Sun plans to make Java Enterprise System available as an open-source product. “That will define us as a company truly committed to open source,” Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun, told InformationWeek.
Sun Plans To Make Java Enterprise System Open-Source
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Eugenia Loli
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From Top to Bottom, Sun is committed to open source. I can’t say the same about IBM, which loves having an open source operating system and closed source middleware and hardware. Seems like the only reason why they support open source is that Microsoft was eating IBM’s lunch. Anyways, good job Sun!
We all know SUN’s definition of the term open source contradicts the philosophies and ethics of the free and open-source software movements. Up until right now, they considered Java to be an open source framework.
Sun stretches and breaks the definition of Open Source all the time. Either way, if the FSF, OpenBSD and Debian don’t put their stamp on it, it’s probably not a good license.
Dear Sun Computing:
This is an open letter from a Java lover. Please free Java all the way and allow it to be internationaly standardized and available without strings attached following a license similar to the GPL so it can be legally included in a linux distribution without having to install it separately.
How long must we wait for Java to be completely free?
Your fan,
-mark
“Either way, if the FSF, OpenBSD and Debian don’t put their stamp on it, it’s probably not a good license”
While the FSF and Debian might agree on what a good software license is I think that OpenBSD and the FSF would disagree completely. FSF claims that the BSD license is not Free as in speech since it can be altered without requiring the source to be released while GPL software cannot be released under a BSD style license (BSD software however can be relicenced under the GPL).
> Either way, if the FSF, OpenBSD and Debian don’t put their stamp on it, it’s probably not a good license.
Debian, FSF and OpenBSD do not speak for the entire open source community. They speak for the radical fringe (that also happens to be the most vocal ones). I really hope they form their own community and only allow people in if they recite the GNU Manifesto by heart and sing the Free-software-song (http://www.gnu.org/music/free-software-song.html)
that a good news for java developpers
Just curious but those people who are for Open Sourcing Java, what are your arguments? So far I am not aware of any good that might come out of open sourcing Java. Thanks in advance.
PS – All you people who think this is a troll, or a flamebait please this is not. I am just ignorant about this situation and would like to be enlightened.
Sun can put it’s vanguard of zealots out there and say whatever they want about their support of open source, but the simple fact is Java is what people want open and Sun hasn’t opened Java. They can release 1000 open source products based on Java, but if their is no open compatible JVM then it doesn’t mean anything.
Hardware and software platform portability comes to mind. A language like Python makes Java’s “write once run anywhere” mantra look like a joke.
We all know SUN’s definition of the term open source contradicts the philosophies and ethics of the free and open-source software movements. Up until right now, they considered Java to be an open source framework.
Just because Sun’s definition of open source does not conform, does not mean it isn’t. Look at the word itself “OPEN” “SOURCE”. Meaning the source is open to the public. Java has been for quite some time and more so recently.
Compare Java to .NET for example, I would consider Java open source to .NET. People are bitching because they cannot include the JRE into Linux distros. Big freaking deal. Go download it. This extremely insignificant minut problem is totally acceptable to keep from Java from forking. But you wouldn’t understand things like this.
God,
It’s surprising what the name java can do to masses. JES is Sun’s rebranded iMS (iPlanet Suite) of messaging and collaboration servers [ including web, identity, messaging, calendar, portal, im etc.]. It traces it roots back to PMDF and iPlanet/Netscape days.
We run JES iMS 6.2 on our systems. It is by far one of the most stable and promising MTA’s of our time. In fact, I’ve done an installation which scaled close to 750k users. Many universites and ISP’s run JES. This would also include Sun JES Webserver or legacy Netscape Enterprise Servers which are terrific!
People, this is not Java.
Compare Java to .NET for example, I would consider Java open source to .NET. People are bitching because they cannot include the JRE into Linux distros.
Mono is a free implementation of .NET. Furthermore, Microsoft isn’t making any blatant claims as to their unrivalled contributions to open source and whatnot. They aren’t also deluding themselves and others into thinking .NET is an open source platform when it isn’t. Microsoft doesn’t display a mutiple personality disorder with regards to free and open-source software development. Excpecting me to anticipate the liberation of .NET is like expecting to hope Longhorn will be free software. I know it’s not going to happen anytime soon and most importantly, Microsoft isn’t teasing or mocking my expectations.
This extremely insignificant minut problem is totally acceptable to keep from Java from forking.
There are already several forked implementations of Java, both free and otherwise. Take a look at what made all the most used languages today successful, and you’d realize SUN is doing everything to make Java a failure. When was the last time you had to agree to a silly license to use C, C++ for development, or to run a C, C++ program.
But it never dawns on SUN until they are almost sinking. If they believe so much in their old ways, why are they attempting to open source Solaris? Oh, yeah, that’s right, Linux was stealing their thunder. So may be it will take a massive exodus to Mono, Python or Ruby before SUN wakes up to reality. The exodus is already happening. There’s beginning to be less and less reasons to use Java, with the free alternatives around.
This parallel comparing Java portability to Python is just dumb — Java is not a scripting language!
That’s irrelevant, Python and Java both share similar feature sets and problem-solving domains
May be the next thing you’re going to say is that bash scripts are more portable than Java??!
Bash, can’t be compared to Java because they don’t share similar feature set nor problem-solving domains
Java executed the promise of WORA extremely well regardless what clueless morons tell you.
Sure, for the limited software and hardware platforms SUN chooses to support.
> So may be it will take a massive exodus to Mono, Python or Ruby before SUN wakes up to reality. The exodus is already happening. There’s beginning to be less and less reasons to use Java, with the free alternatives around.
Oh please, don’t kid yourself with this. Java is more popular than ever and is growing more in popularity. It is the .Net/C# nonsense that is slowing down, just check the numbers. C# hype is going away and so will interest in all the Mono junk. The gap between the number of Java and .Net/C# jobs on the market widened more than ever — there are twice as many Java jobs than C#. And considering Mono, Python, and Ruby as Java replacements is absolutely laughable and is saying only one thing — you have absolutely no idea how software development works in enterprise. Mono, Python, and Ruby may be fine on tiny trinket projects, but they’re absolutely unsuitable for any largescale developement. Also consider that enterprise generally look for a unified development platform and you will understand why neither Mono nor Python/Ruby have absolutely no chance. Java is too good to be replaced with something else.
> It’s surprising what the name java can do to masses. JES is Sun’s rebranded iMS (iPlanet Suite) of messaging and collaboration servers [ including web, identity, messaging, calendar, portal, im etc.]. It traces it roots back to PMDF and iPlanet/Netscape days.
It is true that Java Enterprise System is not 100% Java, but most parts of the entire JES stack are indeed Java. Lets see:
– Application Server – 100% Java
– Portal Server – 100% Java
– Identity Server – 100% Java
– Access Manager – 100% Java
– Web Server – not Java but embeds a very good Java servlet/JSP container
– Messaging/Calendar Server – not Java at the core, but some parts such as UWC are Java.
– Directory Server – not Java, but has some Java bits and pieces.
> FSF claims that the BSD license is not Free as in speech
> since it can be altered without requiring the source to be
> released
Wrong.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
> Python and Java both share similar feature sets and problem-solving domains
Same problem solving domains? What are smoking? Python is a scripting/glue language, which just like any other scripting language is targetted at integration and not development per se. Java on the other hand is more of a system language that can be used more lower level purposes, such as building a runtime for Python (Jython) or implementing a database or a web server. When Python is used to create runtimes or to implement an application server or windowing toolkit, please let me know. You *can not* use Python in place of Java, they are different tools for fundamentally different purposes.
I agree Java is great for large scale “enterprise” development, primarily because it has better and well established tools. However, the majority of software development aren’t large scale “enterprise” deployments, they are tiny trinket projects, like you termed them. Large scale “enterprise” development is a niche arena. And therein lies the problem with Java. SUN is content with niche markets. In fact, they have a sick obsession with them.
They did the same with Solaris, until Linux almost rendered it irrelevant. The Solaris zealots mocked Linux years ago the same way you mock Python and company. Solaris was the “enterprise” OS, just as today Java is the “enterprise” platform. It won’t be before long before people begin to realize appending the word “enterprise” to anything is a buzzword for corporate consumption, generated by marketing droids.
Just curious but those people who are for Open Sourcing Java, what are your arguments? So far I am not aware of any good that might come out of open sourcing Java. Thanks in advance.
The same question could have been asked about Apache, Linux, *BSD, Solaris itself (is being open sourced)…as well as Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice, and Eclipse.
Pearl and Python are the closest examples for open sourcing a programming language…though they have always been open. Only a few non-standards based closed programming languages have been sucessful…and they tend to go away after a while.
You should be able to instantly figure out the reasons why the open source projects mentioned above benifit from being open source. The question to you is:
What makes Java such an unusual case that it would not benifit?
Personally, I’m frustrated with Sun over Java. Yes, Microsoft tried the ’embrace and extinguish’ tactic with Java. At the time, pummeling Microsoft in the courts was a good idea. Since then, there must have been a way to write up an open source licnce for Java that would prevent Microsoft from pulling the same tricks. In either case, Microsoft is now on the whole CLR/C#/.Net band waggon.
“Mono is a free implementation of .NET.”
No it isn’t. Mono is a VM, a C# implementation, and a few tidbits more. It has no license from Microsoft, either, and is riding on Microsoft’s current state of ambivalence.
Microsoft _does_ protray multiple personality disorder, BTW. They standardized C# and a few trivial things while doing nothing with the rest of the platform. This is great marketing by Microsoft, which sucks in huge masses of gullible .NET developers the world over.
Compare Java to .NET for example, I would consider Java open source to .NET. People are bitching because they cannot include the JRE into Linux distros. Big freaking deal. Go download it. This extremely insignificant minut problem is totally acceptable to keep from Java from forking. But you wouldn’t understand things like this.
Forking is a non-issue. Projects fork all the time, and usually the better fork ends up winning — a good thing.
If you mean ‘multiple incompatable forks’, that too is a non-issue. Yes, Microsoft tried it and the licence Sun used at the time protected Java from abuse. Guess what?
1. MS won’t try it again — they aren’t motivated to.
2. Multiple (or any) incompatable forks are rare. Here’s proof;
* Python hasn’t forked.
* Perl hasn’t forked.
Same problem solving domains? What are smoking? Python is a scripting/glue language, which just like any other scripting language is targetted at integration and not development per se.
That’s funny.
Java on the other hand is more of a system language that can be used more lower level purposes, such as building a runtime for Python (Jython) or implementing a database or a web server.
http://www.zope.org/
When Python is used to create runtimes or to implement an application server or windowing toolkit, please let me know. You *can not* use Python in place of Java, they are different tools for fundamentally different purposes.
Python is already been used for all those. Do a google when you have time.
> Large scale “enterprise” development is a niche arena.
Enterprise development is a niche arena? Ha ha, dude you should seriously lay off that crack pipe! As a take-home example example consider this, IBM generates half of its 90+ billion dollar revenue every year from services, which come from “large scale enterprise development” engagements. That’s one hell of a niche market I have to say and that is just for one company. Put simply, enterprise market is where the money is and this is where most of the commercial vendors are with the exception of small fish catering to SOHO’s and SMB’s. Wake up and read something more credible than brainfarts from slashdot hippies.
> Python is already been used for all those. Do a google when you have time.
It looks like you know just as little about Python as about Java or anything else for that matter. There are no runtimes for other languages written in Python and never will be. As for windowing toolkits Python relies on external toolkits via bindings to do the job (Tk, wxPython, Qt, GTK+, etc.) and doesn’t have a toolkit in Python. Your scant reference to Zope as an example of an application server is also wrong — even though Zope people call it an application server, the more appropriate name for it is probably a content framework — Zope needs services of Apache or other web server to fully function, therefore it is not an application server in its own right. Zope is a content management server and it is a stretch calling it an application server. Zope is seriously deficient compared to any Java application server out there even to be put in the same category. Bottom line, don’t put Java and Python in the same category, they are just different tools.
I’ll take the brainfarts from slashdot anyday to your “credible” and “substantiated” osnews comment. At least slashdotters know Python is more than just a scripting language.
It looks like you know just as little about Python as about Java or anything else for that matter. There are no runtimes for other languages written in Python and never will be. As for windowing toolkits Python relies on external toolkits via bindings to do the job (Tk, wxPython, Qt, GTK+, etc.) and doesn’t have a toolkit in Python.
I don’t know any runtime written in Java. Last I checked Java’s runtine was written in C, the same language Python’s is written in. And your windowing toolkit criteria for determining a programming language is hilarious to say the least. It’s not like Java’s windowing toolkit is examplary.
Your scant reference to Zope as an example of an application server is also wrong — even though Zope people call it an application server, the more appropriate name for it is probably a content framework — Zope needs services of Apache or other web server to fully function, therefore it is not an application server in its own right.
Haha, yeah, that’s why I’m running it here without apache.
Zope is seriously deficient compared to any Java application server out there even to be put in the same category.
How, ironic, last time I tried running a JSP, I needed Tomcat and Apache. Heck you don’t even need Python for web applications or services. Ever heard of LAMP? How about Javascript, DHTML and XML? No, but in your enterprised brainwashed world, Java is all there is to web applications, right?
Bottom line, don’t put Java and Python in the same category, they are just different tools.
Says the boy who knows nothing about Python.
Jeez, sorry I have to spell this out for your dumb ass. As an example there are runtimes written in pure Java for Python (Jython), Ruby (JRuby), Tcl (jacl), JavaScript (Rhino), Smalltalk (Bistro), etc. Java as a runtime can be an underlying environment even for Python itself, just look at Jython. I guess the confusion comes from the fact that a lot of people think of Java just as a language forgetting how capable the runtime is.
Ma bad Prof, apparently you haven’t heard of Pypy.
http://codespeak.net/pypy/
LAMP falls far short of of what Java application servers have been offering for years. LAMP is good for small web projects, but it can not be used as a real platform for enterprise infrastructure. Get a clue, may be you’ll get a real job outside of your small LAMP world.
Mantras of the corporate drone. Get out in the real world and see how many businesses use LAMP, as opposed to our overengineered expensive proprietary Java “enterprise” products.
Tomcat does not rely on Apache to run JSP/Servlets, it is a standalone JSP/Servlet container. Remember Tomcat is not an application server either, it is just a JSP/Servlet container, so don’t strain yourself trying to compare Tomcat to Zope. If you wan’t an example of an application server just check with Bea WebLogic, IBM WebSphere or Sun JES Application Server. Sorry dude, you’re just to clueless to have any intelligent conversation.
And you are too clueful to understand that 90% of the web services market don’t need WebSphere WebLogic, JBoss and company, well, except you are a bank with money to squander to begin with. After you are done climaxing over marketing literature, perhaps you’d get it into your thick skull that the people who demand these services represent a niche of the entire web market.
Thanks for the post Anon…I can see where you are coming from. But surely its not that Sun has done a bad job with Java have they? Java is popular for that very reason isnt it? I mean compared to Python, not a lot of people have heard of it or even used it in their professional lives. I just fail to see Python and Java being compared ya know? I have programmed with Python before while I did enjoy programming in it and it is a fun language to learn, I just dont cant completely see Java and Python being the same scenarios calling for Open Sourcing. Sorry.
Oh please, don’t kid yourself with this. Java is more popular than ever and is growing more in popularity. It is the .Net/C# nonsense that is slowing down, just check the numbers. C# hype is going away and so will interest in all the Mono junk
YOU really need to stop kidding yourself. Java may not be dissapearing tommorow, but being in a position where I hear people tell me a lot about what it is they are trying to do, and what projects on the horizon interest them, I think I’m fairly qualified to say that at least in my area Java is established to the point where it’s not growing at a noticable pace and alternatives are.
Mono is gaining in acceptance very rapidly on Linux, and at some point I think GNOME is going to settle on a higher level language, at this point I would think most people would feel more comfortable with a community branch off of the C# spec a la mono than Sun’s Java, if for nothing else than the fact that open source developers don’t want to be told by some company that they can only run their software on an architecture approved by Sun. Python and Perl come on every major distro of Linux I can think of…on the other hand I wouldn’t even know where to look to get a Linux distro that came with Java, so as long as Linux is gaining developers that want to create programs that are compatible with most Linux machines you will see python and perl’s popularity grow.
As far as saying that mono, perl, and python are kids toys…your either stupid or just being a dick. Perl and Python are certainly not toys. Perl is holding a good portion of the web together, whereas python is holding a good many Linux distro together, if they are toys, then why is Java/C/C++ not being used in place of them. Mono and .Net are fairly comparable and there are many people who make a living off of developing .Net applications, are these people getting paid to play with toys all day? Why is Novell/Ximian beginning to use mono for parts of evolution if it’s a toy…..what a stupid comment.
I have no problem with Java technically speaking, not that I see a real technical advantage for using Java over Mono, but I simply don’t trust a company as two faced as Sun or their language under the license it is currently under. If GNOME for instance decided to use Java for everything tommorow, and a year from now Sun decided they would like it if Sun could run GNOME and Linux couldn’t, they could simply stop distributing the JVM for Linux, and voila GNOME wouldn’t run on Linux. This is the same type of fear I have for any program I or anyone else develops in Java.
So when Sun says they are open sourcing all this Java “crap”, that’s great…tommorow Sun can not distribute their JVM and then I can read all the source code I want, but it doesn’t make a damn of a difference, because I can’t run it.
“If GNOME for instance decided to use Java for everything tommorow, and a year from now Sun decided they would like it if Sun could run GNOME and Linux couldn’t, they could simply stop distributing the JVM for Linux, and voila GNOME wouldn’t run on Linux. This is the same type of fear I have for any program I or anyone else develops in Java.”
What?!? First, Sun has no rights over IBM/Apple/etc’s JVMs. They are licensed derivatives of Sun’s JVM. Secondly, if Gnome does choose to go with Java in the future, they would not use Sun’s JVM, they would proably opt for an opensource Ahead-Of-Time compiler such as GCJ. Third, MS could kill the C#/CLR ECMA standards any time they want. Then what will Mono do?
A guy from IBM told me once that you cannot understand the moves of IBM if you forget that the B comes from Business.
SUN is a Business, and, if they consider GPLing Java could result in a loss of their market they wouldn’t do it. It doesn’t matter if they are willing to.
Nevermind. The big move here is this one: THOUSANDS od MILIONS of industrial code lines are writen in Java. If Java becomes Open Source, you can free all the stack. So more governments can make their moves to the Open Software prerrogative in their contracts. Any big government project will have now an Open Source IBM and an Open Source Sun bassed solution. So they can choose.
If they can choose, they can make Open Source imperative in any contract they do.
I think this is a huge switch in favor of Open Source.
> Perl and Python are certainly not toys. Perl is holding a good portion of the web together, whereas python is holding a good many Linux distro together, if they are toys, then why is Java/C/C++ not being used in place of them.
I think you missed the point pretty much entirely. No one said Perl and Python are toy languages, they are just not suitable for large projects and lack many features and API’s that would otherwise make them suitable for enterprise class work. I love Python and I use it very often (I have a few full blown database front-end applications written in Jython in my everyday DBA toolkit). Point is both Java and Python are just tools that should be used for their intended purpose and not be raised to a level of some stupid religious war. Python will never be able to replace Java, just as Java won’t replace Python — they are different tools for different tasks. Leave Python and other scripting languages for infrastructure and integration work and use Java and other strongly typed languages for product development — this is how it worked for years and I don’t see it changing in any way.
> And you are too clueful to understand that 90% of the web services market don’t need WebSphere WebLogic, JBoss and company, well, except you are a bank with money to squander to begin with.
Why do you get an impression that J2EE platform should cost you an arm and a leg? J2EE solutions can be just as cheap as LAMP (free and open source). The beauty of J2EE platform is that there is such a huge variety of vendors supporting it, so you can choose from whole spectrum of solutions (price and feature wise) and migrate from one to another pretty much pain free. J2EE is much more mature, feature rich and easier to develop for than LAMP unless you talk about the smallest of the applications. You have an entire industry behind you if you develop for J2EE, with LAMP you’re pretty much on your own relying on public forums to solve your problems.
Your first comment spelled out the situation very clearly and succinctly. I am sure that JES is a very capable product. I am also certain that if it is made ‘open source’, whatever that means when Sun uses that terminology, that many people will benefit from it. But JES like Looking Glass like OOo are all dependent upon Java-and unless you are using a Sun approved platform you are just ****-out-of-luck.
Sun’s commitment to ‘open source’ means opening up the code of the OS itself, Solaris, and that of some applications(JES, OOo, etc.). But what makes Sun Sun is Java- and Java is middleware-between the OS and the applications. By keeping Java propietary Sun effectively ensures the community is always dependent upon Sun. And exactly this kind of dependency is why ‘community’ is such a difficult word when talking about Sun.
The whole point of FOSS is about liberating the toolchain used in the development of applications. Free(unfettered) access to the toolchain is far more valuable than any enduser application-whether personal or ‘enterprise’. With Sun there is no Open Source toolchain. If Sun would open up there toolchain people would be praising Sun left and right-but as it stands the one valid response is ‘so what-oh great you have given us yet another thing dependent upon that big *one* thing which you won’t open up’.
That said I do not wish to diminish the significance of open sourcing JES for those organizations already using JES- for them it nothing short of a godsend. I expect people extend IBM such good will on these issues because noone ever expected IBM to be the great open source benefactor-IBM was once synonymous with all that was propietary in the computing world-they were an *evil* monopoly before Microsoft was even thought of. IBM makes in excess of $1,000,000,000 per year in patent licenses alone. IBM is embracing open source where it makes sense for them *and* for the community. They aren’t out there ranting about how they are the greatest contributors to Open Source-IBM is walking the walk- Sun is talking the talk. Sun would like us to believe that they were always about open source but Sun wouldn’t understand the spirit of FOSS if you beat them round the head with a two-by-four.
Sun -if you love Java, set it free
>>Debian, FSF and OpenBSD do not speak for the entire open
>>source community. They speak for the radical fringe (that
>>also happens to be the most vocal ones). I really hope
>>they form their own community and only allow people in if
>>they recite the GNU Manifesto by heart and sing the
>>Free-software-song
You do know that they have their own movement? Its older then the Open Source movement and goes by the name Free Software movement. And about half of the so called >>Open Source<< guys are actually >>Free Software<< guys. Personally I think that the FSF is right that there is a moral issue attached to software licensing, and I always thought that the OSI went about it the wrong way by allowing such a licensing chaos to develop. Now they realize that and want to minimize the amount of licenses, you will see that the sane licensing subset is the subset that the FSF, Debian and so on are advocating.
Python and Java are just languages. You could implement a Java interpreter using a GCJ for example.
The only real differences in the languages are that Python is Dynamic and Java is strictly typed. These attributes make them applicable to overlapping tasks but you would not write an OS in Python but you can and an OS is being written in Java. If you want to create something quickly you would choose Python over Java. Etc, etc.
You are missing the point here.
The reason Sun is opening up their Java Enterprise System Suite is because they are loosing market share to other development platforms ie. IBM Websphere, Bea Weblogic and Jboss.
No one or hardly anyone other than Sun’s customers use SJES, so they are loosing market share as well as services opportunity.
Look at the business point of view not the crap that Sun spills forth from their a**. They are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They are doing this to gain market share.
Cheers.
Same old, same old…
If at least SUN was a stable company but this way I keep thinking on every of their moves: what Microsoft tries to do now…
it goes to be the worse mistake that Sun goes to make
BTW: JES is included in the free Solaris 10 download ^_^
Works great.
Making it open source will only make it better.
From Top to Bottom, Sun is committed to open source. I can’t say the same about IBM, which loves having an open source operating system and closed source middleware and hardware. Seems like the only reason why they support open source is that Microsoft was eating IBM’s lunch. Anyways, good job Sun!
IBM have their share of free software as well. How about Eclipse, Cloudscape, various xml libraries, jikes. The nice thing about IBM is that when they do decide to opensource something, they do it.
The Sun public board meetings, where each executive share their view with the public in various blogs and webpages before we can get a final decision only hurts Sun credability. It hurs them regardless you like free software or not.
IBM only really sees GNU/linux and Open Source as a way to sell their products. As mentioned before, they are a business. The money is made in selling the hardware, servicing the hardware, and then selling software to enhance their hardware. Despite their large financial support of GNU/linux, they still are in the corporate mindset of turning the largest profit possible. The billion or so dollars spent on promoting GNU/linux will be made up in the sales of their hardware/software. I would expect Sun to do the same. Don’t let your expectations get carried away about their acceptance of Open Source.
From the article:
“Of the million Solaris open-source licenses, Sun believes two-thirds were downloaded for use on non-Sun equipment.”
That’s factually incorrect. There is no OpenSolaris release yet. There is a Solaris 10 release, but that’s not open source for all I can tell from the download page.
cheers,
dalibor topic
Wow, and suddenly for the first time we will see an open source messaging/calendar server that’s 99.9% compatible with Exchange, as well as a directory server sporting full Active Directory integration (which hopefully NDS will support as well on Linux, but it won’t be open source afaik)
Perhaps people should realize what a gift this is before they badmouth it… and the CDDL is no less “open source” than Firefox or Mozilla…
It is allways fun to read the comments from the OSS zealots, but enough reading I just want to point out a few things:
Q: When saying Java isn’t open source, people are normally complaining about Sun’s Reference Implementation of Java. It is not open source correct, but why does it need to be ?
A: All the specs are freely available so the oss people can just go ahead and create their own clean room implementaion. There is not really a need for some RI too be free if the specs are free.
Q: If they can do that (just like with C#) why hasn’t OSS people done it ?
A: They have tried. gcj, caffee, classpath and others are projects that is trying to create a clean room implementation. But in my opinion they so far has FAILED. So far they only contain a subset of the functionality in Java2 SE. This despite they have had many years to complete the work, and despite SUN’s previous commitment to only release major upgrades every 18 month (so that big coorps should race to update all the time)
The current level of support might be good enough for politically active oss zealots to a bunch of programs working, but real java developers won’t touch it since it is not fully compliant and there is a free as in beer RI we can use.
Just as sysadmins won’t install a webserver that only support 30% of what HTTP dictates.
Q: Why have OSS people failed.
A: my guess is that the people using java doesn’t really care about the finer politics of FOSS. They want a non-forking compliant java, and they want to stay current. so they haven’t botherred with the OSS stuff. The politically active zealots for open souring java has apparently been unable to put their money where their mouth is and contribute!! to gcj,caffe,classpath
If all people complaining here was on the contributer lists the projects would be fully functional and we wouldn’t have this debate. SO get Coding!!
Q: I don’t care about the political stuff, I just want to help fix bugs in the current Reference Implementation, that is one of the benifits of OSS.
A: You allready can:see https://mustang.dev.java.net/collaborate.html and
https://mustang.dev.java.net/example-contribution.html
Statement: Sun’s open source is not real open source.
A: Sun has recently got the CDDL certified by OSI (Open Source Initiative), so that license is as Open source as it gets. It is an MPL based license with a few things cleared up.
The license is allready being used for OpenSolaris, and I think they will use it for this too.
Q: When saying Java isn’t open source, people are normally complaining about Sun’s Reference Implementation of Java. It is not open source correct, but why does it need to be ?
A: All the specs are freely available so the oss people can just go ahead and create their own clean room implementaion. There is not really a need for some RI too be free if the specs are free.
So why not point us at those specs? I can’t seem to find them on Sun’s website. Also, you should point out that if you don’t pass the TCK, Sun can you sue for patent infringement for the patents it holds on Java.
Q: If they can do that (just like with C#) why hasn’t OSS people done it ?
A: They have tried. gcj, caffee, classpath and others are projects that is trying to create a clean room implementation. But in my opinion they so far has FAILED. So far they only contain a subset of the functionality in Java2 SE. This despite they have had many years to complete the work, and despite SUN’s previous commitment to only release major upgrades every 18 month (so that big coorps should race to update all the time)
The current level of support might be good enough for politically active oss zealots to a bunch of programs working, but real java developers won’t touch it since it is not fully compliant and there is a free as in beer RI we can use.
Just as sysadmins won’t install a webserver that only support 30% of what HTTP dictates.
They’ve failed because they haven’t finished yet? And who are “real java developers”? Eclipse works on GCJ and Classpath, does that mean that Eclipse developers aren’t “real java developers”?
Q: Why have OSS people failed.
A: my guess is that the people using java doesn’t really care about the finer politics of FOSS. They want a non-forking compliant java, and they want to stay current. so they haven’t botherred with the OSS stuff. The politically active zealots for open souring java has apparently been unable to put their money where their mouth is and contribute!! to gcj,caffe,classpath
If all people complaining here was on the contributer lists the projects would be fully functional and we wouldn’t have this debate. SO get Coding!!
So when did they fail? Or is that just your (extremely misinformed) opinion?
Q: I don’t care about the political stuff, I just want to help fix bugs in the current Reference Implementation, that is one of the benifits of OSS.
A: You allready can:see https://mustang.dev.java.net/collaborate.html and
https://mustang.dev.java.net/example-contribution.html
Except Mustang isn’t the reference implementation of anything yet. Come back when you can point all that out for Java 1.4 and 5.
You’re kinda funny, you disparage other people’s inprogress work and throw out a bunch of flames and still manage to provide no real content.
“So why not point us at those specs? I can’t seem to find them on Sun’s website.”
All the Java API documentation is at http://java/sun.com . There are also two well-written books specifying the JVM and the Java language. One is called “The Java Language Specification.” The other is called “The Java Virtual Machine Specification.”
That should be http://java.sun.com
> And about half of the so called >>Open Source<< guys are actually >>Free Software<< guys.
B.S.!!! 95% of the open source guys came from MIT, Berkeley, CMU, NCSA, UCLA, USC, UCSB, U of Waterloo. – none of them have released GPL software. So stop equating FSF/Debian and the open source movement. Back when RMS announced GPL/FSF, there was already a ton of open source software floating around – perhaps you should check out the timestamps on http://ftp.lcs.mit.edu or athena.mit.ed or csrg.ucb.edu – there’s literally millions of lines of code that doesn’t have anything to do with GPL. If you were working in labs at university back in the mid-late 80s (sigh, I’m showing my age), you didn’t freaking need GPL or FSF – we got source to everything. I don’t know why RMS didn’t get the specs to his Xerox printers – but maybe he was an a**hole and didn’t know how to ask nicely. We got full register specs for things like IBM’s MegaPixel graphics cards, we got full register specs and control codes for Apple Laserwriters and believe me IBM and Apple were more protective of stuff than Xerox was. Sun gave us lots of code as well – full kernel source code for their Sun/350s
RMS created the aura of GPL and has been on a “self promotional” jihad since the early days. Man you should have seen his comments when we suggested that Backspace actually deletes a character in emacs rather than the Delete key. It’s more natural to use BS rather than Delete. He went ballistic and started to give us a “religious” reason why BS shouldn’t be used. Early emacs was crappola (yah I’m a vi bigot so-sue-me) – it only got better with Xemacs (and all of you know that story of RMS and JWZ).
More “open source” software has been written outside GPL – case in point, Sun has contributed more free software than FSF – Debian is just a repackager – they didn’t write ONE single app except for apt-get – big-f*cking-deal – there’s a million packaging systems around – nothing earthshattering.
“Sun has contributed more free software than FSF”
More so after OpenSolaris ships. Much more so if the Open Source JES ships. If Sun adds an Open Source database like they talked about recently, there might not be any closed source software shipping on Sun’s servers after a year or two.
All the transparency of OSS with the long-term stability Sun is known for. That is something I’m looking forward to.
All the Java API documentation is at http://java/sun.com .
The API documentation isn’t a spec. There are many, many different places where things aren’t specified. Like, for example, a JButton’s label can have embedded HTML which is supposed to be rendered. Where is it specified what HTML should be accepted? Fact is, there is no complete JVM available which is not based on Sun’s class libraries. Every single non-Sun JVM is still based on Sun’s licensed code.
And the Java Language Specification book was released years ago. Point me to the class file specification for Java 5. You’ll find it doesn’t exist.
Java supporters really need to face up to the fact that Java is a one shop show right now. I personally don’t care if they open source it or not, but to call it an “open specification” is a joke. There is no specification available.
Dude, I was talking about people and about their attitude not software. And I said Free Software licenses not GPL, MIT/X and BSD (3 and 2 clausal) are Free Software licenses too. The FSF has a long list of acceptable Free Software license, and yes Debian is just a repackager, but they do have a strict licensing policy and DON’T always agree with the FSF.
I don’t really care about if SUN was a nice guy back in 85 or if Apple gave you specs. Ask NVIDIA now and you get squat. Times have changed. I do believe that the GPL is the majority license now (not necessarily absolute majority).
And about Debian not writing code, well they have written lots of infrastructure for their distro other then apt-get (installer, synaptic…) so saying they wrote ONE app is an understatement. About sun releasing lot o nice Free Software, when was this? OO.o was bought from another company and released after they had lost their market share anyway. Open Solaris doesn’t exist yet, and is under a license incompatible with Linux and the BSDs. Project Looking Glass is only open since Sun didn’t plan to do anything big with it (have you heard something big from it lately). Suns Java Enterprise System probably felt the heat from JBoos and co. Face it SUN is an opportunist and uses source releases only for marketing purposes.
Get over it, big companies aren’t nice guys.
Forgot a NOW after my first sentence there.
And the Java Language Specification book was released years ago. Point me to the class file specification for Java 5. You’ll find it doesn’t exist.
believe it is available here: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/ClassFile.do…
So why not point us at those specs? I can’t seem to find them on Sun’s website. Also, you should point out that if you don’t pass the TCK, Sun can you sue for patent infringement for the patents it holds on Java.
here you go: http://www.jcp.org/en/home/index
Except Mustang isn’t the reference implementation of anything yet. Come back when you can point all that out for Java 1.4 and 5.
Mustang will afaik be 5.1 or 6.0, depending on the plans. I don’t think they will do it for 1.4 though, only the currrent in development version.