its widely used. Its just that Windows NT expanded faster. NT certainly slaughtered some systems, but many of those were Microsoft - it was a grown-up replacement for Windows for Workgroups.
Windows (and now Linux) have threatened Novell so much that they have essentially thrown Netware to the wolves and remade themselves as a Linux company.
This isn't true. Novell have certainly not given up on Netware - Netware 6.0 was a success for them, and they have plans to launch Netware services hosted on Linux. Linux is certainly not a replacement for Netware - its a new platform on which to provide it.
Likewise UNIX was losing marketshare to Windows long before Linux made a big splash.
Again, this is not the case. UNIX was hardly ever used as a small-office server system. The NT/UNIX supposed conflict was a good example of Microsoft spin on the situation. NT was a replacement for Windows for Workgroups, smaller Netware installations and various peer-to-peer networking systems. There might have been a chance of NT having an impact on UNIX if Microsoft had continued with supporting NT on different processors - one of the strengths of UNIX, but they just gave up on this.
The business perception of Linux has come a long way over the years, but you can't really pretend that there aren't lots of IT folks that are still openly hostile to Free Software.
They aren't hostile to 'Free' Software - they have been hostile to the supposed lack of support. IBM, RedHat and SuSe have largely overcome that objection.
Right now the folks selling for Red Hat and Novell have to convince their clients that they aren't crazy when they forgo the safe path of purchasing Windows. Folks that roll out Linux solutions are still taking a fairly big risk.
I really don't understand this comment. Since when has using Windows for major server systems been considered 'safe'? Unix (now Linux) and Novell have long been the established systems in this area, and Windows has been battling to make an impact.
As for 'risk' in rolling out Linux solutions - I don't understand that either. Providing you choose a system that is reliable and has support, where is the risk? What is this risk supposed to be?
It isn't. It has fundamental differences - cache management is different, there are many more object cache states (e.g. hollow) than in Hibernate.
The "new" query language that comes with JDO 2.0 is based on HQL (Hibernate Query Language). They did this because Hibernate is the most popular Java ORM out there, and this time I think it was a good decision to base the new standard on an existing open source framework.
There is no new query language with JDO 2.0 - its simply an extended version of JDOQL as in JDO 1.0. There are far more facilities, but its nothing at all like HQL.
You may be thinking of a new standard for java object persistence which is being worked on in as part of EJB. This will combine features of both JDO 2.0 and HQL. However, this is many years away.
By the way - Spring has good integration with JDO as well as Hibernate.
Hibernate is a superb product, but has some disadvantages: Firstly, it's a non-standard API. This may, or may not, influence a developer's decision to use it, but anyone looking at using an object-relational mapper might also look at JDO (Java Data Objects), which is a standard, and has many competing versions, both commercial and free. A new specification for JDO, version 2.0, is about to be published, which has most, if not all, the features of Hibernate, including many additional aspects which are unique to JDO. Most JDO suppliers already provide these features.
Another consideration is that JDO tends to be more scalable for very high volume database work - for example, single transactions involving thousands of records. Although this kind of work can be done with Hibernate, its not recommended, whereas JDO (especially version 2.0) has functions for highly sophisticated cache management, object state control and 'fetch group' settings that allows such high volume work to be done without excessive memory use.
A particle of anti-matter colliding with its matter counterpart will produce an annihilation of 100% efficiency. And yes, there will be resulting gamma-ray photons.
well, to be pedantic, not quite 100%, as you still have the photons! Its 100% conversion of mass to energy (to simplify things).
But this reaction will not produce radioactive materials, like a nuclear fission reaction would.
Well, the gamma rays are likely to induce radioactivity in things they come into contact with.
To design a site you'd have to know strict XML and understand DOCTYPES and all that. The layout of your webpage would be strictly defined by CSS 2.0, which means you'd have to learn that too.
Strict XML is very simple: All you have to do is be careful about capitalisation, always close tags, and always put attributes in quotes. Basic CSS is also very simple: Nothing more than a series of 'property : value' statements.
If XML has been used the web would have been far more easily (and meaningfully) indexed, and extensions could have been added without breaking compatibility or rendering.
Not for years. If you look at the job market, people seem to mainly want Java.
What's the real advantage of using Java when you don't give a fuck about running in multiple platforms? (which is something most of the people doesn't care about)
Who says most people don't care about multiple platforms? Its very short-sighted to code specifically for one platform unless you have a very good reason - bad software development practice and bad business practice. Java has become the de-facto language for server-side development because most large companies have multiple server platforms.
If Sun releases Java under an "open" license with the restrictions proposed, it would (IMHO) have the effect of providing more reason(s) for companies to invest in Java-based technologies with confidence
I think its the opposite: Java is hugely popular and possibly the most widely requested IT language because of two things: portability and compatibility. There seems to be no evidence that there is any lack of confidence in Java! Although I am a strong supporter of open source in most cases, anything that threatens portability - the chance of a fork of Java into even slightly incompatible VMs or dialects - would be a very bad thing.
Anyway, I don't really see the problem. There is nothing to stop anyone writing a compatible VM and libraries under an open source library. You may not be able to call it 'Java', but if it does the same thing and is compatible, what is the problem?
Still think we have a wide range of adaptability? How many planets do you think there are where we can live? As far as we can tell. it's just this one.
I don't think this relates to the argument. The point was that compared to other animals we live in a narrow range of environments. This is false. Anyway - men have walked on the moon, which is certainly a very extreme environment!
Only by cheating, i.e. using technology. If we lost that (and think about how specialisation means everything is interdependent) we wouldn't look so clever.
First, why is this cheating?
Secondly, we don't need technology to do it, unless you would call the Inuits and native Australians technological.
How many implementations are there of Java? Sun's, IBM's (at least 2, including VisualAge), HP's (a clean-room implementation), GNU, Kaffe, TowerJ, Waba, and many, many more. Perl? 1 PHP? 1 Python? At least 3 - Python, Jython, and Python for.Net. Ruby? 2 - Ruby and JRuby.
The difference is that with Java, there are compatibility tests.
We're fragile beings that need a very specific envrionment to survive
Absolutely not. One of the reasons our species is so successful is our ability to deal with a very wide range of environments, from the hottest deserts to the artic circle.
Most likely aquatic life will be the survivors.
This is probably true. It seems that the main period of death after the 'dinosaur-killer' impact was a few hours after impact. The survivors were almost all aquatic creatures and burrowers. And insects, of course - they seem to survive just about anything.
So, you admit that I'm right, you just choose to ignore that fact because it doesn't fit into your Sun-friendly world view.
No, I don't admit you are right.
Java does come from a single vendor; IBM, HP, SGI, Blackdown, and all the other compliant Java implementations all rely on code licensed from Sun.
No. This is not true. There are many compliant implementations (such as HPs) that are clean room.
That means Java stands and falls with Sun--if Sun decides it's bad for their business to ship, say, on Linux, they can kill Java on Linux.
No. IBM have non-Sun VMs internally, and ship Java for Linux (which does not use Sun's Java libraries - no com.sun.*).
And Sun has a political axe to grind, too: they want to maximize profit by any legal means available to them, and one great way of doing that is to tie users to their proprietary platforms. And Sun invests millions of dollars in crafting PR messages, which right now happen to be centered around being "open source friendly" and "the alternative to Microsoft". In fact, Sun has taken more than a page out of Microsoft's playbook.
What a cynical view!
Look - Sun has a history of an open strategy. Its a strategy that works like this: If you are good at a technology, its good to make sure that that technology is widely used, even if that means that other companies also supply it. If you are a UNIX provider, as Sun is, it makes sense to ensure that there is a large market for UNIX out there. This is why Sun (almost alone) encouraged 'open systems' in the 1980s - encouraging the use of TCP/IP-based networking, and providing open APIs such as NFS to the community free of charge. The same applies to other technologies: Sun have ensured that their Sparc chip is multi-vendor - you can buy it from Fujitzu, for example. Java is also multi-vendor - companies can either develop their own VMs and pay for compatibility tests, or licence code from Sun. Having Java as the de-facto language for server-side development allows Sun to make a considerable amount of money selling software services using Java.
You CAN provide free technologies and APIs to the community AND make money from it - Sun pioneered this decades ago when companies like IBM and HP were trying to tie users into proprietary systems such as VM/CMS and VMS.
Comparing Sun to Microsoft is lazy and shows an ignorance of history. Its not even bad history, as no matter how bad Microsoft are, IBM (now 'good guys') was just the same decades earlier!
You can also rob a bank, and you may even get away with it. But the fact that you can do it doesn't demonstrate that it is legal to do so.
So, you believe that GNU is breaking the law?
Yes, they will: when Sun stops shipping Java for my platform or starts charging an arm and a leg for it, I will have no other runtime to run my code on.
Firstly, there are plenty of non-Sun VMs, secondly, this is an extreme point of view that should stop you using just about anything.
Your PC is patented. Your car is patented. Do you use a GNUTV? Do you play computer games? Are they 'open'?
I think I see where you are coming from, but there is a big world out there away from open source - most software and products don't confirm to the GPL. However, the IT industry has been working and people have been using software and developing products for decades before GNU and the GPL. I like the ideas behind the GPL, but that doesn't mean I have a religious insistence that every product I use conforms to it, and it doesn't mean that I run scared from anything that does not.
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Functionally, your eyes are good as they have to be to fulfill your role in the vast scheme of things.
Actually, no. Human eyes have blind spots, which would not be present if the eyes were better designed. Cephalopod eyes evolved independently, and don't have blind spots. Their eyes are very good indeed, and can see a wide range of colours (Octopuses and Squid hunt using binocular vision).
Well, I think the question has to be "good for what?" Dogs don't see in color, is that "bad"? For seeing in color, yes. For what dogs need sight for, apparently not, because they do just fine.
No matter how good, relatively speaking, the design of a dogs eye is, the nerve-in-front design of mammalian eyes is still bad. There are better ways, as is shown by the independently-evolved cephalopod eye.
Bzzt. Try again. Funny that anyone who actually understands how the eye is designed completely disagrees with your conclusion.
I am a biologist, and have studied the design of the eye.
Get off you lazy ass and do so honest research instead of repeating the evolutionist bs that does not, and never did have, any evidence to support it.
I think you are the one who needs to do research - there is vast evidence backing the various paths of eye evolution that have occurred many times over millions of years.
Actually, I'm a proponent of the theory.. And while I'm not an expert on the official "intelligent design" theory, I think it's completely compatible with evolution.
Its not compatible. The problem for 'intelligent design' is that much of the design is very unintelligent. For example, the design of the mammalian eye is awful - the nerves are in the wrong place, meaning we have blind spots. (If design were intelligent, we would have eyes like octopuses, which are far better). The are plenty of other examples of extremely bad design. Evolution is not about what's good; it's what's better than the competition.
Microsoft went from owning none of the server market to being the biggest server player, and it continues to grow faster than the market. That's a very interesting definition of "completely failed."
It depends on what you call 'server'. There is very little in common between a local filestore and print server (where Microsoft dominates) and an enterprise server handling hundreds or even thousands of accounts and users on tens of processors.
The first market was dominated by small server Operating Systems and peer-to-peer arrangements like Windows for Workgroups. UNIX was almost never used for this. This is where Windows (and also Linux) is growing hugely these days.
The second market was dominated by proprietary operating systems on mainframes and 'midicomputers', and is now primarily UNIX. Linux is definitely having an impact here. Windows isn't. This is a growth market, and is likely to expand faster as hardware gets cheaper and Linux evolves.
Its like comparing bicycles with trucks - both are 'transport', but to say that bicycles sales are impacting the truck market simply because more are sold is nonsense.
# Joe gives up and goes back to Windows, where he can install 2004 programs on a 2000 OS without any hassle.
Oh, and the funny thing is, that's a true story. And this was a guy to whom I recommended Linux. There are BIG problems with Linux on the desktop; this is just one.
Here is a true story:
Joe (name changed) installs an OEM version of XP on his desktop. He normally uses Linux, but games require Windows. He does this at the weekend. XP requires registration. Microsoft UK is busy, and its suggested he waits until monday. In an angry mood, he waits.
Some time later, having patched and updated his XP, joe is playing a game. The game seized as a video driver crashes Windows. Having not saved his game, Joe gets upset.
There are BIG problems with Windows on the desktop - these are just a couple.
therefore any risk is percieved as dangerous, especialy if there isn't a multi-billion dollar corp to scape-goat.
IBM supports Linux. How big do you think IBM is?
Sorry - could not resist replying...
/var, /opt, /usr, /usr/bin, /etc... In many cases the correct answer is all of the above. The answer also differs by distro. eeeewwwwwww
(rant)
*Problems with Linux on the desktop:
why offer the average joe 6 different versions of apps - he just wants one
You get the version of the app that comes with the distribution. Most people just use Open Office for example. Generally, there are only a couple of reasonable competitors in a market: Evolution and KMail for example. Pretty much like Windows.
which distro is right for me - damn thing is getting fragmented.
There aren't that many for mainstream use. Fedora or Mandrake for desktop for example.
"...and you just (sequence of line noise) to install the driver, then..."
That is a years old problem, surely. I just put the Fedora CD-ROM 1 in, and wait. It does a better job of driver installation that some OEM Windows setups.
not everyone thinks that source code is a good thing in their hands.
Why would desktop users ever need to see source code?
for all the ills of "c:\Program Files", and least I know where to install a program. In linux, this is not clear; is it
Why do you need to know? On good Linux boxes, you just select the package to install and wait.
I think you are mixing up desktop users with hackers and developers?
I have had many experiences moving Windows users to Linux desktops and I think its definitely ready for commercial desktops: As long as you have a reasonable menu system, some icons, some apps that do general office work, e-mail, browsing, printing etc, what is the issue? In most cases, I have found that people can switch with virtually no training, and its a hell of a lot easier to maintain and support than the Windows equivalents (I talk from years of bitter experience).
it's business risk versus technical risk. Business risk includes securing ip issues, maintenance contracts, goodwill etc. You speak of technical risks.
No, I'm also talking about business risks. I can see there might have been a risk in switching to supposedly unsupported Linux systems years ago, but with the current backing of large companies behind Red Hat and SuSe there is little risk.
As someone who has been dealing with Microsoft systems for over 25 years, I would say that its their products that have the risks.
In the old days the mantra was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." In more modern times that has switched to "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft."
Not in the server room. Microsoft has made little impact in the enterprise server market. Just look at the phenomenal dominance of Apache as a web server, for example.
You point to Novell as an example of an "established" system, but Novell got absolutely slaughtered by Windows NT 4.0.
Actually, it didn't. Netware has continued to grow and expand it's market - its widely used. Its just that Windows NT expanded faster. NT certainly slaughtered some systems, but many of those were Microsoft - it was a grown-up replacement for Windows for Workgroups.
Windows (and now Linux) have threatened Novell so much that they have essentially thrown Netware to the wolves and remade themselves as a Linux company.
This isn't true. Novell have certainly not given up on Netware - Netware 6.0 was a success for them, and they have plans to launch Netware services hosted on Linux. Linux is certainly not a replacement for Netware - its a new platform on which to provide it.
Likewise UNIX was losing marketshare to Windows long before Linux made a big splash.
Again, this is not the case. UNIX was hardly ever used as a small-office server system. The NT/UNIX supposed conflict was a good example of Microsoft spin on the situation. NT was a replacement for Windows for Workgroups, smaller Netware installations and various peer-to-peer networking systems. There might have been a chance of NT having an impact on UNIX if Microsoft had continued with supporting NT on different processors - one of the strengths of UNIX, but they just gave up on this.
The business perception of Linux has come a long way over the years, but you can't really pretend that there aren't lots of IT folks that are still openly hostile to Free Software.
They aren't hostile to 'Free' Software - they have been hostile to the supposed lack of support. IBM, RedHat and SuSe have largely overcome that objection.
Right now the folks selling for Red Hat and Novell have to convince their clients that they aren't crazy when they forgo the safe path of purchasing Windows. Folks that roll out Linux solutions are still taking a fairly big risk.
I really don't understand this comment. Since when has using Windows for major server systems been considered 'safe'? Unix (now Linux) and Novell have long been the established systems in this area, and Windows has been battling to make an impact.
As for 'risk' in rolling out Linux solutions - I don't understand that either. Providing you choose a system that is reliable and has support, where is the risk? What is this risk supposed to be?
all implementations that do derive from Sun source code.
No - this is a myth that strangely won't die.
Many Java implementations are 'clean room' and do not derive from Sun's code. HPs Java is an example.
Java is not open source in any way.
Oh come on! Seeing the source code is a HUGE difference from not being able to see it...
AFAIK, JDO 2.0 is based on Hibernate.
It isn't. It has fundamental differences - cache management is different, there are many more object cache states (e.g. hollow) than in Hibernate.
The "new" query language that comes with JDO 2.0 is based on HQL (Hibernate Query Language). They did this because Hibernate is the most popular Java ORM out there, and this time I think it was a good decision to base the new standard on an existing open source framework.
There is no new query language with JDO 2.0 - its simply an extended version of JDOQL as in JDO 1.0. There are far more facilities, but its nothing at all like HQL.
You may be thinking of a new standard for java object persistence which is being worked on in as part of EJB. This will combine features of both JDO 2.0 and HQL. However, this is many years away.
By the way - Spring has good integration with JDO as well as Hibernate.
Hibernate is a superb product, but has some disadvantages: Firstly, it's a non-standard API. This may, or may not, influence a developer's decision to use it, but anyone looking at using an object-relational mapper might also look at JDO (Java Data Objects), which is a standard, and has many competing versions, both commercial and free. A new specification for JDO, version 2.0, is about to be published, which has most, if not all, the features of Hibernate, including many additional aspects which are unique to JDO. Most JDO suppliers already provide these features.
Another consideration is that JDO tends to be more scalable for very high volume database work - for example, single transactions involving thousands of records. Although this kind of work can be done with Hibernate, its not recommended, whereas JDO (especially version 2.0) has functions for highly sophisticated cache management, object state control and 'fetch group' settings that allows such high volume work to be done without excessive memory use.
A particle of anti-matter colliding with its matter counterpart will produce an annihilation of 100% efficiency. And yes, there will be resulting gamma-ray photons.
well, to be pedantic, not quite 100%, as you still have the photons! Its 100% conversion of mass to energy (to simplify things).
But this reaction will not produce radioactive materials, like a nuclear fission reaction would.
Well, the gamma rays are likely to induce radioactivity in things they come into contact with.
To design a site you'd have to know strict XML and understand DOCTYPES and all that. The layout of your webpage would be strictly defined by CSS 2.0, which means you'd have to learn that too.
Strict XML is very simple: All you have to do is be careful about capitalisation, always close tags, and always put attributes in quotes. Basic CSS is also very simple: Nothing more than a series of 'property : value' statements.
If XML has been used the web would have been far more easily (and meaningfully) indexed, and extensions could have been added without breaking compatibility or rendering.
but people seems to use mainly C++
Not for years. If you look at the job market, people seem to mainly want Java.
What's the real advantage of using Java when you don't give a fuck about running in multiple platforms? (which is something most of the people doesn't care about)
Who says most people don't care about multiple platforms? Its very short-sighted to code specifically for one platform unless you have a very good reason - bad software development practice and bad business practice. Java has become the de-facto language for server-side development because most large companies have multiple server platforms.
If Sun releases Java under an "open" license with the restrictions proposed, it would (IMHO) have the effect of providing more reason(s) for companies to invest in Java-based technologies with confidence
I think its the opposite: Java is hugely popular and possibly the most widely requested IT language because of two things: portability and compatibility. There seems to be no evidence that there is any lack of confidence in Java! Although I am a strong supporter of open source in most cases, anything that threatens portability - the chance of a fork of Java into even slightly incompatible VMs or dialects - would be a very bad thing.
Anyway, I don't really see the problem. There is nothing to stop anyone writing a compatible VM and libraries under an open source library. You may not be able to call it 'Java', but if it does the same thing and is compatible, what is the problem?
Still think we have a wide range of adaptability? How many planets do you think there are where we can live? As far as we can tell. it's just this one.
I don't think this relates to the argument. The point was that compared to other animals we live in a narrow range of environments. This is false. Anyway - men have walked on the moon, which is certainly a very extreme environment!
Only by cheating, i.e. using technology. If we lost that (and think about how specialisation means everything is interdependent) we wouldn't look so clever.
First, why is this cheating?
Secondly, we don't need technology to do it, unless you would call the Inuits and native Australians technological.
How many implementations are there of Java? Sun's, IBM's (at least 2, including VisualAge), HP's (a clean-room implementation), GNU, Kaffe, TowerJ, Waba, and many, many more. .Net.
Perl? 1
PHP? 1
Python? At least 3 - Python, Jython, and Python for
Ruby? 2 - Ruby and JRuby.
The difference is that with Java, there are compatibility tests.
We're fragile beings that need a very specific envrionment to survive
Absolutely not. One of the reasons our species is so successful is our ability to deal with a very wide range of environments, from the hottest deserts to the artic circle.
Most likely aquatic life will be the survivors.
This is probably true. It seems that the main period of death after the 'dinosaur-killer' impact was a few hours after impact. The survivors were almost all aquatic creatures and burrowers. And insects, of course - they seem to survive just about anything.
So, you admit that I'm right, you just choose to ignore that fact because it doesn't fit into your Sun-friendly world view.
No, I don't admit you are right.
Java does come from a single vendor; IBM, HP, SGI, Blackdown, and all the other compliant Java implementations all rely on code licensed from Sun.
No. This is not true. There are many compliant implementations (such as HPs) that are clean room.
That means Java stands and falls with Sun--if Sun decides it's bad for their business to ship, say, on Linux, they can kill Java on Linux.
No. IBM have non-Sun VMs internally, and ship Java for Linux (which does not use Sun's Java libraries - no com.sun.*).
And Sun has a political axe to grind, too: they want to maximize profit by any legal means available to them, and one great way of doing that is to tie users to their proprietary platforms. And Sun invests millions of dollars in crafting PR messages, which right now happen to be centered around being "open source friendly" and "the alternative to Microsoft". In fact, Sun has taken more than a page out of Microsoft's playbook.
What a cynical view!
Look - Sun has a history of an open strategy. Its a strategy that works like this: If you are good at a technology, its good to make sure that that technology is widely used, even if that means that other companies also supply it. If you are a UNIX provider, as Sun is, it makes sense to ensure that there is a large market for UNIX out there. This is why Sun (almost alone) encouraged 'open systems' in the 1980s - encouraging the use of TCP/IP-based networking, and providing open APIs such as NFS to the community free of charge. The same applies to other technologies: Sun have ensured that their Sparc chip is multi-vendor - you can buy it from Fujitzu, for example. Java is also multi-vendor - companies can either develop their own VMs and pay for compatibility tests, or licence code from Sun. Having Java as the de-facto language for server-side development allows Sun to make a considerable amount of money selling software services using Java.
You CAN provide free technologies and APIs to the community AND make money from it - Sun pioneered this decades ago when companies like IBM and HP were trying to tie users into proprietary systems such as VM/CMS and VMS.
Comparing Sun to Microsoft is lazy and shows an ignorance of history. Its not even bad history, as no matter how bad Microsoft are, IBM (now 'good guys') was just the same decades earlier!
You can also rob a bank, and you may even get away with it. But the fact that you can do it doesn't demonstrate that it is legal to do so.
So, you believe that GNU is breaking the law?
Yes, they will: when Sun stops shipping Java for my platform or starts charging an arm and a leg for it, I will have no other runtime to run my code on.
Firstly, there are plenty of non-Sun VMs, secondly, this is an extreme point of view that should stop you using just about anything.
Your PC is patented. Your car is patented. Do you use a GNUTV? Do you play computer games? Are they 'open'?
I think I see where you are coming from, but there is a big world out there away from open source - most software and products don't confirm to the GPL. However, the IT industry has been working and people have been using software and developing products for decades before GNU and the GPL. I like the ideas behind the GPL, but that doesn't mean I have a religious insistence that every product I use conforms to it, and it doesn't mean that I run scared from anything that does not.