>first I'd like to appologize for some of the comments I made
>- I'm aware now that they could be understood as much more
>offensive than I intended them to be.
Good. I felt that you brought up some good points (in between the emotional
sections) and I wish to keep this discussion going.
> > >Considering bug fixes, Sun gives the JDK for free, as a REFERENCE
> > >implementation. The bugs, while annoying, haven't been an obstacle
> > >to great many people who wrote a lot of Java code so far. Even a
> > >commercial compiler/VM vendor is not going to jump on every bug you
> > >report right away.
> >
> > True, but yet in a community process this would not be the case.
>
>That's true. It would be nice if Sun would open up the sources for
>JDK. However, I still believe we can't realy expect that from
>them. Moving too fast in an unusual direction could scare the
>hell out of the stock holders - and Sun's first responsibility,
>unfortunately, is to make them feel good.
This is exactly why we must free Java from the constraints imposed by its
maintainer being a corporation. In no way am I implying that Sun has not
held up their end of the bargain with the JDK. The issue is that they
control a platform that is being viewed as "the next big thing" (well it's
actually been that way for awhile), and this will inevitably lead to a
conflict of interest. I should have left out the JDK bugs issue all together
in my first post.
>IBM, with it's waste resources, can afford such things (jikes).
>Sun, IMO, has to go more cautiously.
Sure, but they, like everyone else, are forced to make improvements on Sun's
terms.
> > >Considering language extensions: in my opinion, the pace Sun is
> > >going is just right. Including everybodies pet extensions would
> > >just make a mess out of the - now pretty clean - language.
> > >
> > >Also don't forget: one man's useful extensions are another man's
> > >worst nightmare. I, for example, am perfectly *happy* there are no
> > >operator overloading or multiple inheritance in Java. I'm not even
> > >sure whether I'd like to see templates in Java or not...
> >
> > If Java was open (or an open version was created)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>That's what I suppose can (and eventualy will) happen. But I don't
>think it'll come from Sun.
I don't believe that either, and that is why I started this discussion.
There is a need to either pressure Sun more to move to a truly open
devlopment model or to begin making an alternative.
>Forgive my ignorance: who gets the control if ISO (or some similar
>organisation) standardizes Java?
ISO does! And in that respect all changes to the standard would have to be
approved by a special committee (or some other body outside of Sun).
>I admit that I don't know much about the ISO standardization processes,
>or about this particular case, but I can understand why Sun would want
>to move very cautiously in this area: the influence Microsoft has
>today is unbelivable. Giving the control out of their hands too
>fast (or too easy) could mean Microsoft would have it easier to get
>to it (or at least a large part of it).
The influence of Microsoft in ISO is a very big problem and issues like this
may make even standardization of Java in this manner a problem.
>Now, I *am* aware that Sun's intensions are primarily to make money,
>not to make the world a better place. :-) I just want to offer
>another explanation of Sun's actions (that is, keeping Microsoft
>off, instead of just being greedy).
Right, the politics within ISO have made it difficult for any sort of a
compromise to come.
> > I will admit that Sun has done very well for a corporation, but I don't
> > believe they will never be able to produce a pure development
>environment
> > under their current model.
>
>I'm not sure I understand this part.
>
>If you wanted to say you don't believe they can't do any better than
>what they've shown so far, then I agree with you. I was just
>arguing about their speed - I don't think they can go much faster
>than this.
You understood me correctly (sorry for the typos). Sun has done extremely
well based on the restrictions that they have to deal with. Sun's stock
holders will not stand for the sort unbiased effort that would be a result
of a truly open Java. Since Sun is still a hardware company, there is little
room for profits as a result of their Java development unless they use Java
to sell more hardware. If however Sun is attempting to become a
software/services company (~40%+ of their profits) then there would be
motivations for developing an open Java. They could then use Java as a tool
to deliver their software and services. We have seen small signs of this,
but nothing conclusive.
> > >4) Sun wanting to make Java run best on Solaris
> > >
> > >Huh???? Have you actually checked the status of the Solaris JDK
> > >lately? It's always been hinking *behind* Sun's Win32 JDK
>implementation!
> > >Hell, even the Linux JDK port ("even" because it's a volunteer
> > >project with only a small fraction of resources Sun has) seems a lot
> > >better to me than the Sun's Solaris version (thanks Blackdown team, a
> > >great job!!!)
> >
> > Well maybe, maybe not, but you must admit that the *sole* reason that
>Sun is
> > doing all this Java stuff is so that they can sell more Solaris
> > boxes.
>
>Most probably it was, at the beginning. Now it seems they gave up this
>line of thinking, otherwise we wouldn't have to wait for the Solaris
>version of the JDK 1.2 for so long. They must have found a better way to
>make money off Java than using it to push up the hardware sales.
Yet we still see signs of them trying to restrict Java on other UNIX
platforms. Isn't this what Sun Bashing 1 was all about?
Also responding to comments elsewhere:
Win32 devlopment is a completely seperate market, since Win9X/NT are not
used to a great degree off the desktop (despite what M$ would like you to
believe). So if Sun is a little tardy with its Solaris implementations that
does not necessarily imply that they are not as concerned about Solaris as
they are about Win32. Also, Sun does not recieve nearly as much feed back
based on their Solaris implementation as they do on their Win32
implemention. Because of this your claim is a little misguided.
> > It would be a complete knock off of Java.
>
>I'd probably like it. I just don't think it's realistic to expect Sun
>to come up with something like that. Why would they compete against
>themselves? :-)
I don't either. That is why I'm opening this up and looking at alternatives.
When I say "creating competition for Java" in no way do I imply that Sun
would maintain two versions of Java (Java(c)(tm) and Java???). The
competition would come from the efforts of a non-profit group of individuals
under a license similar to the GPL.
>Please note, that 1.1 is quite an improvement over 1.0. Would that
>count as an evolutionary step from Sun?
Java 1.0 was a fun toy. Java 1.1 was a useful tool. Java 2 is a platform.
> > But the development of the platform is completly under Sun's terms and
>thus
> > we don't have the freedom that most would like to have.
>
>You do make a point here. Fortunately, if I understood it well, one
>can always market an alternative under a different name, so I still
>don't have a problem with Sun holding the control over Java. I mean,
>they do deserve to get their investment back, after all...
I agree as well that they are acting within their rights and fairly. But yet
you, once again, can not expect a corporation to develop a product as
revolutionary as Java under the terms that we would like. So that is why it
is important that we either take Java away from Sun or make our own Java.
>Most probably, with a more nautral subject, nobody would
>misunderstand your intentions.
I agree, my first post was a late night flurry of emotion after hearing
about Sun and ISO.
> > > > There is currently
> > > > nothing like Java out there and this is not only dangerous
> > >Why is it dangerous?
> >
> > Because if Java becomes *the* platform Sun will become Microsoft.
>
>This is where we disagree. One of the main reasons for the success of
>Java is that it's clean, nice, comes with a lot of fully documented
>libraries (even in source) and platform independent. That's why J++
>has failed (at least I think it failed). If Sun would try to change
>Java into something closed and proprietary, they would loose all they
>worked for for years - the people wouldn't allow being fooled into
>something like that *again* (the first time M$ did it). I don't think
>they can afford it.
The platform could never become a proprietary monster like the Windows APIs,
but like I've said before their intentions will *always* be tainted.
> > Java is
> > fundamentally different platform, it is like nothing else that has ever
>been
> > created. Because of this it is somewhat nieve to think that it will not
>be
> > replaced by a second generation technology or at least experience some
> > competition.
>
>I don't think so. I just think that Sun can't push Javas' evolution
>very fast.
I'm not looking for any changes in Java. I just want to insure that the
world will not be run by a platform controlled by a corporation in ten
years.
>As we've learned from another post in this thread, Sun already made
>a proposal for the only extension for which you said "yes" and I said
>"not sure" (generic programing)...
I am glade to see this, but as I said in another post I believe it is too
little to late. They already provided us with the new collections API as an
alternative.
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