At 11:24 AM 4/22/99 -0700, Paolo Ciccone wrote:
>1) Sun pushed Java as a multiplatform language.
Sun positioned Java as a language not bound to any realworld platform;
and hence as being multiplatform capable. The only platform that's really
involved when you run Java is the Java Virtual Machine. It's only Virtual
because it's software - implemented on other (hardware) machines. So was
smalltalk, so is, I believe, the AS/400's MI. Some day we'll have a decent
Java chip (if we don't already) and then it will become just another
platform/architecture. (admitedly it will be one with a differnece in
that it was designed to be a virtual architecture _first_, and hence it's
machine language (called byte-code) is a tad different in conceptual
design.)
> The reality is that
> they develop only two versions.
They produce two _reference_implementations_, one on their own platform,
and one for the largest install base in the desktop operating system
world. The point of these were not to provide _the_ JVM for a platform,
but to provide a _reference_implementation_ of the JLS such that other
vendors would have it (from a black-box perspective) to compare against.
If memory serves originally there were two Solaris JVMs, the one provided
for free download, and the one bundled with the OS....
If given a choice I very highly doubt they would produce the win32 JVM;
but they can not trust Microsoft to do it. The way this was supposed to
work ... and for the most part does ... is that every platform vendor
would provide their own implementaion. HP, Reliant, SCO, Novel, Siemens,
and a few other single platform companies all provide their own JVMs.
IBM provides a JVM for every one of their platforms, plus windows.
> That's not covering two of the most
> used platforms in the PC arena: Linux and Macintosh.
umm... ok... sure... what-ever you say...
time to pass the pipe friend, you've had too much for tonight... :)
> Too little for
> me to be truly WORA.
yeah, as a result of the very logic I just mentioned WORA became WOTE...
sigh. it's so sad when us engineers get our hands on the architects'
beautiful visions and grind them into a pile of dust on the reef of reality.
>2) In November Sun publicly announced support for Linux. The
> announcement has not been followed, for what I can see, by
> facts.
We have seen at least indirect evidence of three things:
1. Sun provided blackdown with the JCK.
2. Sun provided blackdown with two engineers whom they could ask
questions of, and who have worked with the porting team to
debug problems, and who provide a mechanism for the port
to get back into the "master" source tree at Javasoft.
3. Sun provided Steve with a license which is (I believe) unique.
All three of these amazed me to no end at the time, and to some
extent still do to this day.
> If you don't say a word than you owe nothing but if you
> promised you better keep the promise.
Agreed.
> People are investing time and
> money based on what Sun says.
People are putting their money on something they have no control over
then. When I grew up that was called gambling... today its called
investing.
>3) Sun has nothing to gain in doing any port, Win32, Solaris or
> Linux. The JDK is given away for free and, for what I know, is not
> a *direct* revenue generator.
Sun is a technology company, not everything they do has to go directly
to the bottom line... although as a (very minor) stock holder I am
curious what the business case was for javasoft... my guess is support,
education and licensing. In which case they _do_ have something to gain
in supporting a platform that will pay them... hmmm... paying for something
like support or education and the traditional linux community are fairly
hard concepts for me to put into a single sentence.
> Now, if you look at the BTS on the
> JDC you'll see that there thousands of requests for Linux JDK. If
> Sun judges the need to port the JDK to platform based on the number
> of users that want it then the Linux community showed some real
> numbers.
nice logic, but I think anyone who's been around here will recognise
it as the logic that _isn't_ prevailing at Sun.
>4) Granted, Sun doesn't owe us anything but it's them that are pushing
> for the adoption of Java. If they want that to succed they have to
> support Linux. They promised support and after six month we still
> have to see some concrete effort. As I said, there no trace of
> Linux JDk on Sun's Java site.
http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/java-ports.cgi?other=true
OK, so it's not in great big graphics screaming out to the world... but
it's been there since, at least, December.
OK, so it's not even on the initial page - you've got to select others...
but look closely at the list that is there... they're all the comercial
vendors, paying big bucks to Sun I'm sure.
[snip]
>The current status of the JDK is good for early development but the
>silence and
yes the silence is starting to be noticable.
> lack of support *from Sun* is seriously joepardizing any
^^^^^^^^
Why does it have to be Sun? It's not like they're developing Java in
a total vaccuumm (how do you spell that word anyway? :| ) there are
several other companies working with them, any one of whom could pitch
in and help. IBM for example. (dreaming...)
>professional Java development under Linux. You cannot relase a product
>in the market based on a pre-release JDK. You cannot announce release
>dates of your products if Sun doesn't give us a deadline for the final
I think the only person setting any release dates around here should
be Steve. (or the owner of the port for a given arch.) We all saw how
ridiculus Sun looked with 117 and 12pre when they went and announced
a date... :) Steve's response of "Now isn't that interesting." was
a classic.
[...]
> I'm not bashing Sun, I'm trying to post some
>constructive critique.
Which is always a good thing... but how many Sun managers do you think
read this list? If there are any, drop me a note and I'll count you
up and return only the count to the list... promise, won't put your
address anywhere. I suspect that I won't get a single response to that
invitation. Sadly I think this is the wrong forum for these types of
discusion; even worse is the fact that I don't think there even _is_
a correct forum! Either way, based on the chiding I got last time off
list and what I expect when people read this, I think I'm going to try
staying out of these in the future... maybe we all should....
> Sun is, objectively, moving too slowly on the
>Linux platform.
Sun is stretched to the limit; I'm amazed Linux is getting the support
it does. Let's face reality... there is a shortage in the industry of
competent people, plus there are a couple of major drains on the talent
pool (Y2K and € incase anyone forgot...)
> The sooner they realize this the better for us and
> for them.
Try to have an out of body/mind experience for a minute and put yourself
into the corporate mentality (oxymoron, I know) where Linux is a rumbling
you occasionally hear about in small IT shops, or your staff around the
coffee cart talking about it on their home machines, but otherwise is not
currently threatening the 200,000 transaction per second mainframe you've
had down the hall for years, or the shinny new Sparc 10000 you just put in
the machine room to serve your web pages. *These people don't know what we
know.* But they're the ones expensing lunches with the Sun Microsystems
consultant that sold them that 10000. And they're the ones meeting the
executive board on the back nine. And they're the ones at the share-
holders meetings with so many proxies they have a reserved seat up front.
It's sickening to think, but untill Linux gets that kind of clout on our
side, the community can't really demand anything. (We're working on it.
One CPU at a time is my motto. ;) -=Chris
!NEW!-=> <*> cabbey at home dot net http://members.home.net/cabbey/ <*>
"What can Microsoft do? They certainly can't program around us." - Linus
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