What is Digg?76 Comments
- digga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Lots of Java source code was available before now, but this is the first time the entire platform has been GPLed. Go Java!
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Now there's some damn good PR. More or less the founder of the Free Software movement embracing your product. With its liberation, I'm going to start seriously considering getting into Java development.
- digga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21I don't think so. Lots of large complex products have thrived under the GPL.
- chubbymidget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21Wow!
Thanks Sun. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22that's a strong cup of joe
- freedompower, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Why do you say that?, it's a new start!
- xdevit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Its because he owns that site..
Billing contact:
Dotan Cohen
fabulous@dotancohen.com
*****.. Shove your spam up your ass. - bieber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Wow. RMS is gonna have a fit when he finds out his interview is being embedded in a flash player that users of free software can't view. Anyone know a place where I can find the statement itself in a format I can watch on GNU/Linux?
- mantlepro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11This means better Java integration for the public and especially for Linux users. Go Java!
- heffae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9IANAL but I would think that Sun will continue to maintain control over Java. Presumably they hold the trademark and own the name. So if you want to take Java, go off on your own and create a fork that isn't endorsed by Sun more power to you (really that is part of the idea behind OSS). But you would have to call it something other than Java. Sort of like the dust up between the Debian folks and Firefox guys. Debian wanted to add some patches to Firefox and the Firefox guys said go right ahead but if we don't get around to okaying the patches you have to call it something else and not use our logo. (This may be a bit of an oversimplification)
The exciting thing is one for everyone who will only run 100% OSS they can now use Java. If you want to take the code and fork it for what ever reason you can. I would hope that Sun sets up some method to work with the community to improve Java. - bieber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I prefer illegal to unethical, yes.
- Doomhammer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Care to explain your reasoning?
- Doomhammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yeah, that's what I was thinking - finally I can get the latest version of the JDK / JRE without having to download it manually / accept other license agreements / etc. :)
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I can watch a WMV stream using free software, it's just not legal. Flash is still non-free, and I refuse to install it.
- JoGiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You can release it under whatever license you deem fit.
- exobyte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Um, they surpassed Dell in the server market a month or two ago. They are also financially very stable.
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Pushes their standard forward. They can tap a few of the fears over .Net becoming a psuedo crossplatform language and get Java going forward at a rate of knots.
Essentially Sun, like IBM, are a hardware and service distributor. They weren't selling Java anyway so it was in their interests to make the platform as strong as possible. Their only fear was that it could fragment the platform into different forks but obviously they've decided the type of action they took against MS over the Java trademark will be enough to ward off that possibility.
Of course people can still fork, they just can't call it Java if they fork. - Niten, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@skyshock21
For the end user on Linux, anyway, it means that Java and its development tools will always be a simple apt-get away. In particular, I hope that Ubuntu and other distributions will proceed to bless Java as a first-class development platform for GNOME.
As much as I like Mono/.NET, I'd much rather use Java-GNOME for desktop software: Among other things, it would greatly simplify cross-development with OS X, where Java is already a first class platform. - drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5""Why? What does Java offer that is not already available otherwise? Compatibility? "Write once, run anywhere" implies strict compatibility. How long can this be maintained in Open Source land without some authority (like Sun) exercising control?""
Why? Because being (truely) open source has good benifits. Now it will realy be 'write once, run anywere' instead of just 'write once run on OS X, Windows or x86 Linux after installing a bunch of software'. Also when you combine it with the fact that there is a lot of usefull Java-related libraries and software that you can use will make Java attractive for various things.
And Sun will still exercise control. Why should GPL'ng it make a difference? Sure you can fork it, but to what purpose? It only means that the person that forks it will have to do 4000% more work for very little benifit. Let Sun be the one that puts the money and time into it while other developers work on more important things (like applications and application libraries that can be used in java) - Lobster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Sun are to be commended. They have won a lot of friends with this move. The java programs I have run are always polished and reliable. Some of the best ideas from .NET (a Java clone without any advantages) will now be incorporated across OS divides.
I am thinking quite seriously of moving our Tmxxine open source time travel bootstrapping language to Java. I am sure many others will be moving from C and C++ to Java.
The Sun shines. - pejeno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@joe90210: Yeah. Same as its over for MySQL.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Finally! Well done, Sun!
Also, I agree on big thanks for something we all know has been a big struggle for you. - bieber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes. With the exception of viruses, all software should be legal. And free. Having to choose between the two, free wins any day. Unless you really think there's something wrong with me running free software to play WMV videos?
- hukedonfonix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The end user probably won't notice a thing, if anything now that java is open source maybe all the hardcore developers out there can make the JVM even faster. Allowing users to experience a faster responding program, further diminish the myth that java is as slow as molases.
- rootdown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3so kevin mitnick stole java code back in the day, spent a lot of time in jail with no trial for it and now is open source. whack.
- JoGiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sun plans to open source all their code (like they have with Solaris and now Java, among other things) - they make their money on services and hardware these days.
- TedTschopp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My question if I develope something in Open Source Java, does it require that I relase that software under GPL2. Or could I use GPL3, Creative Commons, Copy Right, Patent?
Can someone in the know respond? - bobthedino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@tensenki: well I work in an organisation where people use Windows, Macs and Linux (oh, and, erm, for a while OpenVMS!) and on numerous occasions it's been useful to be able to take code I wrote in Java aiming originally for say Linux and have it run on Windows with little or no modification. If you're only writing for Windows then sure, go ahead and plough through learning Win32 et al, but that code ain't going anywhere else, so if someone pops up and says they now want it running on the Mac, then it's back to square one (oh and go and learn Objective C and Cocoa as well!)
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4They'd better license it under GPLv3 when it comes out. Treacherous computing like what tivo uses is just around the corner.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ever heard of GNU Classpath? It'll be GNU Java soon enough!
- stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He's on my block list now.
I automatically block anyone who uses Digg for spam. - TedTschopp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Java is not purely compiled, it's compiled into P-Code and uses a runtime to make it 'run anywhere.'
I'm just curious if the base namespaces will have two seperate licenses to handle the issue I bring up. I suspect it will, and if that is the case, then I see the need for a tool or plugin to Eclipse that will 'clean' out all GPL libraries from a project. - eburnette, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2According to Tim Bray, Java ME is available in either pure GPL or a commercial license. There's no Classpath exception for Java ME (see 2nd question at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=200).
- shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"What's the purpose in having hundreds of slightly incompatible Linux distros? Yet, they exist. What's the point in having the right to fork if noone forks?"
distro's aren't incompatible and they also aren't forks... - burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2*Very* stable. ;)
- anthony0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is great for us, and great for Java. I just don't see how Sun will benefit from this.
- colinm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's available for Linux, but isn't GPLed:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/eula/flashplayer.html - ricree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@TedTschopp
Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought it was purely compiled. What I meant to say was that while I was sure that a compiled language would not be effected, I wasn't certain about a language like Java that is not. - ldog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@williamdyer:
J2ME is non-existant using gnuclasspath.
If there had been a GPL MIDP and CDC implementation, I would have loved to port it over to my Nokia770 tablet.
Hopefully this move by Sun improves the situation.
Unfortunately it won't change the stranglehold that the ***** at ARM keep on the Jazelle(java hardware accleration) specs. - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You are correct that it would be tedious to create a true CDC clone out of Classpath. However, a precompiled, statically linked Java application looks like it could be smaller, and have a faster startup time than the same application running on a CDC runtime.
If your goal is CDC application compatibility or easy portability, it should be OK.
Many, maybe most, MIDP applications need significant porting effort from one MIDP handset to another, so I think it is acceptable to create a mobile Java platform that is not 100% MIDP - since MIDP implementations are hardly ever 100% compatible or even correct according to the specs. - cwcentral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Go to the link directly. Blogger already got 100% street cred from posting here..
http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/ - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If Sun dual-licenses Java ME (J2ME) and continues to charge (a pretty expensive!) royalty for J2ME, GNU Classpath will continue to be needed for Java MIDP and Java CDC.
- drag, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3'Incompatable distros'?
I don't think they are nearly as incompatable as you think they are. My Blender application works just as well in Debian as it does Ubuntu as it does Gentoo as it does Redhat. I've played Quake3 and UT2004 quite well in Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and probably other distros.
Also software distributions are not software programming environments. Your comparing apples to oranges. Look how many forks there are of GCC? There was one that mattered and eventually it got merged back into GCC anyways.
How many 'forks' of Python, Perl, or Mono are their? Aside from stuff like jython and iron python there isn't anything that matters.
People just don't 'fork' for no reason. It's pointless.
If Oracle came out with 'Oracle Java' that was incompatable with Sun's.. Do you know how many people would use that??
(hint: its probably going to be very close to zero)
Why? What would be the point? And what reason would developers who are writing java applications want to use a incompatable java version?
The only people that have pulled that off was Microsoft and they got their license pulled for that BS. - macewan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hats off to Sun - you should have done this in '99
- ldog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@williamdyer:
GCJ&Classpath is several times larger in scope than what's required of CDC. Also, it's not trivial to strip out the parts that aren't required for creating a CDC.
I actually gave it a shot(with the help of some of the classpath guys on IRC), but the subset of classpath that fills the CDC requirements has dependencies on non CDC elements. I eventually lost interest.
Also we would need a MIDP implementation, howerver that part is probably easier than making a small CDC out of Classpath.
Now that sun has opened sourced thier implemenation, it's hardly worth the effort to make another version with the same license. - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ldog
I have not tried it on an ARM yet, but gcj + GNU Classpath seem to be a viable substitute for Java CDC. If you statically link your app, it would probably have a significantly smaller footprint than using Sun's Java CDC, and might have a faster start-up, too. - drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sun, I beleive, maintains a set of test suites to run on modified java implimentations to test for incompatabilities. If Sun doesn't (which I certainly beleive they do) then the open source community certainly does.
For instance:
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/benchmarks.html
Redhat has developed it's 'Mauve' project for compatability testing. Japitools is another one.
Remember back in the day Microsoft had it's Java license yanked for breaking Java compatability. Now you can't just 'yank' the GPL license, but OSS people have a proven track record for doing their best to adhere to standards. - ziza, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'd rather migrate to D from C/C++. Walter Bright announced that he would release D 1.0 at Jan 1st 2007.
www.digitalmars.com/d/ - ldog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@JQP123
Ever hear of something called Jinitiator?
Oracle has had their own version of java for several years. It is used to support thier ERP applications being pushed through applets. This should have been replaced with Sun JVM years ago.
Not sure if they plan on continuing Jinitiator, but parts of their apps have been slowly becoming more HTML driven. -
Show 51 - 77 of 77 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is