...rather "What can Java do for Linux?" Dick's mini rant about the poor adoption of Java RIAs on Linux got me thinking.
Here's a few of the reasons I think that riastats reflects poorly on Linux for Java RIA support. 1. Open source (GPL) != Linux. It's not the Linux community's job to figure out what to do with it. Maybe the GNU Foundation should be figuring out what to do with it instead? Hell, why not Mac users? They have plenty of GPL code available for their platform. So do Windows users. You can't just dump out a bunch of code and expect magic to happen all of a sudden. What was Sun's strategy for open sourcing Java. Was it simply to entice Linux developers to write RIAs with it? I don't think so. 2. Flash and Adobe have a higher reputation in the Linux development community. When Sun specifically skips Linux support for JavaFX development with not even beta support, what exactly do you expect the Linux community's reaction to be? And then to make condescending remarks mocking the inevitable reaction of said Linux users..."OMG! Why R U L1NUX H8RS! U R teh suck!" Yeah... Four months later, I'm laughing on the inside. 3. Web stats may show 96% of OS X users with Java support because Apple users get it whether they want it or not, but are said OS X users actually using it? Or is it just taking up space on their hard drives? Linux users generally tend to install only what they need. And this may sound harsh, but maybe most Linux users don't really have a need to install Java because most sites they visit don't use Java for RIAs. 4. icedtea6 is still very buggy, especially it's java web start support. 5. More browser options on Linux may mean poor integration with Java. 6. Swing doesn't integrate well or even necessarily play nice with many desktops... Heck, every Java application I run on my desktop (Xfce) or via web start still defaults to Metal look and feel with non- anti-aliased graphics and no OpenGL or XRender pipeline. So Swing is less than slow. That's not going to earn Java any reputation points in the speed or beautry department on Linux. Either Sun needs to help icedtea get up to speed faster or they need to polish up their own JDK to work better on a wider range of Linux desktops, turn on Nimbus by default, improve the OpenGL pipeline, integrate the XRender pipeline, better anti-aliasing detection and so on. I love Linux and I love Java, I just have never understood how the two really fit together in a complimentary way. My Java apps pretty much tend to play in their own sandbox with no real interaction with my Linux desktop. And my Linux apps don't really know how to play in a Java world. However, I'd love to hear of someone's vision of how the two can live happily ever after and what needs to happen for that to occur specifically on Linux. Java is the king of Linux servers, now how about support for the Java desktop and Java RIA space on Linux already? Maybe getting rid of Swing and adopting an LGPL version of Qt Jambi would be in order for icedtea? It could certainly help it's adoption in KDE... but then again KDE != Linux either.... maybe Dick should be yelling at the KDE guys.... Python, Ruby and Javascript support for writing plasmoids on KDE, but no Java support? Hmm, why could that be? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
