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That's why .net will keep one ( two, three...) steps ahead java. Instead of joining forces to consolidate one strong platform, the open source community forks another one.

As I understand things, Java was around years before .Net, and the fact that a bunch of people decided to go about cloning it, regurgitating a lot of Microsoft's marketing material in the process, is neither here nor there. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say there.

Now that Sun's Java has been open sourced, I would expect more code to be shared and brought together over time.

Then what do you call the Mono project? Personally, I call it a clone of .net.

Yep, a justified one, because microsoft doesn't do linux versions of it. IMO, the community should join forces with sun, not fork it.

As I understand it, it's written from scratch and not a fork of anything, least of all Sun's source.

>IMO, the community should join forces with sun, not fork it.

This can be done as soon as Sun releases Java as Free Software. They are on the way but haven't arrived yet. GNU Classpath has already said that they will work together with Sun. I don't know what the Apache guys planing to do.

The irony of this statement is profound. By your reasoning, Microsoft should've joined forces with Sun to consolidate on one strong platform, instead of creating their own clone of the technology.

Your desire to ascribe this tendency to open source is laughable. Despite all the duplication of effort that exists in the open source world, it'll never compare to the commercial world in the area of how deeply they are infected with NIH-syndrome.

But Microsoft did their own proprietary Windows-only 'fork' of the JVM, which led them into a court settlement with Sun (and big mentions in Thomas P. Jackson's antitrust findings of fact), which led them to .NET.

Actually, .NET wasn't the result of the JVM trademark issue - thats what it was actually about, the continued to call their implementation "100% Java" when it failed to conform to the specifications needed to be able to use the name Java, 100% Java and other marketing things - they would have been quite ok had they never called it Java - if they called it "Cappacino 1.4" - and it just so happen to run Java applets, Sun couldn't have done a thing.

Oh, and as a side issue, Microsoft was developing what we know as .NET, back then it was code named "Cool" - it was a rumoured technology, but only really gained ground with the whole trademark suite.

What needs to be said is this; Microsoft didn't extend their implementation of JVM; there are many J2EE implementations out there which support the J2EE specification and extend it further with vendor enhancements (these enhancements are submitted to the JCP process, but due to the nature of it, it takes a long time). The issue was over the fact that they replaced Java specification components with incompatible Microsoft components.

Had they conformed to the Java specification and provided those "Windows Services" under an extension framework, they would have been within the confines of the agreement, and the whole hoo-haa would never have occured.

Edited 2007-05-07 02:27

MS JVM was very fast (about 3 times faster
in some operations then Sun JVM). I regret
that MS was made to stop this project.

I don't regret it. They have to learn what the word "standard" mean.

Anyway, that was before Java got JIT compiled, if I rememember correctly. The speeds then and now just cannot be compared.

All software that worked on Sun JVM 1.1 also
worked on MS JVM. MS JVM used JIT. I compared
last MS JVM speed with Sun JVM 1.4 -- MS JVM
was much faster, because MS-implemented
many library functions much more efficiently .
The MS extensions were very useful -- convenient
way to call Win32 API functions and ability
to write ActiveX's in java.

>The MS extensions were very useful

And of course, some MS extensions were *incompatible* with the normal Java, locking you on 'MS Java' except if your were *very* careful, which is consistent with MS philosophy to 'embrace, extend, extinguish' any non-MS standard.

> is just the way that the open source community thinks.
> "Naaaa i prefer it my way, let me show how to write a
> word processor..."

The alternative would be:

"Yeaaaa, I'll do stuff someone (usually a company) who makes money with it tells me to do, not even closely the way I would do it, without caring for it or having fun doing it, and without any payment, just for the sake of driving some other competing company out of business. yawn."

Dude, just shut up and start setting a good example for the bullshit you preach, and ask RedHat or Novell if you can "join forces" with them and what you can do for them for free.

I seriously expect your reports here (or you can contact me privately) how you realized your magnificent idea in practice and where you managed to push the open source movement forward. Good luck.