John C. Dvorak, columnist for PC Magazine and CBS Marketwatch, and developer of the Dvorak uncensored blog (www.dvorak.org), sat down for an exclusive interview with SYS-CON.TV at the recent JavaOne 2005 Conference in San Francisco.

Watch John C. Dvorak live on SYS-CON.TV

Dvorak: I’m not going to say it’s transforming but I’m going to say it’s popular. Once it achieved critical mass of acceptance, then you have so much code being developed that can be shared and swapped around and you have a code base that’s growing and growing, so it becomes incredibly important. Exactly how much Sun benefits from this, you know, in the big scheme of things, it’s not the same as the hardware business. I think they should spin off a Java company.

Strukhoff: The issue of control of Java has always been a big one and if you’ll notice, you look around here and you’ll see this color scheme that Sun is rigidly enforcing at the show this year, which, by the way, matches your shirt. I notice you’re right in sync with them. But if you look at this show you can see that Sun does like to control a great number of the details involving Java. Has never made it as open, so to speak, as a lot of people would like. Do you think that’s a problem? Is that part of your reasoning behind why they should have a separate company for this? Is it a matter of control or what is it a matter of?

Dvorak: They are control freaks in some ways. They talk a big game about open source, this and that, but everybody knows it’s just a big lot of talk. This green, I hope you guys do shoot this, but this green that they’re using for every one of these booths, now that you mention it – I didn’t even notice it. I mean I did notice but I didn’t think it was like an enforced thing. It’s not quite the same color as this, it’s got some tones. That green is terrible. If you could pick a color out of the blue, exactly why you’d pick this particular green mystifies me because it’s ugly, to be honest about it. I think it’s a disaster. 

Strukhoff: (So) will Java make it another ten years with this green or won’t it? Let’s talk a little bit about open source. We mentioned that Sun has tried to open this up a little bit, claims it’s an open source type company. Are they just pandering to legions of people that they’re afraid of or is this something legitimate or is this something they shouldn’t even be bothering with?

Dvorak: It seems to me to be somewhat desperation, but on the other hand why not? I mean it’s like they’re getting – they can look at the numbers and see what’s going on, say, well, let’s try this. It may actually be a smart idea. Whether it catches on or not is questionable, but, you know, I’m not going to fault them for taking some modern initiatives such as this. I’m not going to complain about it. Whether it works or not is another question.