[quote]What is “the better solution”?
[/quote]
Well, it is impossible to know because there are so few and Sun imposes all kinds of not “true java” bitch policies on the ones that we have.
I definitely would change to open source implementation, if given the chance.
http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25400-1.html
[quote]“We’re trying to understand what problem does it solve that is not already solved,” McNealy said.
[/quote]
Question: A large 10 tonne truck (Microsoft) is bearing down on you. What do you do? You stand in the middle of the road and say, “Hmm, we’re trying to understand… yada yada yada”.
I do like his final comment to IBM though.
I think Sun finaly made up their mind and said no to IBM :
Yeah just imagine that they’d ever be open to something different
"“Sun CEO Scott McNealy has finally answered the long awaited question that has been on the minds of open source and Java developers. Will Sun open source Java? No. He stated today that Sun sees no solution solved from open sourcing Java that isn’t already addressed.” "
Well, at least they said something. That’s more than I expected.
Well it’s a darn sight less than I expected.
I was hoping for -at the very least- continued discussion.
Probably it will take another year until the topic comes up again. Maybe the situation will have slightly changed by then. My hope is that Sun will support Open Source implementations of Java (which means not to stand in their way). The clear answer from Sun has a good side, because it probably motivates the people working on free Java implementations.
Maybe I just missed something, but does Sun now stand in the way of free open source java implementations? I didn’t think so.
I also think the open source java discussion is mostly a political thing. Although I respect IBM’s attempt and I would have liked a different outcome, seeing Sun actually did a pretty damn good job at delevoping the java standard, I don’t think Sun’s decision is a bad one.
Erik
From http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/ch5.html (I decided to quote some parts, so that people actually read it):
[quote]5.3.1.2 What are the problems with Suns’ new license?
Sun has moved to a new license the Sun Community License, like the GPL it is a viral license, but making all it touches subject to Sun licensing fee. The SCSL even goes so far as to define any implementation of a Sun specification as a “Modified Work”. Basically, this means that if you implement any part of the new 1.2 API or Jini API, even from scratch, Sun will “own” your implementation and you will have to pay them for the right to use it.
13. "Modification(s)" means (i) any change to Covered Code;
(ii) any new file or other representation of computer
program statements that contains any portion of Covered
Code; and/or (iii) any new Source Code implementing any
portion of the Specifications.
5.3.1.3 What is the SCSL?
The SCSL is the “Sun Community Software License” that can be found http://java.sun.com/communitysource/. It is not compatible with Free Software for several reasons, and agreeing to this license (e.g. by downloading source covered by the SCSL) will make it impossible for you to contribute to free software clean-room implementations. According to Sun, this includes using documentation and API specifications available only under SCSL.
To quote one open source developer, the SCSL is “about as free as the former Soviet Union”.
However, if you have never agreed to the SCSL, then it is still permissible, barring any patents that Sun has for the technology, for you to create your own clean room version of the 1.2 API. It is important that you never agree to the license, even for the documentation. For example, if you buy a printed book which describes the API, there is a long legal history (in the US at least), that prohibits attaching these kinds of contracts to books.
5.3.1.4 Can I use jdk1.2 while working with the free Java implementations?
Clause 1 of the Supplemental License Terms says:
[You] may not create, or authorize your licensees to create
additional classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are contained in
the "java" or "sun" packages or similar as specified by Sun in any
class file naming convention;
Which seems to prevent one from making his own implementation of the standard Java classes using the JDK.
However, it is unclear whether or not the word `additional’ includes reimplementations of existing classes, or whether it applies only to classes with new names.
5.3.1.5 Why is (some) free software not implementing Java2?
Sun has made public statements in connection with their legal strategy in the Sun-Microsoft lawsuit that indicate that the company considers the published specifications of Java2 to be intellectual property that can not legally be used by persons involved in efforts to create Java2 clean-room implementations. For this reason, some open source projects have decided to not implement Java2 any time soon. One example is Kaffe. Some projects (like the Japhar/Classpath project) have decided to challenge Sun’s legal position and are going ahead with Java2.
[/quote]
You should also read: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/faq/faq.html.
Classpath is the effort to implement the Java libraries. Especially interesting is 1.4:
That’s what I mean with “support”/“not standing in their way”.
Thanks, Jens.
That seems to totally block any open source implementation, doesn’t it? ???
[quote]That seems to totally block any open source implementation, doesn’t it? ???
[/quote]
The last statements of Sun were, that anyone is allowed to do an Open Source implementation. However if Sun changes their opinion, there could be legal problems. As a prerequisite the developers must not agree to the SCSL (classpath hacker’s guide). If there were no legal problems at all, we’d already have more complete Open Source implementations (kaffe&co already exist for a long time). However in the past months classpath made quite some progress, so I’m not to pessimistic.
[quote]Thanks, Jens.
That seems to totally block any open source implementation, doesn’t it? ???
[/quote]
The bar on changes within the java/javax heirarchy seems to block Open Source implementations (note capitals). Otherwise there are significant but not impassable barriers:
a) All developers must not have seen any of the Sun implementation.
b) The inadequacies of the published API documentation
c) the sheer size of the project (bearing in mind the ban on subsetting).
d) Cost of approval testing
And that is the exact reason why Java needs to go standard body before anything serious can happen.
Yes, that’s correct. Nevertheless there are quite a number of people working on it. This shows, that there is a need for a modern and powerful Open Source object orientated general purpose programming language.
a) ah, well, who’s gonna proove you’ve seen the impl? Just as long as it’s not too obvious and it is your own code, I don’t see any harm in just looking how sun did it.
b) dunno about that, what inadequacies for example?
c) yeah, I suppose it’s not a walk in the park
d) iirc, a sun person mentioned here they sometimes help out with that, which seems to imply they are not at all against OS, they just seem very defensive for their baby
The really big problem is the Open Source advocates demand to be able change anything they like. In my opinion this demand is excessive and unreasonable. Especially as in the case of Java you can add whatever you like to packages in your own namespace (i.e. not java or javax). I and many others like the fact that to change the language or the core packages you have to get your proposal through the JCP process.
[quote]The really big problem is the Open Source advocates demand to be able change anything they like. In my opinion this demand is excessive and unreasonable. Especially as in the case of Java you can add whatever you like to packages in your own namespace (i.e. not java or javax). I and many others like the fact that to change the language or the core packages you have to get your proposal through the JCP process.
[/quote]
I don’t think it is too unreasonable for Sun to stop calling technology that has been written 99% in C++ as “Java technology”
Why did Sun introduce JCP instead of FSF or GNU? It is, because Sun’s intention is no where near close to Open Source. They want more control and control is the reason why true Open Source can’t happen. JCP is Sun driven and eventually Sun has the biggest word in it. If they want that some project gets canned, they get it canned.
This is where JCP goes wrong
In my opinion there is no need for corporate open source. The same way as Public Domain is Public Doman, Open Source is Open Source. If I want to os something, nothing stops me from GNUing it.
So, why not GNU? It is not like sun is trying to sell java or anything… : :
There are many aspects of the javax.swing.text classes that are inadequately documented. Perhaps the simplest example is what should be expected of an empty Document (does it have one line or none).
What on earth are you talking about?
Counting *.c, *.h, *.cpp and *.java files across the entire j2se source, *.java is 66% by byte count and 72% by file count.
If you are talking about their Linux distribution, then yes, but hardly relevant to this thread.
I seem to recall you also cannot have agreed to the SCSL. For example, I think to download a couple of Sun (source only) products in the past I’ve had to sign up and agree to (I think) the SCSL. That would strike me out as a starter, because I’ve been ‘contaminated’ for doing that sort of Open Source work.
How do you explain OpenOffice.org then?
Personally, I’m hopeful that market conditions, and community pressure will eventually force a turn around in Sun’s thinking. If they want 10 million Java developers, they’re not going to get to that level by developing high-level tools for the drag-and-drop programmers of this world alone. They’ll need to target different market segments as much as possible – and OS developers are a fairly large market segment by all accounts.
I’m actually starting to understand why a Merril Lynch analyst wrote an open letter calling for a more toned-down Sun CEO. When you make a cocky statement like “open souce has never known a better friend than Sun”, you better make damn sure that a big competitor like IBM can’t challenge you on it and force you to back down.