Indies i agree, the writing small games statement is yours.
Uhuh… riiiiight.
YOU get that one past the JCP executive committee.
No offense, but if you havent done it, your talking out your ass.
Well here’s someone for you to talk to who could do what you want…
Saying all this to me is a wate of breath because whether I agree or not I dont have the power to make those kinds of chnages in how we do things.
[quote]Indies i agree, the writing small games statement is yours.
[/quote]
PrinceC, Vorax, KevGlass, erikd and myself.
…
small games.
Back on topic: as Sun isn’t going to change the license for us (not surprising, ofourse) I think the only option is MoleBox.
I don’t think there is more to say :-\
Cas’s efforts seem pretty minimal compared to the damage Sun has done to the Java brand itself. Most of my non-technical friends think Java = Javascript, so don’t understand any potential advantages Java may have. Now Sun have repeated the error with the “Java Desktop”, which doesn’t run Java apps. Seems to me the biggest confusion about the “Java message” is coming from Sun.
I’ve been happy with the development advantages of using Java for my game. But now that its reaching a distribution stage, Java seems more of an obstacle than a solution. In the Enterprise space Sun have done a good job of promoting Java positives. But in the personal computer space, I can only think of negatives.
PrinceC, Vorax, KevGlass, erikd and myself.
…
small games.
[/quote]
What i wanted to say is that nobody is forcing you to do small sized games.
I see indie games with more than 100MB and very good quality games. The difference between an indie developer and a comercial developer is like the difference between an independent serie B movie creator - sometimes paying the movie from his own pockets - and someone working for a big company with a very large budget.
Being an inide game creator doen’t mean you have to work alone either. You join your efforts and work together as a team, divide your work, and create more ambitious games.
It’s not that Sun hates or despises indie gamers but they cannot suport every single isolated person for whom 16 extra megabytes in their game is a problem. There is much indie java game developers can do for themselves before puting the blames on Sun.
56k modems are 50% of the market, bla bla bla. Have you read this thread at all?
[quote]You join your efforts and work together as a team, divide your work, and create more ambitious games.
[/quote]
These devs joining up is just not realistic. They are all working on their own kind of games, all have other jobs too. Weeks can go by without working on a game. It seems you have no clue what you’re talking about. Really.
Just for kicks, Jeff, do you agree? What is your personal opinion?
Cas’, Erik, etc… shall we prepare a letter to Mr. Shwartz? If we do, I think it would be best to expand the scope to make it clear that it doesn’t apply to just games, but any time a private RJE is embedded.
Jeff, is there anything the GTG can do to give any proposal that we make a bit of a boost? I’m assuming that if we get any attention at all, someone inside of Sun is going to ask someone else inside of Sun for some opinions and confirmation that our proposal is worth a second look. Can the GTG give us some backup in that regard?
Has something like this already been discussed and dismissed inside of Sun, or would we actually have a real chance to get some new license terms for lightweight use of Java technology?
Not that it will count much, but I’m with you on that topic… so where do I sign ?
We could start a new survey here, just to see who’s with us and to gather forces… then send THE email to mr Schwartz with a link to the survey…
May be add a blog on java.net (who’s got an account ?) and an open letter to javalobby…
My 2eurocents
Lilian
I’d like to help out in this matter too, . However, if we agree to apply some pressure to sun, we should think about what exactly it is we want. Do we want a simple license change for the JRE? An official JCP approved games JRE? Something else? My personal favorite is something like swpalmer’s proposal, loosening up the license for purely private JREs, possibly in exchange for some java publicity (we still have the java logo on the website and in our game).
- elias
Jeff, I was being facetious. Seems my ass can tell jokes! Haha 
It does go to show that a bit of lateral thinking can achieve an awful lot. In most walks of life it just needs some kind of management to stop a good idea from coming to fruition.
I’m with Elias and Scott here that we just need to get a variation on the license terms. Such a variation needs to be very cunningly worded to prevent, say, Microsoft from just borrowing the VM and distributing it. (Hypothetical I know but you see the scope of the problem). I was in favour of actually paying for a license, but at a reasonable price (ie. priced to compete with Jet, for example).
Cas
I get market figures from forum threads ? Besides i usaly see game developers like EA concerned so much with market figures not indie game developers. I hope that doing indie games is something you do mostly for fun, otherwise it would be a bit … dumb.
If you are too scared to work with a team thats your problem. Don’t try to generalize that into the bigger picture. The argument you just made is completely irrational. Working with a team will help indie game developers solve their problems with free time not make it worst. I have participated in several game projects with people who have other jobs, and know a lot other people who solve their time problems by working as a team. I sugest you try to do this yourself and see how it works.
[quote=“elias,post:50,topic:24938”]
I doubt we, as a community, can apply enough pressure to Sun. I recall ChrisM speaking about the financial side of this. They are much more likely to focus on for example the military, because that can make them billions of dollars. The gaming-community as it is now, simply isn’t worth it, financially.
[quote=“elias,post:50,topic:24938”]
JCP will take multiple years, and requires votes from the big companies. I wuold give it a tiny chance it would succeed. And as Cas said, creating a new license for private JREs will cost Sun probably more than a good small game, showing the java-logo, will make them (marketing). Only big games receive enough attention to matter for Sun to show off the Java brand, but for big games those extra 15MB don’t really matter…
I wouldn’t mind paying some coin and displaying a “Java Powered” logo in the game if I was allowed to strip the crud from an embedded JRE. If a petition or letter is composed, I’ll happily sign it.
It can also be something you do to make money. There are indie developers out there who do this full time with only 1 or 2 people and very successfully. I am doing it partially for fun, but I want to be able to reach a broad audience as well… trying to have fun and make money at the same time, isn’t something I would call dumb… trying to do it with the JRE licensing issues might be though
Exactly don’t bother. SUN is not going to make a small jre just for like you said “I am doing it partially for fun, but I want to be able to reach a broad audience as well” just for fun.
We aren’t asking Sun to make any new JRE. We are asking for a very small change in the wording of the license that applies only to bundled, private JREs. We don’t see how Sun has anything to lose, and they have some gain in terms of marketing Java. Surely it won’t take that much money or very long for a Sun lawyer to draw up a revised license if Sun is willing to do it. Why they would be unwilling is somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps they are so caught up in bureaucracy that they are unaware of simple things can be if you apply a little common sense.
We should come up with a definition of ‘private JRE’ first, before writing any letter. Otherwise we will get a useless reply back which mentions “TCK” and “forking”, which is of course absolutely not relevant as long as it’s perfectly clear what we’re talking about.
What about the definition “A private JRE is a JRE which may be altered from the official distribution, but which can not be launched by any other application than the application which includes it.”?
This has some consequences: There should be absolutely no java.exe or javaw.exe, so they have to be replaced by an executable which will launch the JVM with all the java arguments and main-class etc. hardcoded in it for the application/game alone (or moleboxed or whatever).
More suggestions?
I personally think that while this license change is not the perfect solution, it’s the most realistic solution of real problems in an imperfect world (where of course everybody would have the latest and greatest JRE by default). I don’t think going for the ideal solution is very realistic…
Maybe we should also write this letter in public.
Perhaps the term “embedded, private JRE” should be used.
Excluding java.exe is not really required so long as it is not placed in the default PATH and remains generally inaccessible outside of launching the application(s) that use it as an embedded VM. We should look at the current Sun license which, I think, does mention rules about embedding the JRE, and use the same terms that it currently uses.
The browser plugins must also not use the JRE that is embedded.
The only way to alter the JRE will be to modify any files that are already allowed to be modified in the current license, and to exclude whole files from the JRE or from the contents of any archive file (JAR) within the JRE. Perhaps the “any archive file” can be restricted to “rt.jar”. New files must be added through the means already available via the current license (e.g. installed to the extensions folder, or otherwise added to the classpath at launch time)
The JRE will not be visible to any “public” install of Java webstart or any browsers and will therefore not impact the user experience. Surely we can get someone at Sun to realize that a private embedded JRE only accessible to a specific application only needs the files and classes that are actually possible to access via that application and that any other files are just taking up space for absolutely no good reason. Though getting common sense past a team of lawyers can no-doubt be challenging.
[quote]Excluding java.exe is not really required so long as it is not placed in the default PATH and remains generally inaccessible outside of launching the application(s) that use it as an embedded VM.
[/quote]
It’s just a safety measure to prevent users from (accidently) using the embedded JRE for something else. It’s so easy to point eclipse or JWS to an embedded JRE, or even put it in the path by accident, and that will happen! And then you’ve opened up the path to forking and this is something nobody wants.
I think it’s reasonable and sensible to have the requirement that an embedded, modified JRE cannot be used for something else, ever.