[conspire] Christian draws out a Sun Microsystems guy

[Rick Moen]

Don Marti <dmarti at zgp.org> wrote:

> I predict a quietly "cleaned up" de-JREd release
> that runs a little faster than the official one.
> RHAT and NOVL aren't both going to make their products
> dependent on the competition.  If dependency on a
> competitor and its sort-of-free, "open" platform
> weren't a problem, Sun wouldn't have bought out its
> UNIX license.

There's been a tiny bit of additional news on this matter, but (alas)
all of it pretty much consistent with my prior take on the situation.
It _may_ become possible to make OO.o 2.0 run on gcj / GNU Classpath 
prior to release -- but, if so, it'll be no thanks to Sun Microsystems
which (so far) has, to my knowledge, done and said nothing at all in
that area.

Free Software Foundation now has a formal project to bolster
compatibility from the gcj 4.0.x side:
http://developer.classpath.org/mediation/OpenOffice2GCJ4

Apache Software Foundation created its own initiative, this one called
Harmony, to fully implement Java2 Standard Edition v. 1.5 ("J2SE5")
using solely open source:

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/200505.mbox/%3cCA4BEB82-3D84-457D-9531-1477DD749919@apache.org%3e
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/200505.mbox/%3cE3603144-2C26-4C31-896D-6CC7445A63EB@apache.org%3e

Sun, for its part, continues to shoehorn additional high-profile feet
into its mouth, most recently that of Java creator and former
proprietary-emacs creator James Gosling, reacting to creation of the
Harmony project:

http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/28125

Prize moron quotation:

   "We've got several thousand man-years of engineering in [Java], and
   we hear very strongly that if this thing turned into an open source
   project -- where just any old person could check in stuff -- they'd
   all freak.  They'd all go screaming into the hills."

Of course, _nothing_ about an open source project requires that you open
up your source repository for source check-ins by J. Random User.  But
then, Gosling either complely fails to understand open source at all or
thinks the _rest_ of us are all really stupid:

   "For most users, we're actually pretty close to the Apache license.
   You can do an awful lot of stuff with our system before you run into
   license restrictions."

What you cannot do with it is fork it and independently develop it (or
pay to have someone do so).  Which is the very _essence_ of proprietary 
versus open source.

Sun chief technologist for Java Software Graham Hamilton was not quite
as clueless as Gosling, and issued a decidedly tepid greeting to
Harmony
(http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kgh/archive/2005/05/thoughts_on_the_1.html):

   Personally, I am very curious about how the Harmony project will work
   out - creating a full scale implementation of J2SE is a mammoth task,
   as the Sun J2SE team knows only too well. However I wish Apache
   success and we'll certainly be tracking this as it develops. We'll
   probably participate in the project at some level, although most of
   our efforts will continue to be focused on building Sun's reference
   implementation of J2SE. [...]

   Personally, I am not entirely sure if the world really needs a second
   J2SE implementation, but at the same time I am also glad to see that
   all the effort we put into getting the rules and the licensing issues
   straightened out is actually proving useful!

Thanks, guys.  You're all heart.


But the main article covering recent developments was a piece in
eWeek.com by one of my favourite tech reporters, Steven Vaughan-Nichols
(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1815349,00.asp):

   A conflict between free-software supporters and OpenOffice.org over
   the use of Sun's proprietary implementation of Java in the forthcoming
   OpenOffice.org 2.0 is on its way to being resolved.

Apparently, OO.o documentation manager Scott Carr has been doing shuttle
diplomacy, talking to Stallman and to OO.o people. 

An unnamed Sun spokesman is quoted:

   "OpenOffice.org has a policy [which Sun endorses and has since it was
   framed] that OpenOffice.org will use Java in a runtime-neutral way so
   as to ensure it is always available 'Free' as well as 'free,'" a Sun
   representative said.

However, the policy linked to
(http://tools.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=jdk&msgNo=90) merely
says that OO.o will stick to official Sun Java APIs of specified
versions and not (in the general case) refuse to run if the JRE lacks
approved version/vendor ID strings.

There is no commitment whatsoever about functionality with open source /
free-software JREs and class libraries.  And "no commitment whatsoever" 
(in that area) is a running theme amoung Sun officials quoted in
Vaughan-Nichols's piece and elsewhere.  You look and look and look for
even one _syllable_ about Sun or OO.o lifting a finger to ensure gcj /
Classpath compatibility, and there's absolutely nothing.

When Vaughan-Nichols uses the phrase "on its way to being resolved", he
seems to have in mind solely comments from people on the other side of
the table, such as Classpath developer Mark Wielaard:

   "We are positive this will happen in time for the final
   OpenOffice.org 2.0 release.  We are happy to see the OpenOffice.org
   developer community fully support this work.  We also hope that from
   now on the development model will favor free software technologies
   like GCJ or Kaffe [an open-source Java Virtual Machine] from the
   start," he said.

(His reference to the OpenOffice.org developer community "fully
supporting this work" seems to refer to non-Sun volunteer leader Scott
Carr's diplomatic efforts:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2005-05-10-018-26-NW-DT-DV-0015)

I'd like to believe that Wielaard's hope has some foundation, but so far,
I'm really not seeing it.  



Meanwhile, anyone remember the denial of service attacks (using an
MS-Windows trojan called MyDoom) in January against The SCO Group, which
SCO immediately tried to blame on the Linux community?  Well, they owe
us a big, flipping apology:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_22/b3935001_mz001.htm

   Most security experts suspected the virus writer was a Linux fan
   seeking revenge. They were wrong. While the SCO angle created
   confusion, MyDoom acted like a Trojan horse, infecting millions of
   computers and then opening a secret backdoor for its author. Eight
   days after the outbreak, the author used that backdoor to download
   personal data from computer owners. F-Secure's Hypponen figured this
   out in time to warn his clients. It was too late, however, for many
   others.  MyDoom caused $4.8 billion in damage, the
   second-most-expensive software attack ever.

You really rather have to admire the audacity of using SCO and the Linux
community as a _diversion_ to cover your unrelated computer crime.