Re: Sun and Linux

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 10:29:39AM +0530, Raju Mathur wrote:
> Take the case of Java.  I go out of my way to prevent people from
> developing apps in Java, since Sun owns Java and there's nothing to
> prevent them from changing the license to a proprietary one tomorrow
> (a possibility which the wording of the ``Community'' license makes
> very strong).  If Sun does make Java proprietary tomorrow, the case
> will be a bit like that of Unisys and GIF, but on a much larger scale,
> since converting images is a simple job compared to re-writing code.

The world remains pretty much unchanged. Almost every new PC still
ships with Windows. Java books outsell everything else on Amazon.

If Sun makes java proprietary, we'll use kaffe. They hold a trademark,
but can't prevent other implementations which don't use the name 'java'.

There is already a 'gcc' for java - jikes from IBM. Just that it produces
the dumbest code possible and relies on JITs to optimize them. So does
javac.

For me, the biggest crib about the 'openness' of java is the availability
of good linux only JDKs. On FreeBSD, despite the porting done by
volunteers using the 'community licensing', they can't release binaries
until they've run the compatibility tests from Sun.

Read kaffe.org on interesting stuff about why Tim changed his license
from BSD to GPL. Kaffe was BSDL till 0.92.

	-Arun