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On Sun, Sep 10, 2000 at 06:11:21PM -0700, Nathan Meyers wrote:
> Christopher Smith wrote:
> > - From Sun's perspective there would also be benefits: lower development
> > costs, better cross-platforms support on more platforms, better
> > reputation of stability for Java in general.
> And loss of control. For better or worse, Sun equates tight control
> of the spec and the sample implementation with its business
> success. I have yet to see any compelling case that they're wrong,
> or that they could run a business the size of JavaSoft on an open
> source model. It's too bad they coopt the language of the open
> source community to describe their license - it creates erroneous
> expectations and ill will - but I doubt anything's going to change
> anytime soon.
Actually, Sun themselves have already based their company on
non-proprietary technologies. C/C++ managed to make Sun quite rich
despite their lack of ownership. Similarly NFS. Heck, they even keep
the Sparc processor architecture open. I suspect the only reason they
are concerned about control of Java is because they fear
Microsoft. That's not a "customer driven" focus if you ask me.
> > Really, when you think about it it makes more sense for the JVM to be
> > open sourced than StarOffice.
>
> It does? Sun has built a serious business with Java. What kind of
> business is there in an office suite? StarOffice presents a great
> opportunity to challenge the Evil Empire on the desktop, but what
> company would be crazy enough to try to get rich doing it? Corel?
> What more need be said? Open-sourcing StarOffice was a good move -
> that is, if they manage to attract a critical mass of developers to
> make it fly.
Sun could, in theory, derive direct revenue from StarOffice (as
Microsoft still does from their office suite). They don't have a
similar model for Java. Additionally, StarOffice is not the kind of
tool that developers (the kind who can write office suites) slave over
on a daily basis: there aren't as many itches to scratch out there. I
suspect MOST of the itches that will get scratched will have to do
with MS Office interoperability (I know once the code is out there I'm
going to hack in a fix so that password-protected Word documents can
be read). Java on the other hand, (and particularly the JVM), is a
tool which is intimately tied to the software developer's day-to-day
activities. As a consequence, itches in the JVM would get scratched if
they could be. (I certainly would have worked on it by now if it had
been open sourced, particularly the window manager integration
issues... instead I've worked on Kaffe.)
- --Chris
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