Java GPL'd: Who really cares?

Nov 13, 04:04 pm
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InfoQ.com and many other sites are reporting that Java SE and Java ME platforms has been GPL’d. But who really cares?

The debate over whether Sun should open source Java or not raged on for years. But why? Recently, I felt this was a more academic discussion as developers were already using actual open source Java and alternatives in their everyday jobs already.

Imho, it sounds like big news, but in a very practical, realistic sense, it’s not. This does NOT include the Java Enterprise Edition (EE) platform (other than GlassFish Java EE app server tool) as a whole, the platform where Sun receives most of its Java licensing revenue, and imho is the most important of the three major platforms. It only includes the core/desktop Java Standard Edition (SE) and mobile/wireless Java Micro Edition (ME) platforms.

Open source Java already exists in frameworks and tools like Spring, Seam, Struts, Eclipse, Tomcat, JBoss App server, and many, many more. In the most practical sense to developers, etc… open source Java has been around for a few years now in a very practical and adoptive way. So, the open sourcing of Sun’s Java spec, standard reference implementation and Sun tools tied to it just isn’t a big deal.

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by Steve Anglin


    1. JOKe says:
      Nov 17, 02:02 am

      The idea is to have a commercial supported version of somethink and 100% open source GPLed version of this think for the community ? why you dont like it
      you have OpenSource Java EE – GlassFish
      You Have commercial one – Sun App server
      You have Open Office – Open Office :)
      You have Commercial one supported by sun – Star Office
      now you will have
      Open Source Java Se and Java ME

      you have the EE allready ?
      you ask WHO CARE ? i CARE .
      i dont like the idea that there is a chance to Java become the secound Cobol . I mean Cobol was “enterprise” language of one company , when the company die the language die too. Many programmers go to garbage :) . With java till now there was a chance to happened again but now there is no chance if sun die You and Me will make O Java called CRAZYYY BAVA :+) and everybody will be okei.
    1. Gábor Farkas says:
      Nov 19, 12:56 pm

      > Open source Java already exists
      > inframeworks and tools like Spring,
      > Seam, Struts, Eclipse, Tomcat,
      > JBoss App server, and many, many more.

      these are open-source java libraries/frameworks/whatever.

      the missing bit was an open-source java virtual-machine, compiler and class library.

      in that field, there were some compilers/VMs like kaffee or GCJ, and a class library called Classpath,
      but they were not complete (mostly the class-library was incomplete).

      so you could not have a fully open-source platform for your java programs.

      now, when SUN is open-sourcing his compiler,VM, etc… it will get better.

      btw. the imho most important bit, the class library is still not open-source, but is planned to become open-source in 2007.

      also, please understand, that an “open source program” does not mean “a program for which there is some way to get the source code”, which was the case for java until now.


    1. Dalibor Topic says:
      Nov 20, 06:51 pm

      Thank you for asking for feedback. I care, and I think it’s great.




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