Exactly. This 'why would a PDF viewer ever need a JS interpreter?' is an over-reaction. If embedded Javascript enables PDFs to enhance the user's onscreen experience, I'm all for it. Interactive documents may mean fewer printed copies - save a tree! The facility breeds innovation. Even Emacs has a build-in scripting language!
Where Acrobat Reader has failed is to provide a robust sandbox. Java applets had this 13 years ago through a SecurityManager that defined what an applet could and could not do. Assuming this is not already the case, Acroforms/XFA should formalise what a PDF viewer can and cannot execute as part of the PDF specification. Then users can enable JS in Acrobat Reader and other viewers with confidence.
Ask not why PDFs should have scripting support but why Acrobat Reader does not rigidly sandbox the scripting environment.
He and Stephen Colebourne are engaged in a bitter propaganda war with Sun (now Oracle) over JCP licensing for Apache Harmony.
The linked article's comments should be seen in that light.
Long before Harmony existed, there was a GNU clean-room implementation of Java called Classpath. In the interests of the community, the thing to have done for free software would be to obtain implementation completeness and then 'pony up' the money to Sun to certify (Cacao/JamVM/Kaffe + Classpath) as Java compatible.
Perhaps Sun wouldn't have allowed that but... Instead, the backers of Apache sought to create a second clean-room implementation, namely Harmony (Code and financial resources of IBM, & others - according to wikipedia). 'They' choose to hire developers to implement Java again from scratch a second time in the hopes of bullying Sun into giving them the JCK for free. It would have been sensible before work started on Harmony 4 years ago to negotiate licensing. Now there's a standoff but in whose interests does it serve to have 2 almost compatible implementations? As one javalobby poster bluntly put it recently:
Apache Harmony is just a cheap IBM trick to attempt to wrest control of Java from Sun. It failed miserably when Sun GPL'd Java so that the source could not be integrated into Harmony. Apache is not an altruistic organization formed of developers donating code off hours. It's financed and draws developers from large companies such as IBM that have their own agendas, good and bad.
So in this case, the Apache license benefits faceless corporations. I believe GPL is a good license for Sun's Java, as it prevents closed forks. Apache are arguing it's good to have a JVM distinct from the reference implementation. Again, good for whom? IBM, so they can release a proprietary JVM for Websphere? Google, so they can plunder bits of it for Harmony?
In response to the above quote, Oracle may also have their own agendas for Java but at least now the code is GPL'd. Red Hat, the main contributor to IcedTea, could fork it at their leisure for the goodwill of the people - any changes they make would be subject to the GPL. Forks of Harmony don't have the same protections. And yeah, I trust Oracle more than I would IBM!
I don't see how Google would be a better steward of Java than Oracle. Google seem content to define their own pseudo-Java platforms such as Android (forked from Harmony, not fully Java SE/ME compatible) and AppEngine (not supporting full Java EE) than cooperating with other parties through JCP.
I worked with Oracle recently. There were several former JD Edwards staff around, from a previous acquisition. They were kept to support JDE 'legacy' but also given training to cross-skill on other Oracle offerings.
So the immediate response to the acquisition of Oracle should not be to panic. Oracle may eventually ditch some offerings aren't going to make them money (javafx, Sun's speculative gamble, springs to mind) while others will be fused into Oracle's flagship offerings (e.g. weblogic replacing oc4j)
In the case of some of Sun's tech, they're open source and the value is in supporting those products, not the IP. In the case of MySQL, the horse had probably bolted already given the community forks. Still if Sun were making money off consulting, Oracle could do likewise in the same way they rebranded Fedora. In which case those same MySQL --> Sun --> Oracle staff might still find themselves in work as long as the work turned a profit. Bottom line, Oracle would prefer business not to be lost to competitors.
Adobe ported flash to Nokia's Maemo platform several years ago.
Performance may suck on a 400Mhz chip, but let's compare apples to apples. A cheap device with a low end 'smartphone' chip is NOT going to compete directly with a EeePC running Atom. A $99 machine is a $99 machine and last I checked Atom netbooks cost several times that amount.
For a more realistic comparison, TI's OMAP3640 contains a single core 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8. This is a souped-up version of the chip powering the beagleboard. Such a chip should be adequate for flash. And the not to distant future is to just add more cores - the Cortex A9 will in time support up to 4.
If it weren't for games and running a 24" widescreen monitor, I could easily use my Eee 701 for 99% of my general computing needs.
I'm optimistic, if not confident, that these performance issues will be resolved within 12-18 months.
Why? Competition. Intel faces several challenges to it's near hegemony of Atom netbooks:
Nvidia's Ion will provide stiff opposition to Intel's notoriously 'sucky' graphics.
MS will be demanding more grunt for Windows7 capable hardware - don't need another Vista.
Via's Nano is winning a number of benchmarks.
multicore ARM machines running Linux will challenge the Wintel price bracket.
die shrinkage will make 2-core Atoms standard. And it's been known since dual pentium pros and NT4 that Windows runs better on multi-CPUs!
NB: I haven't mentioned AMD. Might they be planning something?
Competition will drive innovation. So by the time your Eee wears out, hey presto just plug your Nano/Ion netbook into your 24" and instant desktop-class machine. (Well, by 2011 standards performance will still suck but yeah, "Good Enough"!)
"Good Enough", for me, will be when 'full blown laptop' ceases to be relevant.
The new 11" 1366×768 netbooks are getting there. That form factor is ideal for me - I downgraded from a 15" 1280x800 laptop to a 12" last year. I want a mobile machine I can stick in a backpack (hooking up to an external display as needed), not some desktop replacement that requires a car to lug around.
The entry of Nvidia's Ion will ensure Intel's GN40 successors play full 1080p content. Why would anyone want that on a netbook? Hooking up to an external display. Netbooks (& nettops) ought to be suitable for myth TV. My USB DVB-T tuner supports 1920×1080, why shouldn't my netbook?
CPU performance is still somewhat an issue. When my 2003 desktop still outperforms the latest Atom, Intel still have some catching up to do. Hopefully quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore systems will further the netbook/top market.
Power users will still clamor for Nehalem-based systems and 17" screens. The rest of us will prefer battery life and for nettops - quiet fanless machines.
Java really doesn't make much sense for Oracle, either. A lot of databases might get use Java front-ends, but so what? Oracle hasn't been in that business.
Not so - Oracle isn't just a database company. Much of the rest of their technology stack relies on Java. Do a search for "Oracle Fusion".
They acquired a leading Java EE vendor in BEA a couple of years back.
One of my lecturers in the philosophy department wrote his own programming language, Joy.
Pure Mathematics (in the Science department) and Formal Logic (in the Philosophy department) are closely related in terms of the apparatus for proofs. Logic was unfortunately a neglected step-child of the Arts faculty.:(
At the other end of the scale Theoretical Physics and Philosophy share commonality, e.g. Physics was originally termed "Natural Philosophy".
Someone took their cynical grumpy pills.:( Yes, the university department saw some niche to explore that was lacking in existing systems.
1. It's a Research OS. Universities often design new platforms to explore ideas outside the box, without the baggage of a traditional environment. In this case, power management. 2. There's no mention in the article what software stack would run on top of the OS. What if they ported Android but with a 15% power reduction on what Google shipped? 3. There's no hint a phone provider would factory install the OS, so anyone running it would be aware it's the unsupported nature. 4. As a research platform, the *ideas* may be incorporated into existing OSes. e.g. Linux adopts a low power scheduler.
For me the question is how 'locked down' Android is.
Google is touting it as an open-source platform. However, as we saw last week about tethering, Google and device makers may be beholden to the interests of service providers.
I am not interested in an Android Market, to rival the iPhone. Google is barely less 'inherently evil' than Apple.:)
The best chance of an open software platform for a phone is for manufacturers to all jump on the Android bandwagon but allow 'unlocked' phones to be bought in stores as with traditional GSM phones. Then if the hardware specs are well known and documented, we Slashdot readers can reflash the phone with our embedded *bsd/Linux distro of choice. If Android truly is open source, one should be able to load Dalvik in userspace.
The issue with Openmoko is that it's selling you a device from a niche manufacturer which could go out of business at any moment. Instead, let Google define a standardised hardware platform and cross our fingers the software is fully user replaceable! Whether manufacturers allow this...
Yes, I know I'm quoting you out of context but people who run Windows dwell among us, including family members.
Having freedom from MS is a good thing but most non-technical, non-Slashdot people find Windows familiar.
I'd be interested in the possibilities of ReactOS on such ARM devices. Basically a clean-room version of Windows XP - without the bloat and without the licensing fees to MS. It'd be able to use all the open source software you mention with a cross compile to ARM (if the tool-chain uses gcc). Java, via OpenJDK, already works on ARM linux via Cacao and Zero. Free as in beer software such as Safari, Flash and Opera already exists for ARM (just not on Windows, obviously).
In this way, you could have a GPL'd desktop running an environment that our non-techie brethren are comfortable in. No Photoshop, Quicken or MS Office obviously. However, there's a lot of open source and free as in beer software available for Windows that could appear practically overnight with a re-compile to ARM.
ReactOS is in pre-alpha stage for ARM but a few Google Summer of Code projects and we're away.:) Sure that would conflict with their Android platform dreams, but it's for the greater good!
Indeed, my last 2 computers have been factory installed with XP, yet coming with Vista upgrade CDs. Now I still occasionally boot XP when work requires me to test under windows. But according to MS, two sales of Vista.:)
Having read "The Perfect Setup" - all those config files in your home directory? That is waaaaaaaaaay too complicated.
We, the people, just want a plug and play solution to detect the hardware, set some reasonable defaults and provide intuitive gnome wizards (or kde 4.x if you prefer) to configure the rest.
I hear it'll be the year of the Linux Desktop soon.:( I could list other non plug and play bugbears... It's 2009; the days of hand-editing umpteen configuration files for I/O devices should be over.
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Exactly. This 'why would a PDF viewer ever need a JS interpreter?' is an over-reaction. If embedded Javascript enables PDFs to enhance the user's onscreen experience, I'm all for it. Interactive documents may mean fewer printed copies - save a tree! The facility breeds innovation. Even Emacs has a build-in scripting language!
Where Acrobat Reader has failed is to provide a robust sandbox. Java applets had this 13 years ago through a SecurityManager that defined what an applet could and could not do. Assuming this is not already the case, Acroforms/XFA should formalise what a PDF viewer can and cannot execute as part of the PDF specification. Then users can enable JS in Acrobat Reader and other viewers with confidence.
Ask not why PDFs should have scripting support but why Acrobat Reader does not rigidly sandbox the scripting environment.
The linked article's comments should be seen in that light.
Long before Harmony existed, there was a GNU clean-room implementation of Java called Classpath. In the interests of the community, the thing to have done for free software would be to obtain implementation completeness and then 'pony up' the money to Sun to certify (Cacao/JamVM/Kaffe + Classpath) as Java compatible.
Perhaps Sun wouldn't have allowed that but... Instead, the backers of Apache sought to create a second clean-room implementation, namely Harmony (Code and financial resources of IBM, & others - according to wikipedia). 'They' choose to hire developers to implement Java again from scratch a second time in the hopes of bullying Sun into giving them the JCK for free. It would have been sensible before work started on Harmony 4 years ago to negotiate licensing. Now there's a standoff but in whose interests does it serve to have 2 almost compatible implementations? As one javalobby poster bluntly put it recently:
So in this case, the Apache license benefits faceless corporations. I believe GPL is a good license for Sun's Java, as it prevents closed forks. Apache are arguing it's good to have a JVM distinct from the reference implementation. Again, good for whom? IBM, so they can release a proprietary JVM for Websphere? Google, so they can plunder bits of it for Harmony?
In response to the above quote, Oracle may also have their own agendas for Java but at least now the code is GPL'd. Red Hat, the main contributor to IcedTea, could fork it at their leisure for the goodwill of the people - any changes they make would be subject to the GPL. Forks of Harmony don't have the same protections. And yeah, I trust Oracle more than I would IBM!
Indeed. The virus has already been reported in NZ; it's only a matter of time before it shows up in neighbouring South Pacific nations.
50 million (from the Spanish flu) mightn't seem like much in a global context but it's plenty more than the population of Oceania, inc Australia.
A netbook is whatever marketing/journalists decide to call it any given week.
This "Android netbook" isn't one. It's a wifi-capable smartphone without the phone capability, i.e. a Mobile Internet Device.
MID Competitors: Nokia N810, Sony Mylo.
Slapping Android on it makes it new and shiny. Whatever! :)
128MB RAM, 1GB solid state. 7" 800 x 480 533 MHz. How that qualifies as a netbook, I'm totally mystified...
"Internet appliance" springs to mind. Its closest competitor is Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet. The main difference is replacing Maemo with Android.
I don't see how Google would be a better steward of Java than Oracle. Google seem content to define their own pseudo-Java platforms such as Android (forked from Harmony, not fully Java SE/ME compatible) and AppEngine (not supporting full Java EE) than cooperating with other parties through JCP.
Agreed.
I worked with Oracle recently. There were several former JD Edwards staff around, from a previous acquisition. They were kept to support JDE 'legacy' but also given training to cross-skill on other Oracle offerings.
So the immediate response to the acquisition of Oracle should not be to panic. Oracle may eventually ditch some offerings aren't going to make them money (javafx, Sun's speculative gamble, springs to mind) while others will be fused into Oracle's flagship offerings (e.g. weblogic replacing oc4j)
In the case of some of Sun's tech, they're open source and the value is in supporting those products, not the IP. In the case of MySQL, the horse had probably bolted already given the community forks. Still if Sun were making money off consulting, Oracle could do likewise in the same way they rebranded Fedora. In which case those same MySQL --> Sun --> Oracle staff might still find themselves in work as long as the work turned a profit. Bottom line, Oracle would prefer business not to be lost to competitors.
Adobe ported flash to Nokia's Maemo platform several years ago.
Performance may suck on a 400Mhz chip, but let's compare apples to apples. A cheap device with a low end 'smartphone' chip is NOT going to compete directly with a EeePC running Atom. A $99 machine is a $99 machine and last I checked Atom netbooks cost several times that amount.
For a more realistic comparison, TI's OMAP3640 contains a single core 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8. This is a souped-up version of the chip powering the beagleboard. Such a chip should be adequate for flash. And the not to distant future is to just add more cores - the Cortex A9 will in time support up to 4.
Relax, dude. Penguins are birds and birds are supposed to fly.
Heaven help us though if Festo experiment with pigs.
I'm optimistic, if not confident, that these performance issues will be resolved within 12-18 months.
Why? Competition. Intel faces several challenges to it's near hegemony of Atom netbooks:
NB: I haven't mentioned AMD. Might they be planning something?
Competition will drive innovation. So by the time your Eee wears out, hey presto just plug your Nano/Ion netbook into your 24" and instant desktop-class machine. (Well, by 2011 standards performance will still suck but yeah, "Good Enough"!)
"Good Enough", for me, will be when 'full blown laptop' ceases to be relevant.
The new 11" 1366×768 netbooks are getting there. That form factor is ideal for me - I downgraded from a 15" 1280x800 laptop to a 12" last year. I want a mobile machine I can stick in a backpack (hooking up to an external display as needed), not some desktop replacement that requires a car to lug around.
The entry of Nvidia's Ion will ensure Intel's GN40 successors play full 1080p content. Why would anyone want that on a netbook? Hooking up to an external display. Netbooks (& nettops) ought to be suitable for myth TV. My USB DVB-T tuner supports 1920×1080, why shouldn't my netbook?
CPU performance is still somewhat an issue. When my 2003 desktop still outperforms the latest Atom, Intel still have some catching up to do. Hopefully quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore systems will further the netbook/top market.
Power users will still clamor for Nehalem-based systems and 17" screens. The rest of us will prefer battery life and for nettops - quiet fanless machines.
2012, perhaps?
Pope Benedict harnesses Sun. Oracle Buys Sun
Larry Ellison is God?
Not so - Oracle isn't just a database company. Much of the rest of their technology stack relies on Java. Do a search for "Oracle Fusion".
They acquired a leading Java EE vendor in BEA a couple of years back.
One of my lecturers in the philosophy department wrote his own programming language, Joy.
:(
Pure Mathematics (in the Science department) and Formal Logic (in the Philosophy department) are closely related in terms of the apparatus for proofs. Logic was unfortunately a neglected step-child of the Arts faculty.
At the other end of the scale Theoretical Physics and Philosophy share commonality, e.g. Physics was originally termed "Natural Philosophy".
Formatting aside, developers should follow a coding standard, i.e. if statements should always use braces.
Not to mention the fact it's pronounced 'Go-ogle'.
Someone took their cynical grumpy pills. :( Yes, the university department saw some niche to explore that was lacking in existing systems.
1. It's a Research OS. Universities often design new platforms to explore ideas outside the box, without the baggage of a traditional environment. In this case, power management.
2. There's no mention in the article what software stack would run on top of the OS. What if they ported Android but with a 15% power reduction on what Google shipped?
3. There's no hint a phone provider would factory install the OS, so anyone running it would be aware it's the unsupported nature.
4. As a research platform, the *ideas* may be incorporated into existing OSes. e.g. Linux adopts a low power scheduler.
You'd think so, but the Ferengi aren't too bright.
Yes they did; Sun took them to court. Specifically, they left out JNI and RMI in favour of their own COM object APIs.
Proof? Microsoft's own document reveals this.
It's called ReactOS.
Just don't expect it to be 'finished' for some time.
The Adam-O machines are clearly using the low powered versions optimised for battery life.
If this gives you an extra 3/4hr battery life(*), some would count that as a feature over raw performance.
(*) I just made that figure up but you get the idea.
For me the question is how 'locked down' Android is.
Google is touting it as an open-source platform. However, as we saw last week about tethering, Google and device makers may be beholden to the interests of service providers.
I am not interested in an Android Market, to rival the iPhone. Google is barely less 'inherently evil' than Apple. :)
The best chance of an open software platform for a phone is for manufacturers to all jump on the Android bandwagon but allow 'unlocked' phones to be bought in stores as with traditional GSM phones. Then if the hardware specs are well known and documented, we Slashdot readers can reflash the phone with our embedded *bsd/Linux distro of choice. If Android truly is open source, one should be able to load Dalvik in userspace.
The issue with Openmoko is that it's selling you a device from a niche manufacturer which could go out of business at any moment. Instead, let Google define a standardised hardware platform and cross our fingers the software is fully user replaceable! Whether manufacturers allow this...
Yes, I know I'm quoting you out of context but people who run Windows dwell among us, including family members.
:) Sure that would conflict with their Android platform dreams, but it's for the greater good!
Having freedom from MS is a good thing but most non-technical, non-Slashdot people find Windows familiar.
I'd be interested in the possibilities of ReactOS on such ARM devices. Basically a clean-room version of Windows XP - without the bloat and without the licensing fees to MS. It'd be able to use all the open source software you mention with a cross compile to ARM (if the tool-chain uses gcc). Java, via OpenJDK, already works on ARM linux via Cacao and Zero. Free as in beer software such as Safari, Flash and Opera already exists for ARM (just not on Windows, obviously).
In this way, you could have a GPL'd desktop running an environment that our non-techie brethren are comfortable in. No Photoshop, Quicken or MS Office obviously. However, there's a lot of open source and free as in beer software available for Windows that could appear practically overnight with a re-compile to ARM.
ReactOS is in pre-alpha stage for ARM but a few Google Summer of Code projects and we're away.
Indeed, my last 2 computers have been factory installed with XP, yet coming with Vista upgrade CDs. Now I still occasionally boot XP when work requires me to test under windows. But according to MS, two sales of Vista. :)
Having read "The Perfect Setup" - all those config files in your home directory? That is waaaaaaaaaay too complicated.
We, the people, just want a plug and play solution to detect the hardware, set some reasonable defaults and provide intuitive gnome wizards (or kde 4.x if you prefer) to configure the rest.
I hear it'll be the year of the Linux Desktop soon. :( I could list other non plug and play bugbears... It's 2009; the days of hand-editing umpteen configuration files for I/O devices should be over.