Should I be more excited about Java going GPL/open source
I think this is probably just my opinion but all the fuss about Java going open source filling up Java websites (although surely I am now contributing to it as well), Not to mention all the talk leading up today the announcement. Personally I am not to sure if I should be that excited about it or should I say in a more selfish way how is this going to change how I work with Java.
I wonder how this will effect every day Java users, will it mean there are loads of different versions. I recently blogged about version of Java people were using and the fact that commercial businesses were slow and reluctant to change to new versions because they like to stick with what works and what is safe. How is this going to effect them.
As a commercial developer I won't really have any time to muck about with the Java code but I suppose I will benefit from other people's tinkerings. I'm not really sure how it will all work in the future, will there be different flavours of Java appearing like Linux and each company signs up to one flavour and how will this effect compatibility of other software products.
At the moment I'm not sure I see that many benefits but I think this is because I haven't worked with open source products that often and am conditioned in that way. It does seem exciting in some ways harnessing the power and enthusiasm of the Java community, it could be a very powerful movement but what direction will it go.
I don't think I have thought about this properly yet but this is why I am posting this so to get a response by someone better informed but all I can think of is Linux and it's different flavours, too which now big companies are taking sides.
Will much change? if so what and how?
You have to take you hat off to Sun, they certainly aren't afraid to give stuff away.
If you like this blog or and fancy something a bit less technical with some laughing thrown in then check out my other blog Amusing IT Stories. Which is a blog about funny and amusing stories from the IT environment and the office. It is a mix of news, office humour, IT stories, links, cartoons and anything that I find funny
I wonder how this will effect every day Java users, will it mean there are loads of different versions. I recently blogged about version of Java people were using and the fact that commercial businesses were slow and reluctant to change to new versions because they like to stick with what works and what is safe. How is this going to effect them.
As a commercial developer I won't really have any time to muck about with the Java code but I suppose I will benefit from other people's tinkerings. I'm not really sure how it will all work in the future, will there be different flavours of Java appearing like Linux and each company signs up to one flavour and how will this effect compatibility of other software products.
At the moment I'm not sure I see that many benefits but I think this is because I haven't worked with open source products that often and am conditioned in that way. It does seem exciting in some ways harnessing the power and enthusiasm of the Java community, it could be a very powerful movement but what direction will it go.
I don't think I have thought about this properly yet but this is why I am posting this so to get a response by someone better informed but all I can think of is Linux and it's different flavours, too which now big companies are taking sides.
Will much change? if so what and how?
You have to take you hat off to Sun, they certainly aren't afraid to give stuff away.
If you like this blog or and fancy something a bit less technical with some laughing thrown in then check out my other blog Amusing IT Stories. Which is a blog about funny and amusing stories from the IT environment and the office. It is a mix of news, office humour, IT stories, links, cartoons and anything that I find funny
posted by The Hosk at
8:21 pm
1 Comments:
In this blog http://weblogs.java.net/blog/joshy/archive/2006/11/musings_on_the.html
he states this as advantages of Java going open source
How will open source change Java
* Real bugs will be fixed faster and non-bugs will be closed faster than ever.
* Java won't fork. Few developers will have incentive to fork Java. It's a lot of work for little gain. Branches for new features or new platform support: yes. A true fork: no. Not even MS has much to gain from this anymore.
* The JCP will grow and change. As before, big decisions about the future of Java will go through the Java Community Process. However, with more interested developers the ranks of the JCP will grow and change in some very good ways.
* Java will have first class support on Linux, Free-BSD, and other 100% open operating systems. This is huge. Hugely, huge. I'm hoping we'll finally get a KDE look and feel as well.
* NetBeans will open the entire JDK sources all at once. It's true, we're working on it for NetBeans 6. With the new editor infrastructure this will be possible. You might not actually want to do this, but it should be possible if you've got enough memory.
* We will see lots of small crazy experimental versions of Java that add different things. Imagine a JDK with Find Bugs, MySQL, SwingX, JDIC, JInput, JOGL, Java3D, Tritonus MP3, jSDL, KDE-Java, Gnome-Java and a bunch of other cool libraries pre-integrated. We might even see an entire downloadable VMWare virtual harddrive with Ubuntu + Super JDK + NetBeans preinstalled for the ultimate prefab development environment.
* More adoption of Looking Glass. Now that Java can be freely run on Linux desktops out of the box, there is incentive to ship Looking Glass bundled in with the OS. There's a lot of good 3D cards out there. Let's use'em!
* More 3D Java Games for all platforms. I expect that people will start shipping an optimized copy of Java embedded in their applications. The end user will never need to know that Java is involved. JOGL + Java3D is now available for Win, Mac, and any copy of Linux with the right X configuration (which is more common than ever).
* Burnable Java. Imagine a tool that burns a photo slideshow application preloaded with your photos, plus a copy of Java, straight to a CD. Hand the CD to your Mom, she pops it into her computer, and the photo slideshow starts right up. You'll never need to worry about the version of Java because it's shipped with your app. You don't need to worry about the OS because you code against Java, not against native APIs. (hmm. perhaps 'burnable java' isn't the right name for this. :)
* Java will grow to fill every available computing niche and finally achieve the goal of total world domination.
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The Hosk, at Mon Nov 13, 10:35:00 pm 2006
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