Developer Viewpoint: Open-Source Not Java Itself...but "JRT"

'I think Sun's done a fantastic job of growing and protecting the Java platform,' says veteran enterprise software developer James Strachan. 'There's just one more step they need to take - to open source some Java source code - and we're all happy.' Strachan's describes how there are two massive communities of developers being caused pain by the current licensing of Java and how it's badly affecting the Java platform to the benefit of .NET / Mono. His solution: set up an open source project called JRT that's 'not Java, not a Java platform - it's something else, it's JRT...a bunch of Java source code for some java.* and javax.*' - a win-win for Java, Sun, developers and Mono/gcj too, Strachan argues.

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#6	Thomas Kurilla commented on 5 Aug 2004 Most of the comments here seem to miss the intent of the aritcle, IMHO. While "use the right tool for the job" is the most correct answer, many developers do not work for companies that can (will?) support more than one development platform. So, if the X percentage reaches critical mass for a company, managment will likely make a decision to go with the solution which (in their eyes) addresses their needs. Now, the developers may know that it''s all non-sense, and that you should "use the right tool for the job", but management usually doesn''t care. They tend to see two different skill groups as splitting their strength or some such. The point is, there will be losses suffered to the Java community. I agree with the article 100 percent in this. This is the type of errosion that M$ is deliberately cultivating with every proprietary platform they develop. What I see in the comments so far is "Never give in! Never surrender!" to Microsoft! Or perhaps, "Don''t despoil the purity of my beloved Java!" I for one agree with the analysis given that open sourcing JRT would hurt Microsoft and help Mono, et. al. The CLR allows multi-language integration easily, without the henious performance hit we get with JNI. That alone would be a huge benefit to me. Add the fact that having the JRT would free Gcj, IKVM, Mono, et. al. to focus their energies on further erroding M$''s monopolistic hold, and I think this is a fantastic proposal. You really should not let "Never give in! Never surrender!" get in the way of progress. Especially if that progress can actually erode the M$ monopoly(ies) in any way.
#5	Markus Struelens commented on 4 Aug 2004 Competition is good for consumers, not for companies who have established monopolies like, you can argue, Sun has on Java. Monopoly means easy life, easy money. You have what others want or need and everyone has to come to you to get it ... When it comes to rt.jar Sun has a monopoly. The only reason to give it away would be to ''sacrifice'' it to defend a platform. Does Sun feel Java is threatened by .NET? Not at all. And how much chance there is that whatever happens with Mono will have anything to do with M$? None at all. Sun does not feel threatened by M$ but by free software movement.
#4	Markus Struelens commented on 4 Aug 2004 Competition is good for consumers, not for companies who have established monopolies like, you can argue, Sun has on Java. Monopoly means easy life, easy money. You have what others want or need and everyone has to come to you to get it ... When it comes to rt.jar Sun has a monopoly. The only reason to give it away would be to ''sacrifice'' it to defend a platform. Does Sun feel Java is threatened by .NET? Not at all. And how much chance there is that whatever happens with Mono will have anything to do with M$? None at all. Sun does not feel threatened by M$ but by free software movement.
#3	Paul commented on 4 Aug 2004 Sorry, this article doesn''t make a compelling argument. Both the use cases rely on the unlikely assumption that when developers come across a cross-plaform problem they will abandon the whole Java platform and retrain in .NET/Mono. This is simply NOT going to happen! You use the right tool for the job. More importantly, use the right people for the job - I am a Java developer and if I need .NET integration, I ask a .NET expert to work with me. I don''t try and become a jack of all trades. Furthermore, while I sympathise with gcj and GNU classpath the idea of a Java platform that isn''t actually Java and isn''t guarenteed to run Java 100% successfully is more damaging than the current position. You aren''t really creating a "Java" platform anyway, all you are doing is allowing you to write .NET/C code in the Java language. The benefits of the Java platform are almost entirely in the JVM, the language itself is almost irrelevant. The overridding message I got from this article is that IKVM and others need to pull their fingers out and negotiate a licencing deal for rt.jar - that''s all they''re really after. Open sourcing Java is a sledgehammer to crack a nut...
#2	Erik commented on 3 Aug 2004 Interesting.... couldn''t USE CASE A be solved by using the Jakarta POI APIs, to name just one? Outside of writing to and reading from MS Office files, what other special APIs are needed on a Windows platform? Are developers actually getting asked to use Java to "hack" into a .NET application? Would there actually be such a requirement where Web Services couldn''t solve the problem? USE CASE B... Linux developers will switch to Mono because of the license restrictions of the Java platform on Linux. Huh? Java should be able to run in the .NET platform because it''s suppose to be "Write Once, Run Anywhere"... You would expect this why? Strange... I was under the impression that the Java source code was already available. What were the benefits of Sun open-sourcing Java again? I think I missed it in your article.
#1	Alex Iskold commented on 3 Aug 2004 You see, there is no ''hacking'' in Java. Java and Software Engineering exist not to fulfill some random wishing of open source hackers but to build useful models of the world and business processes. Having said that I do not think that open source people are hackers you said that. The important point is, exactly because of the posts like this one, Java should not be open sourced.