Now that Java has a fully open sourced implementation in RedHat's IcedTea, Neil McAllister questions whether an open Java even matters: "Even as Java has stretched outward to embrace more concepts and technologies - adding APIs and language features as it goes - newer, more lightweight tools have appeared that do most of what Java aims to do. And they often do it better."
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Member since:
2007-07-13
> Additionally, it's currently the only serious free software competitor to .NET
Actually, according to TIOBE:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
Neither C#.Net nor VB has the pervasiveness of Java (despite what Microsoft marketing would like you to believe). There's a fair bit of VB out there but even Microsoft would consider it 'legacy' for the most part (most new .NET stuff seems to be C#).
Java may not always be the best tool for the job, but it is a tool that can do almost any job. If you only felt like learning one programming language to be your 'swiss army knife' then Java should be the one (and perhaps C as number two for dealing with hardware).
Back on the topic proper. It is great Sun's Java implementation is 100% free/libre. That removes a whole bunch of risk using it in free software projects. I hope that the Free Software movement adopts it for use, instead of clunky and fragile scripted messes, or cobbled together native libraries with wildly diverging design philosophies.