I share the frustration expressed recently about the status of Java on
Linux. We've always been somewhat second class citizens. The problem
is most definitely not Blackdown's fault - they're doing great given
their resources and the licensing structure of Java.
As for Sun's "agenda", my feeling is that it's not that well defined,
in particular for Linux. There's the Sun corporate stance, of which
there are many competing factors. The Solaris organizatoin doesn't
necessarily see eye to eye with the Java organization, and lord only
knows who is thinking what about Solaris/x86. Then there are plenty of
geeks inside Sun and inside Javasoft who love Linux themselves, use it
for their own work, etc.
The most frustrating thing is I can't see any way, in the current
structure, to improve the porting of the JDK. Blackdown's doing as
well as they can. Personally, I think there are only three ways Java
is going to get better on Linux:
Sun decides Linux is a priority and assigns engineers. I think they
have a real case for doing this to support Jini - they need a platform
that can easily embed Java, and Linux is a good high-end way to do
that. Of course, this drags us into the embedded Java mess...
One of the free Java efforts (Japhar, Kaffe, Cygnus' new thing) gains
enough momentum to be a serious JDK replacement.
One of the non-free Java efforts (IBM's VM, Symantec's stuff, etc)
gets ported and supported on Linux.
I have no idea which of these is most likely or most desireable.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
. . . . . . . . http://www.media.mit.edu/~nelson/
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