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Not to bash house bricks, but I feel that making freedom Java VMs is like making anti-virus software for windows, but not fixing the security holes. Organisations like Open Office should know a lot better than to use Java, period. Especially considering it's primary platform, linux. It was a cop-out to meet deadlines and will probably plague the code base for years to come.

I really don't see your point. Plague with what?

Plague? Try the windows Java port. Installs a desktop icon, tray icon, startup item and infests your system AOL style. Java on OSX is transparent - as it should be, I refuse to run Java on my windows machine on the basis of arrogant practices by Sun.

[i]Try the windows Java port. Installs a desktop icon, tray icon, startup item and infests your system AOL style.[i]

It checks for updates, just like firefox. If you don't like that it's easy to turn off:
Control panel -> Java
-> select the update tab
-> unceck the "check for updates automatically" checkbox.

No conspiracy, just an update mechanism, just like Firefox.

You do realiase that Linux is likely not the primary platform for OpenOffice right ? It is much more likely that it is Solaris given that StarOffice which is based on OpenOffice comes as part of Solaris, and that a large percentage of the OpenOffice developers are still Sun employees and are using Solaris as the development platform.

Note I don't have any figures for this, but neither did you :-)

"Organisations like Open Office should know a lot better than to use Java, period. Especially considering it's primary platform, linux."

Sorry. Hate to burst your bubble. But Open Office's primary platform is Windows. Over 80% of OpenOffice.org downloads are for Windows.

Edited 2005-11-28 14:20

There are many better and more free alternatives: Erlang( http://www.erlang.org/ ) and Inferno/Limbo ( http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/net_download4T.html ) are the best even if not as well known as others like Python.

But is the erlang public license GPL compatible?
http://www.erlang.org/EPLICENSE

Those languages don't have any major commercial support. They don't have lots of documentation. They don't have people offering training in them, and very few exist who are. They don't have class libraries providing functionality equivalen to Java.

The technical merit of a computer language itself has never been the most important factor in the real world, and never will be.

So you just dream on, and I'll be using Java. Not because it's my favorite language, but because it's a real-world one.

More real than C?

"More real than C?"

Depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to have the most in demand programming skill that is the most likely to land you a decent and good paying developer job, then yes, Java is more real than C.

Yes, a good free java would help a lot. Gnu Classpath is geting there but GCJ and gij aren't that good, nobody installes Kaffe and I don't think most of the other VMs are worth it. I'm starting to think that the first good free java distribution will be IKVM + Jikes + Gnu Classpath on Mono.

> but GCJ and gij aren't that good,

The most GNU Classpath developer use
http://jamvm.sourceforge.net/
That is the reason, why more programs running on it then on any other free JVM.

What Java language spec dose the JVM spec 2 corospond with? (Sun's numbering for Java sucks 1.2 = 2, 1.5 = 5, what will 2.0 equal?)

CacaoVM has been doing some pretty interesting things recently, as well. Check the new release out on http://cacaojvm.org/ , it supports GNU Classpath 0.19, Java 1.5 features, a new vmgen based interpreter (i.e. really damn fast), and a speedy JIT on multiple platforms including powerpc, etc.

cheers,
dalibor topic

Come on, Sun has no problem with their JVM being distributed, the reason it's not is becuase of the GPL. Why should everybody change their licenses to accomodate the GPL?? ...Java is as open as it should be so just stop the whinning, Sun doesn't owe you or the world rights to their source code. If you dont like it then just DON'T USE IT, let the people who do use it be at peace. If you want Java on linux out of the box then just get a commercial distro like Mandriva since it looks like doing an apt-get java (or equivalent) on your system or simply getting the binary from sun (which I have done with every single distro I have tried without a hitch) is too hard for you.

It's rolling along nicely, with some major code contributions from IBM and Intel recently. See http://deltalabs.at/?q=node/40 for regular updates of ongoing development on Apache Harmony.

cheers,
dalibor topic

Java:==Freedom Fries.

So now FOSS has another reinvented wheel. Oh joy.

Now all we need to do is reinvent PDF, and Flash.

Well, if we were ahead, people would bitch about us breaking compatiblity, and destroying java, and what not. So what gives?

As for commercial relevance, you're entitled to your opinion. Being on the respective mailing lists shows a different picture:

It's a bit market, there is a niche for everything.

cheers,
dalibor topic

>>It would be like Microsoft offering .NET for linux - rendering Mono mostly useless.

Oh absolutely. Just like how Unix-on-Intel killed Linux.

> Oh absolutely. Just like how Unix-on-Intel
> killed Linux.

But until very recently, Unix on Intel was not something the average hobbiest could afford. And lets not forget that initial birth and growth of Linux was entirely due to hobbiests around the world.

The basic issue when it comes to Java is that most people don't care enough about the fact that it is not GPL to dedicate a lot of effort to producing a GPL version. It's free (as in free beer), it allows me to mofify the source code for internal use, or research purposes, and I can even contribute code back to Sun for inclusion in Java if I fix a bug or something. In addition, Sun is very good at conducting informal surveys and such basically asking the community "What do you want in this area of Java? How important are A, B, and C to you? How do you think we should handle issue D?"

In short, Java is open enough for the vast majority people. There is only a relatively small faction of people who are extreme enough to say "GPL or nothing".

The vast majority of people are quite happy with the Sun JRE / JDK. For an open source JRE / JDK to be accepted by most Java developers and the corporate Java users who have millions of dollars of business depending on their Java applications, it is going to have to be able to pass Sun's compatibility testing suite--a very tough trial indeed. Sun does offer free compatibility certification and testing to recognized open source organizations like the Apache project. So Harmony has a chance. But will it be able to attract a strong enough interest base of people who care enough to not just stick with the Sun JRE / JDK? That remains to be seen.

You seem to be bashing a strawman, here. GNU Classpath, Apache Harmony, Kaffe, and various other projects in that niche are far from being "GPL or nothing". GNU Classpath VMs exist in the whole wide licensing range going from zlib (IKVM), apache 2.0 (JCHVM), lgpl (sable vm), cpl (jikesrvm), to good old gpl (jamvm, cacao), and that's great, as it allows people to chose a VM for whatever licensing option they need.

As for passing the test suite, that should not be that hard, actually, as more and more applications work out of the box, meaning that the functionality provided by GNU Classpath meets the specs in those areas where it's implemented and extensively tested. Once any GNU Classpath using VM passes those tests, the floodgates are open for the other dozens of VMs using the same GNU Classpath class libraries to do the same, and earn the certification mark, should they so desire. Tweaking the VM to meet the specs is much easier than writing the whole huge class library from scratch, in my experience.

Regarding attracting huge corporate users, I think IBM's and Intel's contributions to Apache Harmony are a good sign of times to come.

I would not expect free runtimes to thrive in the same areas in which proprietary runtimes are available gratis as long as they are not obviously technically superior, but I'd expect them to thrive, prosper, and help create a market for runtime technology in those areas where current proprietary solutions are inadequate for various reasons (price, licensing, quality, availability, ...). That's the picture I see out there in the field, at least. The world is full of niches that proprietary runtime vendors can not fill, and may not have a business reason to do so.

cheers,
dalibor topic

Just waiting for a _useable_ plugin for Firefox so I can get my Yahoo fantasy sports stats! I am a Java developer (among other languages), but I think I could live with a subset of java, especially if JDBC support is present (I haven't checked). Most java applications in the business world are about moving data, so JDBC is imperative.

JDBC is nothing more than a set of interfaces so there really isn't anything to do to support it. All the work is done by the db vendors and that should, in theory, run on any jdk.

The term Free software is not Gratis only Software as is sun's jre or jdk

Free software is because it's great no to have any dependency of any kind and BE free to use the software the way you want.

THAT's very very important

"Free software is because it's great no to have any dependency of any kind and BE free to use the software the way you want.

THAT's very very important"

The only problem I have with this is that if ideology was as important as some say it is? Then the F/OSS community would have never even involved themselves with Java.* Walk the walk, and talk the talk and all that. But apparently the "community" wanted their cake and eat it too. In other words they wanted all the benifits of Java (and it's community), but didn't want the strings attached (like you all are just now discovering those). Hence here we now have the present situation of the ideologists trying to get what they want, and reinventing the wheel. The question at the end of the day is; will the pramatists be ahead of the ideologists when it comes to those metrics most use?

*Lord knows there's more than enough languages to pick from, and more created. Why did FOSS adopt Java again?

That's a nice attempt to frame the discussion, but unfortunately, the people you call ideologists are the ones pragmatically writing software that better suits their needs, rather than begging for bread crumbs.

Java is nice little language, with lots of nice free software written in it. Sort of how Unix is a nice little operating system, with lots of nice free software written in it.

Does in your system of thought the existance of Unix(TM) mean Darwin, OpenSolaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, Hurd, etc are all for ideologues alone, just because 90% of the world uses Microsoft Windows, and do you believe the remaining 10% should use a certified Unix, like all pragmatists supposedly do?

cheers,
dalibor topic

"That's a nice attempt to frame the discussion, but unfortunately, the people you call ideologists are the ones pragmatically writing software that better suits their needs, rather than begging for bread crumbs."

That doesn't change the "after the fact" nature of the ideologists complaints. The ideologists weren't somehow deceived into using Java then suddenly got the surprise of their lives. They willfully started using Java (and the Java terms back then weren't as "lenient") and then complained that the world doesn't go the way they think it should. Also your implication that pragmatists are "begging for bread crumbs" is false. It's the ideologists who are begging. Not for code they write, but for the Java world to be on their terms. Didn't work for MS. It will not work for the ideologists.

"Java is nice little language, with lots of nice free software written in it. Sort of how Unix is a nice little operating system, with lots of nice free software written in it. "

So basically the ideologists crowd wants to play with other people's toys, but not on their terms. Funny how when there's a GPL violation, it's "if you want to play with our toys, you have to play on our terms".

You seem to have a pretty mixed up sense of history of Java.

Historically, free runtimes have been around since 1996, so complaining about something being "after the fact" now means that you have failed to do your research properly. Kaffe was available on Linux, for example, a good deal of time before proprietary java runtimes were available for that platform.

I believe it's great that now people increasingly have a choice if they want to run proprietary software to do a job or not (or have a choice at all, on platforms where no financial incentive exists for a vendor to port a proprietary VM). You may disagree with that based on your own ideology, but there is little I or other people can do to change that, I'm afraid, other that to pragmatically work on improving the free software solutions until they are better than the non-free ones.

best of luck,
dalibor topic

However, I'm now of the mind that it doesn't really matter, because I've always been able to download the complete Java SDK 5.0 from Sun on any Linux box

There's two problems there. First, it won't work "on any Linux box", it'll only work on i586 and x64 linux boxes. Secondly, linux isn't the only thing people want to use on the server. I'd like to run java server apps on OpenBSD. The only way to support the different combinations of operating systems and platforms is to have something that everybody can compile for themselves.

"There's two problems there. First, it won't work "on any Linux box", it'll only work on i586 and x64 linux boxes. "

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/solaris_install.xml

"Secondly, linux isn't the only thing people want to use on the server. I'd like to run java server apps on OpenBSD."

http://www.freebsd.org/java/

FreeBSD does. I can't say if OpenBSD has any issues or not, but I do see posts on how to run Java on OpenBSD.

And if you don't like SUN's Java, then there's Blackdown's Java.

Quite frankly at this point, the whole discussion is about ideology for the sake of ideology. Not about "we can't get work done".

Just because your motivation is ideology, doesn't mean people you debate with are wrong ...

cheers,
dalibor topic

Bah, forgot the obligatory smiley ... here it is:

:)

cheers,
dalibor topic

Sure, but look at the details. The page says:
The current release of the JDK and JRE available via the FreeBSD Foundation is 1.3.1.
That's right. The FreeBSD had an agreement with Sun but at some point they were not able to negotiate a compromise anymore. Now FreeBSD is left with an obsolete version of Java and can't really do much about it until Sun mercifully allows them to sign another agreement. IMO, this is a great example of why having an open implementation of Java (or any other important technology for that matter) is quite important.

> That's right. The FreeBSD had an agreement with Sun
> but at some point they were not able to negotiate
> a compromise anymore. Now FreeBSD is left with
> an obsolete version of Java and can't really do
> much about it until Sun mercifully allows them to
> sign another agreement.

Please get your facts straight before you post FUD. FreeBSD and Sun have worked out their differences.

And second of all, FreeBSD is NOT stuck at 1.3.1. You can easily build a 1.5 JRE / JDK on FreeBSD from the ports tree. The only catch is you have to download the source tarball from Sun, and the source tarball for the patchset manually, and place them in the ports distfiles directory before you build the port the same way you build any other port on FreeBSD. After you do that, and start the port build process, you will have a working 1.5 JDK / JRE on your system. Since the preferred method of installing software on FreeBSD is to build it from the ports tree anyway, this is not exactly a big issue.

You can easily build a 1.5 JRE / JDK on FreeBSD from the ports tree.

May I refer you to:
The JDK 1.5.0 patchset for BSD is still under development and is currently considered BETA quality

And similar warnings go back all the way to 1.3.x. Until I can install a certified and up to date jvm using nothing more than the package tools for my operating system of choice (don't force me to use FreeBSD), it doesn't count. I'm not being idealogical here, it's purely a practical manner.

I do appreciate those links though, 'cause it's more than I knew about before. At some point I'd like to try hacking on Harmony though, and I wonder if getting too much exposure to the sun code would legally taint me :S.

Edited 2005-11-30 02:06

"Now FreeBSD is left with an obsolete version of Java and can't really do much about it until Sun mercifully allows them to sign another agreement. IMO, this is a great example of why having an open implementation of Java (or any other important technology for that matter) is quite important."

Well:

1) You missed the Blackdown reference.

2) The situation isn't as glum as you make it out to be. http://www.eyesbeyond.com/freebsddom/java/index.html

3) I hope that all Java ideologists aren't running their Nvidia or ATI cards with non-free drivers..

> There's two problems there. First, it won't work
> "on any Linux box", it'll only work on i586 and
> x64 linux boxes.

So then get a community source license from Sun and get to work. This is basically what the FreeBSD project does, and why, with only a small amount of effort, I can build a working Java 5 JDK on my FreeBSD box.