----------
| From: sbb / mime, , , [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| To: nelson / mime, , , [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| Cc: java-linux / mime, , , [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| Subject: Open Java
| Date: Thursday, November 05, 1998 7:53AM
|
| Nelson Minar writes:
| > I'd really hate to see this list get dragged into a debate about
| > Java Linux porting team politics. The folks who have donated their
| > effort to bringing Java to Linux - all of them - have done a wonderful
| > job. Thanks to you all!
| >
| >
| > However, there's an interesting point here:
| >
| > >The big problem I have is the current closed porting method is only
| > >related to Java today. This completely ignores all possibility of
| > >advancing java when backward compatibility is not and issue.
| >
| > I'm not exactly sure what the poster has in mind, but it reminds me of
| > one of my major problems with Java. Sun has a tight lock on what
| > "Java" is, what the definition of it is. They don't seem very
| > interested in having people hack up the VM or the language, or in
| > general pushing Java in any future research directions they do not
| > directly control. I think this is horribly short-sighted of Sun, and
| > very frustrating, but that's their position (at least, as I see it.)
| >
| > Unfortunately, the JDK licensing terms reflect Sun's attempts to keep
| > Java locked up.
|
| Let's be VERY clear on this point: they're keeping their
IMPLEMENTATION locked
| up. Not the specs for the language. You don't need a license to implement a
| Java virtual machine and/or the class libraries. This is pretty rare in the
| software world. Would you believe that ParcPlace claims ownership of
the CLASS
| HIERARCHY of Smalltalk, and actually threatens litigation if you don't pay
| their (minimal) licensing fee?
|
| Sun has been quite reasonable with respect to having review and
feedback cycles
| for all new APIs -- ever hear of M$ doing that? They're trying to be as open
| as they can be, in an ocean where sharks live.
|
| Remember the big announcement last year about Sun's standards process winning
| preferred submitter status with ISO (I think it was ISO)? At least
the members
| of the organization were satisfied that Sun's standards process was
| sufficiently open to vote to grant them that status.
|
| Can Sun do better? Sure, almost anyone can do better than they have done,
| including corporations. We'd all like to see them say "Today, the JDK is
| completely open source". Should we hold our breath waiting?
|
| > I don't think it's fair to blame the Linux Java porting team for not
| > making Java an open language. Their effort has been to port the Sun
| > JDK to Linux. And they've done a wonderful job of it.
|
| I want to also say that we are LEGALLY OBLIGATED to protect the sources.
| Part of that protection includes having a porting mailing list that's
not open
| to people who do not have sources because we talk about things in the sources
| and sometimes even include diffs that have small parts of the sources
in them.
|
|
| > What we do need, in the research community, is a more open Java
| > system. Something we can all hack on, experiment with. It's not going
| > to come from Sun, and therefore I suspect it's not going to come from
| > the Linux porting team.
|
| Certainly not from me -- I'm very tainted in a lot of different areas wrt
| Java. I view that the Linux community has two choices:
|
| a) we wait until completely open source versions of the Java VM, including
| all the bells and whistles (in the meanwhile not being able to
| develop Java applications on Linux)
|
| - or -
|
| b) we have some members of the community make available state of the art
| versions of Java, and, *in parallel* others in the Linux/open source
| community work on catching up with open source versions of Java.
|
| The second alternative is what we have now. I think it's the best of both
| worlds.
|
| Steve
|
I completely agree with Steve's point of view. There are a lot of
companies that are less open than Sun and they try to get as much
feedback as they can from the IT Community. I think Sun is doing pretty well!
Addy.
