Submitted by The cat is out of the bag: Java will be released under the GPL. Joshua Marinacci writes: “I think it makes a lot of sense because it protects Sun’s interest in preventing forks and also the community’s interest in knowing that Java will forever be available in the public sphere. The GPL has always provided an option to fork just in case someone takes the code in a bad direction. Historically having this option available ensures that it never needs to actually be used, letting the community grow and thrive.”
This is excellent news which will shake the grounds in much of the IT industry. Congratulations, Sun!
I never thought I’d live to see the day I’d say “Java is free software”. Congratulations to the free software community and SUN.
Now that java is GPL’d, doesn’t this mean that Sun must release all of their IP related to Java into public domain?
AFAIK the answer would be no. GPL != public domain, but better ask a lawyer.
AFAIK the answer would be no. GPL != public domain, but better ask a lawyer.
Yeah, you’re right. With GPL they just released IP for free for those that will use java under rules of that license. It is simply a promise “not to sue” users that use GPL version.
Patents are still valid for commercial customers.
Would be nicer if they would step in as OIN member, and even nicer if Linux protection OIN provides so far would extend to OpenSolaris too. So far OIN was a bit too Linux centric in my opinion (although I’m a linux user, I still say there is more to free software than just linux).
Edited 2006-11-13 09:43
From GPL section 7: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/info/GPLv2.html
“For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.”
In patents alone, search the uspto.gov database for “Sun Microsystems” and “Java” returns 4185 results: http://snipurl.com/120sr
Granted not all of them would apply to the same code that is distributed here under GPL, but I think there is a section of the GPL that covers dependencies/libraries etc. as well.
In 04, when MS gave Sun 1.9 billion dollars: http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3334991 $900 million of that was for “patent issues”.
I find it hard to believe none of the software they released under GPL is covered by any of their patents, so without an open agreement to use these patents I am not sure they are really able to distribute under GPL unless them doing so implies full royalty-free rights to these patents.
Maybe the FOSS community should be asking Sun these questions. I wonder if groklaw is up to the task.
Under the GPL Sun has in effect given royalty-free rights to the patents in respect to their use in the GPL version of Java, nothing else. If you want to use those patents in your own non-GPL program it’s business as usual.
Is this actually true?
I thought that GPL was a copyright license. Not a patent license. As such the patent thing is just a requirement on the licensee. Not SUN (the licenser), because they, um, own the copyright.
//Is this actually true? //
Yes, it is actually true.
The GPL grants a royalty-free license to use the software.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16477&comment_id=181710
//I thought that GPL was a copyright license. Not a patent license. As such the patent thing is just a requirement on the licensee. Not SUN (the licenser), because they, um, own the copyright.//
No. As the GPL itself says, the GPL grants anyone and everyone a royalty-free license to use the software.
Quoted from the text of the GPL:
“Such a (GPL) notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein.”
Edited 2006-11-14 05:57
Where on earth did you get that absurd idea?
Because the patents and IP must be royalty-free for all users of the GPL software in order to comply with the GPL.
The GPL only says this is required to comply with GPL, but that section of the GPL does not automatically mean all the patents/IP are royalty-free for users of the GPL software and I have yet to see anything in writing from Sun saying it is.
//The GPL only says this is required to comply with GPL, but that section of the GPL does not automatically mean all the patents/IP are royalty-free for users of the GPL software and I have yet to see anything in writing from Sun saying it is.//
If Sun release Java under the GPL v2, then the first parts of the GPL say this:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt
“1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”.”
“Royalty-free” says Sun may not charge anyone (that is, any member of the public) a royalty fee (provided that the recipient of the software uses it under the terms of the GPL).
If another company wants to use Java but release it as a closed-source derivative application, then they must obtain Java from Sun under a different license. Sun may then charge that company for using Java under those different license terms. In this way (often called dual-licensing) Sun may charge a royalty fee to that user of Java.
Edited 2006-11-13 10:22
And this from the Preamble, which reinforces your point:
“Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all.”
So if MS were to charge someone money for IP, knowing in advance that it would be released under GPL, would that IP then fall under these same open terms as the Java patents mentioned in this thread?
Say for instance I am a Linux distributer, and MS sues me, I pay them $X but they agree to continue letting me distribute my offending software under the terms of the GPL. Would they, by these terms not be permitted to bring that same case against other users of the same GPL software?
But you are leading yourself into a circular argument: “Because the patents and IP must be royalty-free for all users of the GPL software in order to comply with the GPL” One can only distribute software under the GPL if it follows its rules – which grants right to use patented technology that might be present in the software. SUN chose the GPL. By this act they granted those rights. No separate declaration is needed. IMHO, IANAL of course.
//Now that java is GPL’d, doesn’t this mean that Sun must release all of their IP related to Java into public domain?//
No. Java is copyright Sun. It remains copyright Sun.
Putting something under the GPL license is not public domain. Far from it.
Under the law, copyright holders get to state the terms under which others may (or may not) copy their works. This is the whole meaning of “copyright”.
The terms that Sun have now decided for Java are explained in a document called the “GPL license”. Those terms included the most important one, which is that no-one may redistribute a version or derivative of this Sun Java code without making the source code of that version or derivative also come under the GPL.
Edited 2006-11-13 10:00
I think that is why it took so long for them to decide… But I believe that when they finally chose the GPL, they accepted it’s now famous (thanks to Novell-MS deal) section 7. Which means that there is no need to grant free use of the java related patents separately.
Terminology: I think I know what you mean, but public domain is not the right term. What this move means is that anyone is free to use java related IP – whatever that may be – as long as they distribute their work under the terms of the GPL. If they moved their IP to the public domain (I don’t know how they can do that btw), than anyone may be allowed to use it, regardless of the license they chose (and they could even use that IP – or patented technology – in closed source proprietary software with MS-like EULAs).
IANAL of course, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe that once they chose the GPL, JAVA related IP became a non-issue.
What if I release this GPL software (Java) downstream and it uses these patents? Is that OK? probably yes.
What if I fork java and name it something else, and make changes? Is my use of the patents still OK? Probably Yes.
What if I write my own GPL project and it uses these patents? Is this OK? This is where it starts to get foggy.
As long as they can still say how not to use their patents, they still have some control over how the code is used.
At what point does my project become “separate project” and not just a “fork”?
You see, without Sun going into specific detail on the usage of the patents that cover this software, there is really no way to know unless of couse this is covered specificially in the GPL itself.
This is what I believe section 7 is for, but as I stated earlier, I am not so sure that releasing under the GPL automaticially means:
“All patents pertaining to this software are now open for use by any other GPL software, even if not by this source specifically”
I think the GPL only states, if it can’t be passed downstream royalty-free, that it can’t be released under GPL, which isn’t the same thing.
Edited 2006-11-13 10:19
//unless of couse this is covered specificially in the GPL itself. //
It is.
The first section of the GPL says that anyone may use the work royalty-free, as long as they keep their use of the work in compliance with the GPL.
Keeping the work in compliance with the GPL means keeping the source code open and available.
That means in effect that the only parties that can be charged a royalty for use of Java (once it is placed under the GPL) are those who wish to use a version of Java in a closed-source application.
Your question is legitimate, and I can understand the confusion – but it doesn’t matter how many derivations you have. GPL is a self-perpetuating license. You can start from SUN’s GPLed codebase, and trough extensive modifications you may end up with an entirely different product. When your code becomes an entirely separate project, the problem resolves itself automatically if you come to think of it
And we end up with another circular argument 
Because if you come up with an entirely separate project, it may no longer have any methods/algorithms patented by SUN 
Remember, patents don’t cover specific implementations, they cover ideas and methods, in rather vague terms.
Otherwise, what hal2k1 wrote above.
Now that java will be released under the GPL, where are all the linux zealots always bashing Sun ?
They are busy bashing Novell.
ROFLMAO!!
I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t, but I’m going to mod you up for my first laugh of the morning!
Is it really necessary to lash out at the free software community everytime?
It is an irony that you mention zealots… you mean the folks who criticized SUN (or “bashed” in your terminology) because the license of JAVA was not free enough and GPL compatible? Well, they are probably opening champaignes
)
Stop labelling everyone who happens to like – or God forbid, be enthusiastic about – the free software movement.
It is an irony that you mention zealots… you mean the folks who criticized SUN (or “bashed” in your terminology) because the license of JAVA was not free enough and GPL compatible?
He may be speaking of all the zealots that bashed Sun but not IBM over their implementation of JAVA. Now that Sun has released almost everything under a GPL/LGPL license, will those same “folks” finally “criticize” IBM for not releasing their software (like Notes client, Domino server, Websphere, etc.) under an open source license?
“””Now that java will be released under the GPL, where are all the linux zealots always bashing Sun ?”””
I’d say I’m still in shock. 😉
Actually, I learned my lesson when they open sourced Solaris. I spent the better part of a year posting about how they’d never do it… that when they released anything at all it would be under one of their Community Source Look But Don’t Touch licenses.
I was wrong. Some people latched onto the fact that the license was not GPL compatible, but I always felt that was really too much to expect. The fact of the matter is that CDDL is an OSS license and I commend Sun for their actions.
I care less about Java than Solaris. But releasing Java as OSS, under the GPL no less, is uber-cool and gets Sun a lot of respect from me.
I expect that we’ll see less Sun bashing from here on out. Of course, it helped a lot when Scott (Flame Bait) McNealy stepped down. Not that I didn’t like the guy, but he *was* a bit of a lightning rod.
Now that java will be released under the GPL, where are all the linux zealots always bashing Sun ?
Hell froze over, so they are trying to come to terms with the fact that Sun isn’t the big bad meanie as they all thought.
Others in the community have discovered that Sun is a little schizophrenic in their public PR, but they mean well.
Besides, as stated earlier in this thread, Novell is the current Judas.
“””Hell froze over, so they are trying to come to terms with the fact that Sun isn’t the big bad meanie as they all thought.
Others in the community have discovered that Sun is a little schizophrenic in their public PR, but they mean well.
Besides, as stated earlier in this thread, Novell is the current Judas.”””
You go, girl!!! 😉
Sun’s stock may take a hit (was the sudden drop on last Friday related to this?), and I am going to buy some cheap today. My wishful thinking anyway 😉
May I recommend RedHat’s stock instead? While they are still cheap…
Hint: they might have bought Jboss for a reason
It also seems that their fierce response to the Novell-Microsoft deal and their confidence wasn’t hot air after all. Bye-bye Mono… and perhaps Novell.
This is HUGE btw… Must read blog (Alan Hargreaves):
http://blogs.sun.com/tpenta/entry/today‘s_java_announcement
Hmm, I buy SUNW not because they opensource Java (which may actually hurt the stock in the short term), but because I like all the innovation and hard work they put into technologies and I believe their vision will lead to profitability. But of course this is an extrememly competitive industry so it’s difficult to predict even the nearest future.
RHAT was probably over-sold upon the Oracle news, so I kinda agree it’s still “cheap”. You sound like you know something more than that though. JBoss? How would it make a big difference?
Alan’s blog is informative.
All links in this blog are worth reading:
http://blogs.sun.com/dlacher/entry/open_source_java
I found
Java going GPL will have a huge impact on the market – and apart from SUN, RH has the most to gain out of this, because they purchased Jboss, an open source Java EE-based application server. I don’t know the direct impact, but indirectly, this is bad news for the .NET initiative, and bad news for Novell (because they invested too much in Mono).
I’m just beginning to learn something about the way the stock market works – but I just know enough not to invest in any tech company… you really really have to know what you are doing if you do so. But if you do it because SUN or RH is sympathique, that’s fine. The future of RH seems to be a lot brighter than a week ago. Probably SUN’s too – but there are risks as well (if you follow some of the links from Alan’s post, you can read about them). But still, I’m optimistic about both companies.
If you check RH’s stock, their price should be around 25. [edit: now it’s aroun 16] Now Oracle’s announcment coupled with Novell hurt them badly, but you can bet that they will capitalize on this news, especially with their investment in jboss. So confidence should return steadily in the next few weeks/months – at least that is what common sense dictates. I can well imagine a 10-15% growth in three months, which is not bad
But this is speculation on my part, with very little experience about the stock market. In fact, I have no real-life experience (as in investing real money) yet… I want to play it safe, and to do so, I have a lot to learn (and practice with fictional money – as in pretending that I have X $ invested, buying and selling, and seeing what would happen).
Edited 2006-11-13 14:34
But this is speculation on my part, with very little experience about the stock market. In fact, I have no real-life experience (as in investing real money) yet… I want to play it safe, and to do so, I have a lot to learn (and practice with fictional money – as in pretending that I have X $ invested, buying and selling, and seeing what would happen).
And then you’ll beat yourself on the head if 3 months down the line you see RHAT trading for $40
Did I offend someone in my post? Was this comment off-topic? Did it contain spam/advertisements?
Congrats for modding me down
>because it protects Sun’s interest in preventing forks
Is it true? Does GPL protect from forks?
Yes, it indeed prevents “COMMERCIAL” forks.
Microsoft, just for example, wont’t be able to use this code to improve their .NET stack without having to release their own code as GPL.
Of course Mono won’t have the same restrictions as it already is GPLd. But again, any modifications or improvements added to the code, will eventually come back to the Java source… so everybody wins.
My guess is that Sun picked GPL just to be protected from Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” tatics.
Of course Mono won’t have the same restrictions as it already is GPLd. But again, any modifications or improvements added to the code, will eventually come back to the Java source… so everybody wins.
No, mono is LGPL, so I don’t think they simply add GPL code without changing the licensing, since that would effectively alter Sun’s licensing to the lesser GPL. Maybe the classpath exception impacts that, not too sure. More significantly, Novell requires copyright assignment for all contributions because they reserve the right to license mono under alternative licensing, so I doubt we’ll be seeing Sun-owned GPL Java code finding it’s way into mono anytime soon.
My guess is that Sun picked GPL just to be protected from Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” tatics.
Sun was already protected thanks to a court ruling over the game MS tried to play with their not-quite-Java-compatible JVM. I think the choice for GPL was simply responsive to the fact that Java is established in the linux world and this opens up greater opportunities, without sacrificing their control any more than similar OSS licenses would.
//Is it true? Does GPL protect from forks?//
Not directly.
However, software released under the GPL must remain under the GPL. Software under the GPL is developed via a “meritocracy”. There is often very little incentive to make a fork.
As the opening comment says: “The GPL has always provided an option to fork just in case someone takes the code in a bad direction. Historically having this option available ensures that it never needs to actually be used, letting the community grow and thrive.”
Edited 2006-11-13 10:00
Any license that protected the project from forks could not be open source by OSI definition. That is the whole point of open source. The Apache project is an example of how to avoid (not protect from) forks; a well run meritocracy.
In some ways I think it would be great if Sun had been able to donate the Solaris and Java source to the Apache project (Let me dream). It’s not that I have some bias towards Apache, just show me another project/s that run as well as they do.
On the whole, thank you very much Sun! This is a very disruptive move.
Edited 2006-11-13 10:30
On the whole, thank you very much Sun! This is a very disruptive move.
Disruptive… especially for MONO
Just in time btw…
Mono wasn’t written just because someone needed open source VM. People needed C# compiler and CLR runtime (not just -something-like-java- runtime)
But if MS would release .NET on GPL then yes Mono wouldn’t be needed.
What you really mean is, if people wouldn’t fall into the “Microsoft/.NET/Proprietary” trap, Mono wouldn’t be needed.
Unforunately, even if MS .NET was open source, it would still be patent encumbered and unusable in the Open Source world.
No one with any sense in their head is developing with .NET for cross platform or open source applications.
No one with any sense in their head is developing with .NET for cross platform or open source applications.
You obviously have no idea what you’re taking about.
So you are suggesting that people are flocking to Mono (and abandoning Java) for cross-platform web application development?
No, I am not. But the opposite is not true, which is what it seems to be suggested. Those who use Mono for cross-platform web development, have no desire to use Java, otherwise, why bother with Mono?
Those who use Mono, are actually (most of the time) .NET developers, trying to program in a friendly language/framework but on –any Mono supported Platform– and not specifically Windows/.NET
Mono is quite capable, despite of what some people says or tries to spread.
Java Open Sourced is a nice thing anyways, let’s just hope that Sun doesn’t dissapear in a cloud.
No GPL is not fork proof. But you could say that it is fork resistant, in the sense that people will use the best fork available at any given time. The best fork will soon become the main fork as it will get most of the attention from the community.
In the case of Java the situation is slightly more complicated. Sun owns the Java trademark and as owners they can decide if a certain fork should be allowed to be called Java.
This leaves less room for change, as your fork would still have to comply with the tests Sun applies to it, for it to be called Java. E.g Sun would probably not allow you to call your fork Java if it looked like C#, but they would be quite happy to let you use the Java name if your fork made Java 10 times faster and had half the memory footprint.
On the other hand there is nothing in GPL that prevents you from making your C#-like java fork as long as you don’t call it Java. You call it Tea or something, and if people like Tea better than Java they will use it.
The situation with open source code where somebody else decides what the code should do will not be unique to Java. E.g how a C compiler should do is specified in an iso standard yet there are many free as in speach implementations of that standard, the same thing can be said about free programs implementing internet standards.
Forks aren’t always a bad thing, anyway. Look at all the Linux kernel forks whihc exist for various specialized purposes (real-time, ports to various platforms, etc.).
Wish you keep doing as well as you are doing this year. One of the best companies of the “big dogs” club.
OpenOffice, OpenSolaris and now OpenJava, uhuh!!
This GPL thing for Java should still be a slow process, that is, all of Java won’t become GPL this year yet, only some parts of it. Which means that the GPL Java will still need to gain some traction before the effects will be noticed by everybody.
For instance, Sun will continue with their commercial licensing, which means that for the time being, the commercial side of Java will continue with mostly the same rules, I think. Like, will the commercial Java be finally available for embedding in the Linux distros, or we will need to wait a future GPL Java to do that kind of thing?
I am still a little skeptic and weary, though it’s a good thing this move by Sun.
I’m wondering if applications written for GPL’d Java will be all forced to be GPL. In general Java applications need to derive from and extend Java classes, so they should be considered derivative work.
I find it a bit disturbing since now we’ll have two versions of Java: the one we have now, not free, but which can be used to run any application, and the GPL Java, which is free but can only run GPL applications.
“Unmodified GPL2 for our SE, ME, and EE code. GPL2 + Classpath exception for the SE libraries”
Source:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/11/12/OSS-Java
So I think the applications doesn’t have to be GPL, even if they extend the SE libraries.
The article I read mention the JVM and JavaHelp. That’s fine. But is the java runtime GPLed?
What exactly is GPLd?
By doubleUb (1.83) on 2006-11-13 11:22:28 UTC
The article I read mention the JVM and JavaHelp. That’s fine. But is the java runtime GPLed?
“On Monday, Sun released the first pieces of source code for Sun’s implementation of JSE (Java Platform Standard Edition) and a buildable implementation of JME (Java Platform Micro Edition). Sun will also be making JEE (Java Platform Enterprise Edition) available under the GPLv2 license.”
So what exactly is the “Java Platform Standard Edition”?
http://java.sun.com/javase/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Platform,_Standard_Edition
… and what is the “Java Platform, Enterprise Edition”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Platform%2C_Enterprise_Editio…
Edited 2006-11-13 11:34
Nice one.
Hi,
I’m not a Java guru, but from what I see in “just open sourced sources”
, there is javac and java vm available. But is it enough to build working jdk? No need for additional “claspath” or something?
No, it is not all
Like it was said before, those two (and JavaHelp and JavaME) are first out of the gate, with more following during 2006, and with all (buildable JSE, with all bells and whistless) coming not later than March 2007.
Congratulations SUN!
This is great news, not only for free software but also Java, another nice thing is that its under a dual license so if your not happy with the GPL you can just use the old license.
hehe, nice news
well done Sun..
Someone now ports J2ME to the dead Dreamcast and the PSP. So you can play the cell games and run other things, like Opera Mini, on them. Wouldn’t that be possible now. I wonder if Opera would like people using mini on them. I think there’s a chance they might be ok with it.
Java being under the GPL is fantastic. It will accelerate adoption, collaboration, reduce Sun’s huge R&D on Java (more people will now contribute), and make Java much much much more of fit with Linux.
That last point is especially important. Java and Linux are two great technologies that should go together like cookies and milk, but haven’t really up until now due to license incompatibility. Now Linux distros will very easily be able to distribute both the JRE and the JDK as standard parts of their distros. This will mean more open source Java titles, more usage of JEE, more user/developer mindshare, and so on.
In other news, Java 6 is just around the corner. I’ve recently tried it, and it improves desktop Java (Swing performance, fonts, and look n feel) immensely.
Add to this the new JEE 1.5 spec, in particular EJB 3.0, and Java is seriously kicking some booty.
With all this, and the fact that Java is fully cross platform, .Net becomes a joke (no matter how nice the technology is), due to it not being cross platform, and Mono always being under the MS patent cloud.
Mono is under the protective wing of the Open Patent initiative – there is no cloud covering it nowadays. If MS tries anything regarding it, they will be sued for violations of every patent under the Open Patent project that they violate.
All the same, I would like to extend a firm welcome to Sun and Java to the Free Software world
“Mono is under the protective wing of the Open Patent initiative – there is no cloud covering it nowadays. If MS tries anything regarding it, they will be sued for violations of every patent under the Open Patent project that they violate.”
That’s an excellent point, and it does add a degree of safety/assurance.
However, when Steve Ballmer is excplicitly saying that anything that is non Novell/SuSE is not safe from their patent litigation, one has to take pause.
The Open Patent initiative could certainly help, but just the thought of MS litigation is enough to scare off a lot of folks.
For better or worse, MS is an aggressive competitor, and will stop at nothing to crush it’s competition. And it has a history of using FUD has a major weapon.
Fear and intimidation is a major part of MS modis operendi.
By contrast, Sun has a history of not being a FUD spinner, or patent litigator, or always trying to crush the competition. They’ve always been a technology company first, and mostly a good community citizen.
Plus Java has always been in the open, with the JCP, multiple vendor and open source implementations, and the promise of WORA.
MS is, always has been, and always will be, all about their Windows/Office franchise, and maintaining that monopoly, customer lock-in, and market dominance. They’ll do anything to maintain it and strengthen it. That’s the way corporations work, especially convicted monopolists like MS. This is not tin-foil stuff, or rabid anti-MS hatred, or pro Open Source zealotry. It’s pure pragmatism, and acceptance of obvious reality.
Besides, while I think there are a lot positives about .Net/C# as a technology, I still think Java is vastly superior.
Edited 2006-11-13 17:14
All the same, I would like to extend a firm welcome to Sun and Java to the Free Software world
Spikeb – Sun have been in the free software world for along time now. No other company has delivered more to the free software world then them period (eithen before GPL’ing Java). Most others are just Open Source pretenders.
Wow, what a leader Sun is. I will now be forced to give not only Java another look but also OpenSolaris, etc. Hopefully, someone will find the following links helpful:
http://www.infoq.com/news/2006/11/open-source-java
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2055770,00.asp
I hope that IBM and Intel will step up to the plate with some progressive announcements, but this far-reaching move by Sun is hard to beat.
Wonderful news! This makes me want to start coding in Java again.
RIP .net. RIP Mono.
I would love to see what will become of Java once all the Linux distributions and BSDs start releasing it as part of the base system. We will now start to see Java become an integral part of any GUI application, Desktop Manager, etc. It will be the language of choice for OO development.
I don’t think so, I think the license change its a clear showcase of Java losing to .NET, this doesn’t change anything.
How in the world do you figure Java is “losing” to .NET? Java is already beating .NET and this will further cement its lead.
How do you know the sky is blue?
How do you know honey taste sweet?
How do you know the sky is blue?
How do you know honey taste sweet?
It’s called real-world experience ;-). Goodbye.
Edited 2006-11-13 20:42
Exactly.
Exactly.
Real world experience, which you have adequately demonstrated you don’t have ;-).
“How do you know the sky is blue?
How do you know honey taste sweet?”
Sure… .Net is killing Java left and right. This is why the number of C# jobs are a number of magnitude higher than Java jobs. Just look at the results from hotjobs.com, C# has a whopping 2320 jobs while Java has a pathetic 9956 jobs. Dice confirms that Java is dying too. While C# has a phenomenol 5889 jobs, Java has a disgraceful 15456 job opennings. That coupled with all the embedded devices that use C#, proove that Java has one foot already in the graveyard. Oh wait… nevermind.
Ok, in all seriousness, I’ve only seen .net used for three purposes: 1) as a replacement for VB6 type of programs, 2)as a replacement for ASP, 3) As a replacement for VBScript macros in Office. I’m not saying .Net is useless (for what its worth VB6 was not useless either.) But the simple fact is that, while .Net marked the death of VB6 and while it gives PHP a good run for its money, I doubt anyone else should worry about .Net ever encrouching on their turf.
Those numbers look great for Java, now compare them with the last two years and you’ll see what Im talking about.
Those numbers look great for Java, now compare them with the last two years and you’ll see what Im talking about.
As in relatively flat?
See this:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Java%2C+C%23%2C+VB.Ne…
Of course, the trend doesn’t bode well for C# and VB.Net
Edited 2006-11-14 02:21
What about Java vs .NET?
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+.net
After all, Java is still behind.
What about Java vs .NET?
search for “.NET” you also got things like “Visual Studio .NET”,
while searching for “Java” you didn’t get WebSphere, NetBeans, JBuilder, IntelliJ or whatever.
also “J2EE” is not included
There you go:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Java+OR+Swing+OR+SWT+OR+Eclipse+O…
Sigh.
Purdy lines on a graph from a web site do not tell the whole story. On the same page, try clicking on the corresponding job search links. My clicks gave ~75,600 for .net, ~80,000 java and ~129,000 for java+OR+Swing+…
Yet another data point not so flattering to .net:
8,156 for .net, 15,701 for java on Dice.
“Java is behind” is shaky at best, and the preference for Java is made much easier thanks to the Novell/MS flub and the new Sun GPL option.
Edited 2006-11-14 06:00
Actually, THIS is hilarious:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Java%2C+C%23%2C+VB.Ne…
I guess VB.Net is the new COBOL 😛
I don’t think so, I think the license change its a clear showcase of Java losing to .NET
I think you might want to wander into the real world (fat chance, I know) for a second and have a look at what real companies and organisations are using. Certainly, many a company’s server infrastructure is all J2EE and Java. You will find very few all .Net infrastructures where money hasn’t changed hands for publicity reasons. All .Net is is a new way of writing Windows client applications. That’s all.
To suggest Java is losing ground to .Net, or even worse, Mono, in these areas is utterly laughable. Alas, some people live in such a world………
“I don’t think so, I think the license change its a clear showcase of Java losing to .NET ”
Once, long time ago, when Vista was announced, and was told to be just around the corner, and feature packed like there’s no tomorrow, and .Net’s grass was greener (faster, smaller, simpler), and I was working on a small projects, I had a kind of feeling too that .Net is going to storm the world.
Then I started to work on a big, and I mean really big government and bank projects. Java won’t go away, ever
It is actually unfair to call it “new Cobol”, guys from MS camp are simply unaware to whom and for what sums are IBM, Oracle and Sun selling Java to. Those projects aren’t just going to go away, or getting switched to something else, probably not in our lifetime.
Oh yes, and Vista was kind of late, with kind of dissapointing feature set, and .Net grass is not so green after all, so, glad I’ve sticked with Java.
Even more glad now when Sun made it even more appealing .
You don’t lose a market with customers dropping your product, you lose a market losing potential customers, and .NET have stealed those from Java, but I don’t wanna turn this into a Java vs .NET war, only time will tell maybe in a year we’ll see the results of this and see how much helped or affected.
You don’t lose a market with customers dropping your product, you lose a market losing potential customers, and .NET have stealed those from Java, but I don’t wanna turn this into a Java vs .NET war, only time will tell maybe in a year we’ll see the results of this and see how much helped or affected.
Putting Java under the GPL will make Java (Java SE and probably Glassfish) part of the standard linux software stack, much like Apache, MySQL and PHP. Deployment will be much less of an issue with Java being a standard component of linux distros. Many small/medium businesses will be attracted to this combination due to its low cost and wide variety of choices in case they need them.
Edited 2006-11-13 21:26
Interesting definition of loosing a market
However, I couldn’t care less on who is winning and who is not, as long as there is something for me to do. And with Java it seems it will be a long long time and many many more projects for me to work on. And with opensource strategy my country now has, this java GPL comes quite handy, I must say.
“You don’t lose a market with customers dropping your product, you lose a market losing potential customers, and .NET have stealed those from Java, “
Not really, because it’s largely impossible. The vast majority of Java installs are in mixed platform environments (thus one of the reasons the organization went with Java in the first place). .Net is not a choice in these environments.
Maybe, just maybe, someone in an all Windows environment was using Java, then went with .Net. But that is just as unlikely because all MS shops tend to stick with MS technologies, because what the in house staff knows.
So in most cases, the organization is all MS, or it’s mixed platform. The all MS shops tend to go .Net (with a sprinkling of Java or PHP or other cross platform tech). And the mixed platform environments use cross platform tech only, usually Java.
Thus, Java has most certainly not lost any ground whatsoever to .Net, MS hype be damned.
Exactly.
.NET hasn’t stolen marketshare from Java, it’s stolen marketshare from VB6.
Way to go Sun!
“.NET hasn’t stolen marketshare from Java, it’s stolen marketshare from VB6.”
Bingo. It’s also taken market share somewhat from VC++. But the veteran Visual C++ devs tend to hate .Net because of the huge overhead it adds.
VB6 devs originally hated VB.Net, because it was so drastically different from VB6. VB 2005 went back to being more syntactically compatible, and more palatable to old VB6 devs, even though under the hood it was C#-like .Net structure.
This, coupled with MS ending support of VB6 and VC++ 6, has caused major up tick in .Net adoption over the last year or so. But that up-tick has been entirely from shops that were already MS shops – VB6 and VC6.
Again, .Net did not take market share from anyone, other than feed off MS’s own already established user base.
Meanwhile, Java has continued to improve and grow. Java has even, in reality, resisted competitive threats from stuff like Ruby on Rails, or the ubiquitous LAMP stack (both great cross platform technologies).
Between Java and MS VB6/.Net, if there has been any movement of market share it’s been from VB6/.Net to Java, with organizations that were previously MS only shops that invested in other platforms. Also, VB6 devs were left highly alienated, and some of them jumped ship to Java.
And releasing Java under the GPL is going to accelerate Java adoption even more.
BSDs start releasing it as part of the base system.
Fat chance of that happening. The OpenBSD team doesn’t have the manpower to audit and fix all of Sun’s code.
Fat chance of that happening. The OpenBSD team doesn’t have the manpower to audit and fix all of Sun’s code.
I think Java can be secured by auditing the VM and the native libraries.
Also, both FreeBSD and NetBSD are distributing Java 5 with their OSes.
The magic words to avoid the Java suicide with the new license change are “The classpath exception”.
Now we are all happy.
…that Sun have not done it much earlier. That could have a huge impact on the OSS community and spare discussions and flame wars whether to choose the unfree Java or C/C++ for a certain OSS (free software) project.
But: Better late than never. And I think and hope it is not too late for Sun and Java to bear up against MS and .NET.
Java (IMHO) has been and is one of the best cross platform technologies available.
Contrary to common misperceptions, the Classpath exception is only needed when you have to distribute the JRE along with your application. Your application doesn’t count as derivative work if it merely links against a JRE already installed on the user’s machine. This is probably why Sun is licensing the J2ME and the J2EE code under the plain GPLv2 without any additional clauses (I don’t think any J2EE applications/middleware or J2ME games come with their own JVM).
…is how it is going to be decided what code is going to go in and what is going to be rejected. I mean in the iedal world, going open source and gpl’d and all that means there is now a much easier access of the code by hugely talented programmers. But is there going to be a body finally that will decide what goes in and what doesnt? A colleague of mine asked me why they didnt go with ASF (Apache Software Foundation) because they have a very well known track record for producing excellent quality code. Does it mean that GPLing the code means anyone can get access to it but that if someone wants to add the next hot feature, Sun and its JCP still will have the final say? Sorry if I got my terminology etc incorrect. Just trying to understand. Thanks.
Yep, JCP and Sun will have the last word. For now. And that is a good thing. You really don’t want every programmer under the sun to put what he/she likes in Java. However, that JCP and Sun governance will have to morph into something more practical down the road (if too many people are unhappy with the way Sun/JCP lead things, they will fork).
On why Apache wasn’t choosen; first of all, it doesn’t play well with GPL (read, Linux). Second, you don’t have to give code back.
This is what happening for every project.
If the owner of the project doesn’t find your code will fit in their ideal, they won’t add it to the main branch.
But, if you want it, you can fork the project and add it !
Sorry for my English.
(I can be wrong too!)
I don’t want the GPL virus infecting my or my company’s systems. Besides, the runtime and the compiler don’t have the linking exception clause.
Maybe one day, Java will be free.
I guess you don’t use GCC either, huh.
No, I don’t let the GPL virus infect my systems. Maybe one day Java will be free with a BSD license or in the public domain.
No, I don’t let the GPL virus infect my systems
Would you mind explaining how does this novel, insidious, blasphemous etc. “GPL virus” infect your system? I am assuming this virus must be installing rootkits (much like the rootkits from Sony’s CDs) to you system.
I don’t want the GPL virus infecting my or my company’s systems. Besides, the runtime and the compiler don’t have the linking exception clause.
Fine. You can pay Sun for a commercial license, while other people can continue to release closed-source Java applications with the GPLed JRE without having to pay anyone a cent.
Edited 2006-11-13 22:26
No, we won’t be paying Sun anything. Sun releasing Java under the GPL virus is another indication that Sun is losing money bad, and wants GPL jihadists to be their slaves.
The GPL virus is not freedom. Sun when will you release Java under a free license?