Sun has released the JDIC/JDesktop Integration Components API via the LGPL. The idea is to create a Java API that allows Java applications to better integrate with a modern desktop. It allows apps to embed a web browser component, access/launch desktop applications and associate filetypes.
Sun Opens JDesktop Integration Components
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This is a great first step towards bringing Java up to par with mono for GNOME desktop development….but if you really want to go for the big win and get adopted as the “chosen” lang for future GNOME development, Java itself will have to be truly opened.
didn’t microsoft attempt to make java apps better ‘integrate’ with their modern desktop?
i think java should be under a non forking, free distributable license, no GPL. This would take care of the compatility and forking issues. it would be open source and free.
“i think java should be under a non forking, free distributable license, no GPL”
if it isnt forkable it isnt open source. can you be more specific. what terms do you suggest. the freedom to fork is important
the freedom to fork is important
important for who? and why?
not for sun, not for the technology and not for the developers, imho
In any open source scenario – you have to be able to fork. But the result of that fork can’t be called “Java” if Sun still holds that copyright on the name. That should take care of forking worries.
People are always going to go off and experiment – that’s human nature. But a strict bridle on the word Java should stop the chaos people fear.
we all have our own definitions of what open source is, my definition is if you can view the source and contribute. you can always use the dosens of definitions provided by opens source software organizations.
i personally agree that forking of java is bad and would degrade the language, most will try to take advantage of it.
“we all have our own definitions of what open source is”
There are basically 2 popular definitions.
* One’s OSI’s, the inventors of the term open source.
* The other one’s are from the proprietary camp, the ones for which RMS warns, with companies like Microsoft calling it shared source (your definition). I do not know what SUN’s definition is, as i do not understand Many Things SUN claims.
“my definition is if you can view the source and contribute. you can always use the dosens of definitions provided by opens source software organizations.”
(There might be dozens, but there’s one popular one in the open source camp.)
That’s what many define as “shared source”. According to this definition of yours, anything released under the Windows shared source license as well as OpenVMS is “open source”.
You also do not state how one is able to contribute. Sure thing, one was able to “contribute” to OpenVMS… after DEC felt the contribution was valid.. there was a “possibility” your code would be included…
“i personally agree that forking of java is bad and would degrade the language, most will try to take advantage of it.”
I hereby agree that anything which differs from the authority of SUN, although it might be an invention or improvement over the work from SUN as is defacto standard in science, is a Bad Thing… ahem.
You’ll need in depth arguments on that one, instead of one of your basic rants “forking is bad”.
i could care less about OSI’s definition of their term “open-source”. When I can see the code, I feel its Open. When I can’t see it i feel its closed. What I can do with it is freedom.
Forking is not bad, its bad in some cases, like Java. I personally feel that solaris should be forked into many other OS’s.
Maybe I should call it a “community license” to appease you.
stop being rude to me and dont use my full name.
i could care less about OSI’s definition of their term “open-source”. When I can see the code, I feel its Open. When I can’t see it i feel its closed. What I can do with it is freedom.
Forking is not bad, its bad in some cases, like Java. I personally feel that solaris should be forked into many other OS’s.
Maybe I should call it a “community license” to appease you.
stop being rude to me and dont use my full name.
forks can be realy good just look at samba and samba tng
samba is happy about the for cus they dont want to expriment with windows ad integration in samba.
insted the fork tng does that development and when its stable
samba uses code from the fork.
forks can really drive development forward when you dont want to mess with a stable codebase.
There are basically 2 popular definitions.
* One’s OSI’s, the inventors of the term open source.
The term “open source” is a generic term that has no fixed definition and definitely no legal definition. What it means depends on the context or where you use it. OSI didn’t invent the term “open source”. You can’t invent words that already exist. If you want to signify a well defined meaning of the word, then use a titlecase spelling like “Open Source” or offer a citation like “Open Source (OSI-DFN)”.
I hereby agree that anything which differs from the authority of SUN, although it might be an invention or improvement over the work from SUN as is defacto standard in science, is a Bad Thing… ahem.
You’ll need in depth arguments on that one, instead of one of your basic rants “forking is bad”.
alot of open source advocates that share your point of view do not have an appreciation for one of the implied aspects of the KISS principle, that of minimizing variables as a tool to achieving simplicity and all the other benefits that come along with that – precision, concision, focus, objectives, faster progress, greater depth on the smaller number of issues (libraries, bugs, frameworks, etc.).
they just want to develop for the sake of developing, add feature for the sake of adding features (feature creep), fork whenever they come up the next latest and greatest idea with no regards for things like backward compatibility and support for older versions (which in the real market may account for more resources than you are spending on the latest innovtion).
do not get me wrong, i am not saying these people should stop all development like the other open source developer that complained that James Gosling was at fault for a weekend “hack” (his own words) instead of extending and reusing OS implementations that already existed.
in fact what JG did is what i think the OS community should do, develop your own implementation (if theoretical, write a whitepaper) and put it out there for people to read/use and if its good enough you will be recognized by the standards bodies and its uhill from there. this is happening alot in the Java community where a scripting language – Groovy – is now a JSR and along with adopting Hibernate as a reference architecture for some of Enterprise Java 3, they are adopting java implementations made by individuals/companies that are working and are popular within the community.
this is different from the “get as many people on the contribution list and things will progress faster and better” approach. for one, what if you have a complete/whole idea that needs you to duplicate some stuff that is in java architecture/engineering-wise. telling people what you want to do is not difficult but getting them to appreciate how you so-called “duplication” is critical t how your uber-framework will function is more difficult.
note i used the word “appreciate” which is not absolute like know vs. dont know. the “fuzzy” (non-boolean) nature of the word conveys part of what i am trying to say about just throwing everything in the open and expecting it work. yes, we may all understand a bubble sort or a factory pattern, but how many actually appreciate the intricasies of what is actually happening here – the qualitative aspects which only the author/architect (and maybe a select few) appreciates e.g. does sun/ibm/bea/hp know what a scripting language is? Yes. then why did groovy have to come from the outside (JCP) in? my answer to that would be they did not appreciate its place and role in Java.
if you have ever visited TSS and read the articles and forums you wil see that there is a alot of emotion and politics and, if it were not for the fact that java cannot be forked, many of these factions would have created their own forks – pro/anti-JDO, pro/anti-EJB, pro/anti-JBoss, pro/anti-CMP, pro/anti-Jini/JXTA, etc.
because it cannot be forked, all these people are forced to work together and come about with a sollution. remember the public war of words between JBoss and Sun/JCP – i have no doubt that with forking allowed there would be a JBoss Java community today, especially concidering the paradox of how well JBoss is doing and the almost MS-like stature it has attained in the community.
i could go on about how the real sheep in wolf’s clothing is IBM but i will leave that for another day or as an exercise in your imagination. once you past the large ammounts of money IBM has spent on OS you will see their true colors. SWT anyone? i know there are pros and cons to the SWT vs. SWING debate, but i ask this – is IBM planning on taking on Avalon (capabilities of XUL, HTML, PDF, XForms, ePaper, CSS, SVG, Quartz/MacOS all combined in a unified framework) with this toy(SWT that is). SWT was a hack that worked and has been able to garner mindshare ( the most important asset in an information society) but wit will crumble under its own weight once Avalon/XAML takes off. BTW: the hardware MS is asking for Longhorn should allow Java/SWING to run just fine – +4GHz, +2GB memory, +500gb hdd, HW-accelerated graphics, etc.
in conclusion – Sun is a friend. they have been made to look bad by the analysts and by bad PR. someone in PR/Marketing needs to do it for them coz the suits are totally screwing up the company’s image and message/vision who consistently make bad choices of words then having to patch up the damage. they need less emotional people representing the company.
my vote: open source java with sun trademark over java preventing forking
Forking languages like PHP, Perl, etc. are not necessary. The fact that so many people want Java to go in so many different directions, opposed to other open source languages shows that forking is actually a threat. Yes there have been other cross-platform languages that run on Virtual Machines, but they have not been as successful. A company like IBM would love to fork Java and make it their own “.Net”. Even now, companies are trying to push java into different directions that sun wants it to go and many people argue that sun, although ownership of java and inventing it, believe sun is pushing it into the wrong direction. This has been an issue of open sourcing it. Sun can always add that you are free to distribute it and not require licenses for ‘open source organizations’ but there are alto of open source organizations that are actualyl commercial. I think people are pushing a political agenda and want to take advantage of Java.
“i could care less about OSI’s definition of their term “open-source”. When I can see the code, I feel its Open. When I can’t see it i feel its closed. What I can do with it is freedom.
”
if you dont care dont call it open source. just because you can see the source and not do anything means it is NOT OPEN SOURCE. saying that its your own definition is pathetic. there is common understanding of what these terms means. it was defined with specific understanding and not some general vague terminology. get into your thick head. call it read only source or disclosed source. open source means that you should be able to modify and redistribute it.
in case of java it is bad but not in general.
the freedom of forking is what drives all those products ahead. think
egcs/gcc
xfree86/xorg
and so on
java is a trademark and sun can control it completely. Java cannot be forked just because its open source. nobody can fork redhat linux and call it redhat linux.
dont believe whatever sun tells you. think.
im sure you love to say im right and your wrong to everyone and call people names when they disagree with you.
how immature
“m sure you love to say im right and your wrong to everyone and call people names when they disagree with you.
how immature”
you are ignorant. that isnt name calling
if you have any good rebuttals do that or just accept you were wrong
“if it isnt forkable it isnt open source. can you be more specific. what terms do you suggest. the freedom to fork is important”
This is only partially true. If you accept OSI’s Open Source Definition (and granted, no one says you have to) then a license may qualify as open source even if it includes an “integrity of the author’s code” provision such that the software can only be distributed in binary or source form if it is unmodified, so long as free distribution of patches (which are derived works) is allowed.
This makes forking possible but highly inconvenient.
:This makes forking possible but highly inconvenient.”
Not. it only marks it explicitly
read the rationale
“The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of “patch files” with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they’re being asked to support and protect their reputations.
Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, “unofficial” changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.
”
this is guarateed by GPL itself for example. note claus 2a)
“2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
* a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
* b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.”
every single free and open source license allows forking with no exceptions at all
people want to fork java, they dont want to fork other languages. that’s enough for me. plus there isn’t really any reason for sun to do this. looks like your the kind who wont accept any other arguement
calling somone ignorant is calling them a name, isnt it? damn your rude
I fail to see how this is even an issue. Sun has set up a number of mechanisms whereby developers who want to build a Java implementation under the GPL or any other “open” license may do so. The JCP allows developers and the larger Java community to participate in setting the direction and standards for Java in ways that are not possible for the standardization of C#. Further, Sun has released the toolkit for an actual Java(tm) certification, making it possible for developers to make sure their “java” is Java(tm) compliant. And, just to sweeten the deal even more, Sun has clauses in the licensing of the Java standard which allow for indemnification against IP and Patent litigation if the implementation is actually Java compliant. Microsoft has not put itself in any legally binding situation with respect to C#, and has only standardized parts of C# and .NET. Further, there is no indeminifcation against Microsoft taking legal action against you at a later date of their choosing.
If people want an open “java” they should do what the developers at Ximian have done with Mono and C#. To be clear, they should write an open implementation of Java themselves. There is *nothing* that prevents this. If people spent half the time they do whining that Sun hasn’t released the source to Java under the GPL actually writing code for such a project, it would be practically finished by now.
I simply don’t understand this argument. If the open-source community is willing to build a possibly patent-encumbered implementation of C# from the ground up, why are they not willing to build one for Java which would be completely open?
So far as I can tell, it defies explanation.
Not one post about the technical merits of this. Personally, while I see the use (particularly the web-component), the whole thing is rather basic at this stage. All they have is an interface for retrieving and setting file associations, opening a file with it’s associated app, and embedding a web-browsing component.
They’d need to do a bit more work with this – e.g. hooks into the default media player (unlikely given the Linux support), a properties sub-class that uses the system backend for storage (e.g. the registry, gconf, Kconfig etc.) and more importantly retrieval, and some sort of Native skin for Swing that just uses Native widgets, a bit like the way Mozilla got XUL to use native widgets.
Now the Swing thing is unlikely, and people may go to SWT for that instead (though the programming interface is a bit awkward) but Sun really needs to pay more attention to the desktop with .Net on the way. In fact, it’s been great to watch Sun act now that they’ve got some decent competition. Not only have they finally built in a form of generics and enumerations into the language, but they’re created a shared memory space in the 1.5 JVM to minimise the footprint and boost startup times. I just hope they keep up this momentum.
lol, I couldn’t agree with you more. too many people were bashing me because freebsd wont run on 64 CPUs like linux or something, theres always solaris that runs on more
A Sun shill speaks with stock market stocks