On May 6, 4:02 am, Lloyd Meinholz <[email protected]> wrote: > These are mean as honest questions, I'm not trying to nit-pick here... > > Why didn't Sun provide a JDK for MacOSX like it (eventually) did for Windows > and Linux? Did Apple take the lead because they thought they would provide > the best LOF for the graphical parts, because Sun didn't have the extra > resources, both or some other reason? > > I guess if you prefered netbeans or IntelliJ the Swing issue might be a > bigger deal. > > Lloyd
It's very simple ... so simple, really. It's because it wasn't Sun's job to provide the Java port for every last computer and operating system architecture in existence. The model was for each computer maker to license Java, and each one would take care of the port for their own platform. Hence, IBM takes care of the Java port for their various platforms ... SGI take..er..if SGI were still existing that is, they would take care of their port ... HP takes care of their port ... etc. Microsoft was initially taking care of their port to Windows but then proved (yet again) that making a deal with Microsoft is rather like dancing with a black widow spider. You would think losing a $2billion judgement woulda taught them a lesson. Apple has been doing a Java port since the early days way before this modern version of Mac OS that we all love. You know, the old one, the MacOS with (ahem) "cooperative multitasking" ... Really - who would you want to port Java to a given OS? The owner of that OS who theoretically knows everything there is? Or the outsider 3rd party? Who is most incentivized to make Java work well on each OS? Actually that's a tricky question. You might say Sun woulda been more incentivized so that the Java ecosystem would be stronger. On the other hand why would Sun want to help a competitor have a stronger stack to compete against? The vendor of the other OS should be incentivized to have a strong Java on their platform. Maybe. Or maybe they see a strong Java as feeding Sun. A third model that's now possible because of OpenJDK is for all the vendors to collaborate together on the OpenJDK and sharing the portation work within OpenJDK. Such as the model followed in the gcc project. - David Herron http://davidherron.com -- 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.
