I wonder if you have read through the license agreement
accompanying J2SDK 1.4. It is quite stupifying. The relevant clauses are
copy-pasted below
..................................................JAVA(TM) 2 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KIT (J2SDK), STANDARD EDITION, VERSION 1.4.X SUPPLEMENTAL LICENSE TERMS
................................................
5. Notice of Automatic Software Updates from Sun. You acknowledge that the Software may automatically download, install, and execute applets, applications, software extensions, and updated versions of the Software from Sun ("Software Updates"), which may require you to accept updated terms and conditions for installation. If additional terms and conditions are not presented on installation, the Software Updates will be considered part of the Software and subject to the terms and conditions of the Agreement.6. Notice of Automatic Downloads. You acknowledge that, by your use of the Software and/or by requesting services that require use of the Software, the Software may automatically download, install, and execute software applications from sources other than Sun ("Other Software"). Sun makes no representations of a relationship of any kind to licensors of Other Software. TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL SUN OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT OR DATA, OR FOR SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, HOWEVER CAUSED REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE OTHER SOFTWARE, EVEN IF SUN HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
So by clause 5 any applet, application or any
such software may be downloaded and installed on my (or my clients' machine)
maybe without any information and there is no guarantee as to whether
the said software is coming from Sun Microsystems or not.
And Sun Microsystems washes its hand of any damage
that may occur due to such downloaded software.
For more than three years now I have been an enthusiastic and die-hard advocate of Java. It has been my good fortune to be able to explore its several programming paradigms. However seeing this license agreement I am suddenly not so sure anymore. Through this license agreement Sun Microsystems is asking me to implicitly give over the control of my machine (and more importantly, the control of my clients' machines) entirely to the Java SDK. So what am I to tell my clients when J2SDK (inadvertently, or not) downloads software and wrecks his/her enterprise solution ? That I sold them a bill of goods in the form of J2SDK? And Sun Microsystems explicitly absolves itself of any liabilities, leaving me to hold the baby.
Sorry, folks at the Sun, this won't do. Whatever be your percieved reasons they do not have even a leg to stand on. And to be honest, with this event, I have started switching to other languages (yes, even C#, since it now has the Mono port on Linux).
So what is the answer, my friends? Ostrich syndrome won't help. I hope someone from Sun Microsystems will sit up and take notice. It is the developers who made Java and Sun Microsystems what it is today. Unlike Microsoft it does not have vast financial resources accruing from a monopolistic product line. So such one-sided agreements imposed on developers may just result in the death of Java as a commercial language and delegate it to the dustbin of history as a language used only by the academic world, to teach advanced OOP concepts.
May I have the views of interested developers?
Sebu T. Koleth
