Mike Ajemian wrote:
> My opinions are based on years of working in the industry and being
> involved in discussions involving brand representation and issues of
> brand dilution. To me, Inprise had no incentive to involve blackdown
> in their release, so they didn't involve blackdown. If my opinions
> are wrong, I'm more than happy to admit it and learn from my
> mistake(s).
Well, there doesn't seem to be any dispute that Inprise contacted
Blackdown repeatedly and was ignored. And, last I checked, Java is not
an Inprise brand. Why would Inprise even care? When you've got a truly
unique contribution, like TowerJ's Java execution environment, branding
matters. But, calling on your years of branding experience, please tell
me why the hell anyone (especially a company that doesn't sell hardware,
for which it might actually matter) would want to brand a JDK port.
I'm sorry you object to the term "conspiracy theory", but one of my
criteria for using the term is when I see motives being assigned that
make absolutely no sense. What's the sense of branding a JDK port? If
Inprise wants to offer real support to its customers, it can do so just
as well with code written by "hobbyists" - companies like Red Hat and
LinuxCare have built thriving businesses on that model.
Let me suggest a motive that makes sense. Inprise makes IDEs. IDEs
include debuggers. The Inprise debugger, like most JDK1.2 debuggers,
requires the Java Platform Debugging Architecture (JPDA). Blackdown has
never delivered JPDA... even the pending Blackdown JDK1.2.2 doesn't have
it. Connect the dots.
Nathan
>
> Don't believe I mentioned the word conspiracy or even tried to
> represent any argument as such. Amazed at how the responses have
> represented the "crackpot" perspective so quickly. I don't believe
> Sun and Inprise conspired to block blackdown out. I think Inprise
> wants it's own presence for its own jdk. Period. They made a
> business decision to "roll their own" rather than pursue a
> collaborative relationship with the individuals who had written the
> code that Inprise was basing their jdk upon. Not Inprise-blackdown,
> but Inprise. Simply that Inprise doesn't want to dilute their brand,
> especially with the market, which might view an association with
> blackdown as a liability (being composed of, as you stated in an
> earlier posting, "volunteers".)
>
> To strengthen this argument, look at the perception of the public to a
> little company named RedHat. They went from giving away software, to
> charging for free software. The public went from skeptical when the
> software was free, to supportive/enthusiastic/euphoric when the
> software cost money and they offered a plan to support the software.
> Blackdown gives away software and is viewed as a collective of
> hobbyists. That's bad from the financial and business perspective
> where the question invariably is raised as to "who will support the
> software when we need a fix and the person that wrote the code is one
> of the hobbyists". I don't think Inprise wanted to ever have to field
> that question. I could be wrong, but if I am, I'd like to know why.
>
> My opinions are based on years of working in the industry and being
> involved in discussions involving brand representation and issues of
> brand dilution. To me, Inprise had no incentive to involve blackdown
> in their release, so they didn't involve blackdown. If my opinions
> are wrong, I'm more than happy to admit it and learn from my
> mistake(s). Just somebody point out the facts so I can understand.
> But calling my arguments or the arguments of others "conspiracy
> theory" does nothing to further discussion on the matters at hand.
>
> > The thing that is funny for me is that you, and other people on this
> > list, refer to who works in Inprise or other companies like we are not
> > part of the Linux community.
>
> Never said you weren't part of the linux community. My raising issue
> with you means that you're a peer in this community. If I felt
> otherwise I would let you know directly.
>
> Would appreciate it if you would consider addressing my main point,
> which is that fracturing the development efforts is divisive and in
> the long run potentially more harmful to the future of java on Linux.
> You have an opinion on that, I'd like to hear it. To me, the prospect
> of collaboration was worth more than a couple of phone calls.
>
> cheers,
> Mike
>
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