On Jan 24, 3:00 pm, mikaelgrev <[email protected]> wrote:
> Because OS X is now big enough to be self sustaining and don't need
> Java anymore. Therefore Sun should take over the port, just as they do
> for another similar self sustaining platform, Windows. OS X is now
> some seven time larger than Linux on the Desktop, yet Sun is caring
> for Linux, but not OS X. Strange business to me.
>
> Cheers,
> Mikael
The reason Sun "took over the port" for Windows is because Microsoft
broke the license agreement and wouldn't cooperate with Sun on the
terms of the contract. Hence Sun was forced into taking over
producing the Windows port if Java were to credibly remain as a cross
platform software development platform. I am reasonably sure, having
been in the JavaSE through 90% of that era, that if Microsoft had
cooperated with Sun and abided by the terms of the contracts and
licenses, that they would have continued in the role of providing the
Java port for Windows. But they didn't.
Apple for all their other warts has cooperated with Sun and has abided
by the terms of the contracts and licenses.
>From my view the reason Sun would provide a Linux port of Java is that
Linux is a very important server platform. Hence for Java to have a
reasonable presence in server side deployments it's necessary to have
a Linux port.
Casper Bang wrote: "But obviously they also have to prioritize, it's
not like all is rosy on Linux either where we're still waiting for
JavaFX support and proper browser support. "
Casper.. yes on the JavaFX and I believe there will be JavaFX-for-
Linux officially before too long. Perhaps the JavaOne target date.
However "proper browser support"??? Can you explain? If your Java
comes from the JDK's then the normal plugin is available, if you're on
32-bit Linux. But even on Windows there isn't a 64-bit plugin. Also
IIRC Flash doesn't have a 64-bit plugin either. If your Java comes
from OpenJDK/IcedTea, well, unfortunately Sun's plugin wasn't open
sourced and cannot be included in an OpenJDK build. That left the
IcedTea guys with developing an alternative one derived from the
GCJWebPlugin. However there are two sides of improvement coming
soon. The new plugin is in 64-bit 6u12 bundles and will be on the 64-
bit Linux JDK's, the FCS date for 6u12 is "soon". The second is that
Joe Darcy recently announced on an openjdk mailing list that agreement
had been made internally to open source the new plugin. I don't know
what the target date is for actually releasing the open sourced
version of the new plugin however an obvious date would be JavaOne.
Reinier Zwitserloot asked: "So why have they outsourced (and continue
to keep the status quo) in regards to apple maintaining the JVM on
apple?" -- well, again, it's not an outsourcing, it's a technology
licensing deal. Apple licenses technology from Sun.
Clearly there's some truth to your later assertions... Mac is a
smaller target market etc. Apple began doing Java for Mac before OS
X, recall, as it was also on OS9 and prior releases (MRJ).
Do you expect Sun to do the Java port for IBM's various operating
systems? Or to HP-UX? Or to Irix? Or do you expect Sun to provide
the Java implementation used by BEA or SAP? No. So then why do you
expect Sun to do the Java port for Mac OS X? Or, for that matter, why
do you expect Sun to do the port to Windows? How would Sun pay for
all that effort to port to so many platforms? Porting does not come
for free, especially the QA of the ports.
By the time I joined Sun (in the 1.1.8 timeframe) the pattern had
already been set in place. Licensees make contracts with Sun for
whatever business pursuit they're aiming to do, such as IBM and their
ports to their various OS's.
Perhaps with the OpenJDK project the pattern could be changed. But
there's a lot of license based entanglements and contracts to unravel
and new agreements to forge to make that happen.
"I'm guessing that, with the openjdk and people like Landon Fuller
proving the usefulness of open sourcing java to sun, they (correctly,
in my opinion) assume that there isn't much value in spending the
resources. Sure, openjdk is just now becoming feasible, and the java-
on-os x situation has been a bit sour for a year or two now, but sun
knew all about open sourcing java 2 years ago. Business-wise, its all
sorts of sensible. "
Huh? First, Landon Fuller's SoyLatte project was not using an open
source version of Java. It used the JRL source tree's. While the JRL
is a liberal license it is not an open source license. It took a fair
bit of internal legal work to get agreements in place so that his work
could be laundered into the OpenJDK. That work is coming in through
the OpenJDK BSD-PORT project.
Second, the SoyLatte project happened AFTER the OpenJDK project was
launched.
How I take the SoyLatte project is more that it waved before Apples
nose the seriousness with which OS X using Java programmers want the
Java implementation to be kept up-to-date. I'm not sure what it
proved to Sun, however.
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