Free Software Is Forever
Will Java endure?
It must be that time of the year again when everybody starts to talk about Sun open sourcing Java: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].
However, there is something different this year. I don't know if you have noticed, but the main players seems to have changed their stances a little bit. The free software guys are resigned to the fact that Sun won't open source Java any time soon and are starting the post-game analysis:
Dalibor Topic (Kaffe, Harmony): So, here is a my take, why Sun will not, any time soon, release their Java implementation under an open source license,...
Chris Blizzard (Mozilla, Red Hat): So instead of just giving reasons of why they should do it, let’s instead talk about the cost of them not doing it...
The Sun guys, on the other hand, have softened from the "it's a bad idea and here's why" to something more neutral:
Tim Bray (Sun, via Dan Farber): So, I am definitely of two minds, and I'm not convinced that it will produce practical upside or developer benefit. But, we are not deaf. Legions of voices are crying out for it. At some point, you decide it's more important to make [the cries] go away.
David Herron (Sun): I absolutely cannot comment on the call for open sourcing Sun's Java implementation, so I won't.
Why the change? I don't know. But if I have to guess, I would venture to guess that it's because the free Java stack (GNU Classpath, Eclipse, gcj, kaffe, IKVM, etc., etc.) is working now, including generics and Swing. They are packaged with the freely downloadable Linux distributions such as Fedora Core 5, and Ubuntu.
The free Java stack may not be as performant and as compatible as Sun's JDK today. But if history is any guide, free software tend to out last their proprietary competitors and gain parity with the competition over time. How many of you remember what the top rated commercial editor/IDE was when GNU Emacs was first released? How many of you remember what the top rated commercial C compiler was when GNU C was first released? How many of you remember what the big three relational databases were when MySQL was first released?
Free software is forever.
Re: Free Software Is Forever
Re: Free Software Is Forever
That's what they said about Linux back in 1994. And that's what they said about MySQL back in 1997. My point is that at this point, the free stack has generated enough following in the non-enterprise world to guarantee its long term survival to beyond the lifetime of Sun's JDK.
That should be good news to even the enterprise developers who are using the official stack, because as surely as Sun is dedicated to the JDK today, there will come a time when things change and the JDK become non-strategic to Sun. Witness the recent abandonment by Borland of its developer tools business.