GPL Java: who cares?
Sun dual-licensing Java under the GPL is a pretty canny marketing move. Does it have any actual impact on any Java developers? Contrary to what every other blog will tell you, nope, it won’t.
Believe it or not, you’ve been able to download the JDK and ‘hack’ on it for a while now. Some people have even blogged about getting their patches into the JDK sources, or how they got a bug fixed, and so on. There’s absolutely nothing new there.
Yet every little fuck and his penis are waggling furiously about how this is a new era of something or the other. Even that perennial turdburglaring hippie Stallman is on board. How low do you have to sink to need an endorsement from him?
Kudos to Sun though for finding a new crowd to suck up to. It’s taken close to 10 years for them to switch to the Slashdot cock from MS cock, but it’s nice to see that they’re still just as desperate to have their mouths and bottoms filled by alien objects.
At least the slashdot crowd has nothing tangible to copy beyond reams of empty promises and communist idealogies. Hopefully things like jsp (asp wannabe) and jsf (winforms wannabe) won’t happen again, instead all we’ll get is idiotic licenses and endless debates from non-lawyers about what legalese actually means.
What’s perplexing is how ignorant most people are of what this actually entails. So many idiotic blog bleatings about how patches can be contributed, about how javac will be speeded up, about how there’s going to be a ‘super performance’ team that churns out amazing JVMs. Yeah, just look at what a great success classpath and kaffe is, and how blazingly fast they are. The only people who now have access to the JDK sources that didn’t before are these nutjobs, who in again, close to decade, have done nothing beyond waggle their fingers for endless self-administered prostate massages.
Still, plenty of silver lining. Nice to see classpath and kaffe and all those people fade into irrelevance. Nice to see another nail in Apache Harmony’s coffin. Why would you go with a less idealistic and faggotarsey license, and use a product that promises everything, delivers nothing, and continues to exist purely on corporate charity?
IBM’s reaction is also pretty hilarious. They’re rightfully annoyed that the project isn’t an Apache one. It’s pretty obvious that the Java branch of Apache at least is more or less owned by IBM. If a project moves to Apache, you know there’ll be some IBM people figuring out how to make money out of it and flog it to the hapless websphere molested masses. Sun keeping control means that IBM’s spastic global services are going to have a hard time selling the idea that THEY in fact own Java.
So move along folks, there’s no real news here. Just a clever marketing move and an appeal to the idiotic spastic masses.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:09 am
First post!
Perhaps the best thing about it is that the zealots
should pipe down…
November 15th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Bzzzt! Wrong, thanks for playing. This opens up Java to a whole new range of developers who previously wouldn’t consider it due to the license, either directly or indirectly. For example, I know a lot of people who didn’t bother with java because you couldn’t apt-get it.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I normally agree (minus the potty-talk) with just about every sentiment you write, but you may be missing a couple points on this one.
1. Java will be distributed with more Linux and xBSD distros.
2. You don’t have to sign or fax some stupid agreement to look at the JVM code.
This will translate to more people running Java, and more eyes looking at the JVM source. That’s a -good- thing.
And no, I’m definitely not an open-sores fanboi.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:08 am
@James: “For example, I know a lot of people who didn’t bother with java because you couldn’t apt-get it.”
Yeah, and the Java world’s really going to benefit massively from the brainpower and motivation of people like that.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:14 am
“the hapless websphere molested masses”
best line ever!
November 15th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I’m off to make a GPL-only (no exceptions – no-one else should benefit from my work) fork with security patches that Sun take so long to come up with. ;)
November 15th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
“For example, I know a lot of people who didn’t bother with java because you couldn’t apt-get it.”
Do you consider a whole bunch of GPL-integrist tards as an improvement to the Java community ? Besides, having access to the source doesn’t mean you need to get into that pile-o-shit licensing scheme.
I can’t wait to see the amusing zillions of useless and pointless Java forks with stupid names (GPL-integrist tards are world class stupid name inventors), since you know, there are quite an impressive amount of sheer dumbasses who need more that just Iceweasel-like crap to masturbate onto.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Thank God the Bile flowing again. If it took GPL’ing Java to stimulate Hani’s gallbladder then so be it.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I guess its just the principle of it all – gives a warm fuzzy feeling inside – like the difference between a real Democracy and a noble Dictator.
p.s. its ‘sped up’ NOT ‘speeded up’.
Sorry, but I get corrected so many times. You need to bile those pompous self appointed language police.
November 15th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
It’s a stupid move. Just idiotic. But at least we have the CLASSPATH exception. That will be at least something to use to tweak RMS and his dingleberry pickers.
I’m a big Sun fanboy and I’ve been arguing for years that they get no respect. But with this announcement I really wish IBM had bought them outright. GPL!! It’s a disaster.
November 16th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Well, Sun and Microsoft got an agreement which manifests itself by a Remote Desktop client on the thin clients Sun builds and by a friendlier prompt when one needs Java on Internet Explorer. At the height of their tensions, you would get a prompt to install JRE wth a checkbox which, if you tick, will disable for good the installation of the JRE. These days, That checkbox is gone, and the anti-MS mantra kind of disappeared.
But it’s not like Sun is only “at MS and Slashdot cocks”, but if you install the JRE, you get the wonderful Google Desktop Search, a pile of junk which shows that Sun can do foursome.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
I’m far from being an Open Source fanboy and was generally against the whole open sourcing of Java issue ;-)
However, I have to disagree with you to a small degree. Yes, you are right we won’t see significant performance improvements in Java beyond what we would have seen normally. Most Java developers won’t feel much at first but in the long term this can create a revolution!
It would allow Java into places where it hasn’t been before e.g. Linux desktops and despite the fact that Linux desktop is still behind (even) Apple they do produce lots of cool software. But the more important reason is better recognition of the VM, I think this will (in the long run) kill PHP, Python and Ruby VM’s by making sure they all run better on top of the Java VM. Why should these guys work on their own VM’s when Sun’s VM is faster, safer has a wider API, better testing, portability and is installed almost everywhere?
By doing this Java’s “shelf life” as a language and a platform is extended by some additional years and it becomes a far more attractive offering when compared to .Net in terms of ideology. Sun essentially eliminated all the “small players” in the field and left only .Net and to some degree Flash as possible competitors. All others (e.g. Ruby and PHP) can be executed on top of Java.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Wrong brown cock. C# had an advantage over Java in that it would always work fine on the platform it was deployed without additional installation by the user. As mentioned by others above, Linux/BSD distros will be able to ship Java. It probably holds true for Windows hardware vendors too (Dell, … etc)*. People will be able to write Java apps and be confident that they’ll work on Linux/BSD as well as Windows desktops without the user having to separately download Java. So Java becomes a more attractive development environment than it was. Also, there is no danger to Java going down if Sun ever does.
That cactus up your ass called “open-sores” pricked you with this announcement. Too bad you enjoy that cactus being there and would rather not pull it out.
*I know some Windows desktop vendors probably did pre-install the JVM, but they would have had to come to an agreement with Sun to do so.
November 16th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Neat ;)
November 16th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
As I scroll thru the pages of the
Apache project
I look at the code and realize there
is a bug left
Cause I’ve been searching for something to
bile about, and now everyone knows that my mind
is long gone
Hani never crossed the man that didnt deserve it
he will treat them like a punks, although its unheard of
You better watch how you wrote it, and where you post it
or you and your homies might be biled about
I really hate deploy but i gotta (J)Boss
As Logs grow I see myself in the vendor smoke, Boss
I’m the kinda G the little homies wanna be like
at my keyborad in the night, sharing thoughts in
the web-light
Been spending most their lives
living in the geek paradise
we keep spending most our lives
jeduc dobar ozrenski paradajz
Been spending most their lives
living in the slashdot paradise
we keep spending most our lines
writing javadoc prototypes
Tell me why are we-so blind to see
the bug that hurts-as you as me
i got the situation, smelly code me facin’
I can’t write a normal code, I was raised without Container
so I gotta go down to the team level
too much struts debugging got me changing beers
I learned from Rod with Spring on my mind
got it lightweight in the head and a bean in my eye
I’m a AOP gangsta, BeanNameAware banger
and my homies is down so don’t abuse my layer, fool
struts ain’t nothing but a heartbeat away,
I’m writing code, do or die, what can I say
I’m 23 now, but will I get laid before 24
the way things are going I don’t know
Hani and the money, money and the Hani
minute after minute, hour after hour
debugger’s running, but i ain’t looking
cause our hot secretary is in the kitchen,
but I don’t know what she’s cooking
they say I gotta learn struts, but nobody’s here to teach me
if they can’t undersstand it, how can they reach me
I guess they can’t, I guess they won’t
I guess they front, that’s why I know my life
is out of Spring tool
to be continued
comments to javavirtualmachine@gmail.com
November 17th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Pretending that Harmony will be irrelevant is plain wrong. Multicore chips are the future of microprocessing. Harmony say IBM (PowerPC/Cell) and Intel will win the JVM-race handsdown. Only IBM and Intel know how to build the fastest JVM for those new multicore chips for x86/Itanium/Cell. And the fastest JVM will always be the winner.
November 17th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
> Only IBM and Intel know how to build the
> fastest JVM for those new multicore chips
What? Sun don’t know how to write software for multi core? And IBM do? Have you ever used IBM software? I Bum Mummy haven’t writted a piece of usable software since 1966. The only reason IBM exist is because their consultants know where the CTOs children go to school. Notes on OS/2 anyone? Speedy!
November 17th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
How will you lintheads prevent Microsoft from releasing their own non-standard version of Java now ?
‘Java for Windows’ TM.
November 18th, 2006 at 1:46 am
How is it that Java will suddenly be on Linux desktops ? You have *always* been able to download it. Anyone who wanted it could have had it. Its only those with the IQ below 10 that couldnt have managed it, and they weren’t missed anyways.
SUN could have changed licensing of so many other things more worthwhile. It is currently impossible to validate that some product claiming compliance with a JCP spec actuals complies since you cant get your hands on the dman TCK. People wanting to develop a product to a spec have to sign in blood some 40 page doc and fax it to SUN just to eventually get their hands on it. Why, oh why couldnt they GPL those ?
November 19th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Maybe Debian will finally put it in apt.
November 20th, 2006 at 8:20 am
The good news is that people who have to write Java for strange hardware (set-top boxes, et. al.) that need more functionality than the turd-filled sandbox that is J2ME now have a chance to get a real JDK up and running on their crappy little platform.
The bad news? The TCKs aren’t available to test the results. Arrgh. Might as well use GNU Classpath and one of those grotty embedded J2SEs, eh?
November 21st, 2006 at 8:13 am
trying html syntax, which is On
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:52 am
I have looked through the source code of Java 1.5 and 1.6 and am shocked to see how sloppy some of the code is e.g. not enough use of interfaces to allow fixing bad design in java.text.* and all string building/handling, massive over use of synchronized classes in private code etc. Anything which can helps reveal this crud to shame the developers, to improve the base libraries, should be encouraged.
November 23rd, 2006 at 2:05 am
Hani, we are working with Sun to change the license once again. We are very disappointed with the Classpath exception and with the alternative license that Sun will be offering.
In addition, we are petitioning for FSF political officers to be assigned positions of freedom inspectors within Sun.
A communal Java is the only way for Java to survive. We demand the freedom of all Java code to be GPL. We would be happy to send one of our FSF political officers to educate you on freedom.
Dick
December 4th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Funny.
Th man paints M$ as a sucessfull pile of software (jsf== winforms wannabe? HA!) and even microsoft is dumping the SO (pile of shit, tho FUBAR crowds of pont’n drool), the Enterprisey solutins (never been a real player) to sell us DRMed media…
Your points on GPL’ed java have some merits. But not too much.