Recent top five:
Java.next -- Four languages that represent the future of Java
Blogger Stuart Halloway has begun a series of posts on trends that point to the future of the Java platform. In his first
post, he compares Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, and Scala -- four wildly different languages that nonetheless all play together
in the JRE. Find out what unites these languages and what they can tell us about the future of Java-based development ...
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Sun keeps its foot in Java's door
Could Microsoft's COOL unseat the language?
March 16, 1999 -- When it comes to Java, Sun Microsystems is beginning to look a bit like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, desperately trying to prevent the programming language from fragmenting under pressure from the competition, while still working to achieve the company's vision of a world with a JVM on every microprocessor.
Java has undergone a number of major changes over the last few months, not the least of which has been its new status as the pilot product for the Sun Community Source Licensing (SCSL) model, introduced in December 1998. Under the model, source code for the Java 2 platform (formerly JDK 1.2) is available to anyone who cares to download it, with the caveat that all products developed around the code must be licensed under a second, royalty-based license and pass Sun's Java certification requirements.
"Our goal has always been to foster industry participation in the usage and development of the Java technology, while preserving a unified platform," said Alan Baratz, president of Sun's Java Software division in a statement. "The new model achieves that balance while opening participation to anyone and enabling collaboration among the participants. This guarantees far more rapid innovation than ever before possible."
SCSL is intended to appease developers who have been pressuring Sun to relinquish its iron-fisted control of Java, but lets the company maintain a valuable revenue stream. In contrast with the old licensing structure, a developer's noncommercialized innovation around Java is not required to be turned over to Sun, allowing developers to control substantial intellectual property.
Sun is hoping Java can ride the recent momentum behind what IT research firm Gartner Group termed the open source community's "killer app": Linux. Sun's Java rhetoric is couched in the terms generally associated with Linux. Baratz said he envisions a "community of licensees that may freely participate and cooperate in the improvement of the Java technology base."
And SCSL for Java could very well work, according to Gartner Group analyst Daryl Plummer.
"SCSL is not the same as open source, but it could mean big benefits for Sun. [SCSL] opens up the doors and lets vendors innovate who wouldn't consider it before because they didn't want to sell their souls to Sun. We expect to see a significant expansion of Java as a result," said Plummer.
It also means Sun will get to keep at least one foot in the door. Sun has thwarted several attempts to wrest control of Java from its hands. In January this year, the National Committee for Information Technology Standards (NCITS) rejected a bid from the Java Real Time Working Group (including members Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard) to manage development of realtime extensions for Java.
COOLing off Java
Still, some companies, particularly Sun's archrival Microsoft, are not expected to sit idly by while Sun corners the market. SCSL is unlikely to seduce Redmond into the Java fold, said a Gartner Group report, in part because elements of the JDK (JavaBeans, RMI, and JFC) are redundant with existing Microsoft APIs like COM, DCOM, and the Win32 GUI. Furthermore, Microsoft's Java extensions, including the J/Direct extension, are incompatible with Sun's Java test suite.
- Microsoft's COM+ preview page http://www.microsoft.com/com/resource/preview.asp
- HP's Chai home page http://www.hp.com/emso/
- Sun Community Source Licensing FAQ http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/faq.html
- To read the reasoning behind Sun's new licensing model, see "Sun Community Source License Principles," by Richard Gabriel and Bill Joy, at http://www.sun.com/981208/scsl/principles.html
- For other downloads from Sun, visit the Community Source Code Licensing Community home page http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/index.html
- See JavaWorld's story on the recent release of the Java 2 source code http://www.javaworld.com/jw-03-1999/jw-03-java2.html
- For the complete Java 2 SDK license agreement, go to http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/java2/license.html
- "Sun licenses Java Media APIs to Linux developers," January 1999 SunWorld news story http://www.sunworld.com/swol-03-1999/swol-03-sunlinux.html
- "Sun scores in realtime Java debate," January 1999 SunWorld news story http://www.sunworld.com/swol-01-1999/swol-01-javastandards.html
- "Sun announces support for Java TV API for digital interactive TV" January 1999 SunWorld news story http://sw.wpi.com/swol-01-1999/swol-01-javatv.html
- "Sun, Real Time Java Group to meet," December 1998 SunWorld news story http://www.sunworld.com/swol-12-1998/swol-12-javagroup.html
- "Java ExpoZander announces new Java licensing" December 1998 SunWorld news story http://www.sunworld.com/swol-12-1998/swol-12-java2.html