Take a look at this Wikipedia page on James Gosling:

He is the "father" of the Java programming language, as well as the creator of NeWS and Gosling Emacs.

While reading the "NeWS" and "Gosling Emacs" entries I can't help but to realize how badly has Free Software treated Gosling's creations in the past.

All of a sudden, Sun's hesitation about open sourcing Java, the foot-dragging, the ambiguity, the conflicting manifestations of "we'll open source Java, eventually" and "over my dead body", ..., all made sense.

True, Sun's big on Open Source, but those are done by Bill Joy, and whoever the StarOffice guy is. And they have left Sun, at least Bill Joy has.

My prediction: Sun will never open source Java. Java will die a Cobol death---becoming the Enterprise language for the next century.

And Paul Graham will be made right:

I've read that Java has just overtaken Cobol as the most popular language. As a standard, you couldn't wish for more. But as a medium of expression, you could do a lot better. Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. And of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of zero.

Responses[1]

Posted by Weiqi Gao on August 23, 2004 7:51:29 AM CDT #