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Open-Sourcing Java: The Great Debate Begins Again

Developers of Every Stripe Join the Web-Wide Discussion – The Unspoken Question: "Might Something Big Happen at JavaOne?"
By Jeremy Geelan
Article Rating:
May 4, 2006 09:30 AM EDT
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 21,561
"The fact that there is so much discussion going on is of interest," wrote Sun's John Clingan in his blog yesterday. "Some like the idea of Open Source Java," Clingan noted. "Some think that will negatively affect WORA. There doesn't seem to be any general consensus building. Perhaps that means there is a tremendous amount of pent-up innovation." In general, he concluded, the discussion is "all over the map."

And so it is.

Clingan's own view is as follows:

"I have one primary concern about Open Source Java: that the platform will be diluted, and not necessarily for nefarious reasons. For example, this comment about removing Swing from a server build of Java comment enough seems innocent enough, but would it be the start of a trend? Would we end up seeing specific builds of Java for specific problem sets? Would it stay together as a full Write Once Run Anywhere platform (WORA)? I supposed this could be addressed under a license."
The comment he was referring to was this one from Jon Smirl.
"I think an open source Java would be forked immediately. People will get out their chainsaws and remove piles of unneeded garbage in their respective environments. Does a server version of Java need to drag along Swing and AWT? If Mozilla rewrites JavaScript to run on the JVM do they need to install anything except the JVM? Does a QT embedded platform with Java QT bindings need to install AWT and Swing? What about Python and Ruby using the JVM, do they need to drag along the Sun run-time?

None of these are incompatible forks, you can always install the missing pieces to build a complete environment if you want to. But these 'forks' will greatly broaden the use of Java technologies.

Best solution would be to break Java up in to a finer set of installable modules than currently exists. JVM only, core classes, AWT, Swing, 3D, etc each in their own module."

Jon Walker, CTO of Versora, had a good summary of the situation a few weeks ago, in a blog entry title "Sun Called To Open Source Java" he wrote"

"Sun, often through Jonathan Schwartz' blog, makes a lot of bold claims. Scott McNealy recently threw out an offer to HP to merge their Unix (HP-UX) with Sun's - an offer HP execs called laughable.

It seems only apropos then that Sun would be called out by ex-employees to open source the Java platform. Of course, it is not only ex-employees that are asking for the open sourcing of Java. The open source community has called for the same.

I like Java as a programming language but I believe it is already beginning to lose mindshare to other open source technologies like Ruby. With mindshare goes most of the new programmers. Microsoft is also chipping away at it with C#. Sun needs to make a radical move like this to help Java continue to thrive as it has. Otherwise I predict a significant decrease in the number of new projects that use Java as a core technology in the near future."
Xavier Cho, in response to John Clingan, has this to say:

"We could just release Sun's JVM under GPL/CDDL duel license as 'reference implementation' without ever worrying about defragmentation, or having negative effect with WORA ideal.

Nothing prevents putting GPL'ed Java under JCP's control as long as Sun doesn't abandon the "Java" trademark. In this way, no one could call their forked version "Java" unless they also pass TCK, or extend and modify core libraries except by way of JSR/JCP.

Currently, Mono has already gained sufficient momentum to be recognized as a preferred platform for writing Linux (mostly GNOME desktop though) applications, while Java's presence in desktop Linux is almost negligible. the only reason that such a dangerous attempt to copycat everything MS does gained such momentum is the fact it is covered under GPL. Once Sun's JVM is released under GPL, we can fight back in the rapidly growing Linux desktop world again, since we have both JCP/GPL while Mono people doesn't have anything to say where MS's leading them to."
The debate is definitely (and somewhat inevitably) picking up speed in the run-up to this year's JavaOne, which starts already May 16 in San Francisco. The great question on everyone's minds seems to be: will what Clingan calls "Jonathan's Open Source, sharing, and transparent ways will enter the world of Java"?

Clingan is not alone in asking.

 

Published May 4, 2006 – Reads 21,561
Copyright © 2006 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Jeremy Geelan

Jeremy Geelan is Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events. He is Conference Chair of the all-new International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series, of the International Virtualization Conference & Expo series, of AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo series, and of the long-running SOAWorld Conference & Expo series. He's founder of Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm, and regularly represents SYS-CON at conferences and trade shows, speaking to technology audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.

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Most Recent Comments
Dan Clamage 05/04/06 11:10:59 PM EDT

Wrong question. The correct question has always been, and still is, when will Sun submit the Java language to a standards body? As C/C++ has been. And not some one-off European standards body that Sun can unduly influence, either. ANSI should be the standards body responsible for putting together the reference standard for Java.
an0n 05/04/06 08:50:42 AM EDT

I am much happier with Sun's Java than most open source projects out there. It's very high quality. I know that I may offend some people, but I think it's higher quality than Linux (as an OS, not kernel). It's my opinion though.

Sun managed to keep it standard is admirable. I think Sun also deserve to make money/own the property it created. Why not develop open source versions of it instead of asking Sun to open source it? One answer I think is that Sun does not have enough resource to fix bug or bring out features quicker for something as large as Java. This is a good argument.

I think it could be addressed differently than Open sourcing it. For example, manage the development better. Provide better incentive for users to submit bug fixes. Promote Java support service so that critical bugs a company needs to be fixed is fixed quicker (it's there, but maynot be promoted enough).

I develop Java enough to know that it's very hard to have a perfect tool to test Java standard. For example, there's no clear spec for Gridbaglayout. What you see isn't enough to implement an exact replacement for what Java has. This is just a simple example to show that stardard is hard to make, hard to be changed quickly.

This brings another point about Java standards. I remember JSF has many bugs that it tooks months to years to be fixed because the standard was broken. I think Sun needs to be much quicker than now to address these issue. These big problems should be fixed in a couple of weeks, or couple of months.

Most people don't wait for a technology for a year or two to adopt it. They use alternative tech. This is usually a one way street and Sun will lose those customers.
cpuh0g 05/04/06 08:47:35 AM EDT

Why do people just assume that saying the magic words "open source" will automatically improve a particular piece of software?

Rarely do the most vocal proponents of "open sourcing" something actually get involved and start contributing to the codebase. It's all about religion for the most part, unfortunately.

I still fail to see the benefits of "open sourcing" Java. How will it be improved? It's not as if the engineers at Sun are stupid and don't know how to engineer enterprise software. Don't you think Sun has heard that same complaint from some major league/big $$$$$ customers and done everything they could to improve said performance?

Even if they *do* open it up, I'm sure the parts of the community will still hate them because they don't use a GPL variant license.

It's a lose-lose situation for Sun, I don't get why they would even consider it. Is there a business case that will generate a 9-figure revenue jump from giving away the source for Java? I don't see it, but I'm sure someone around here will happily clue me in.
Mikael Gueck 05/04/06 08:32:17 AM EDT

What makes open sourcing Java such a seductive idea is the wish of Java users to finally get rid of some of the most misimplemented features, such as Date, Swing, AWT, java.net and so on, since Sun engineers seem to be stuck in a mindset of eternal binary compatibility.

If there was a way to achieve those objectives, and to get a full, production ready J2EE SDK on every default Linux installation, that would get people what they want.