JAVAONE: Sun's second act?

Reflections of a former Sun evangelist

By Max Goff, JavaWorld.com, 07/05/04

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Does an open source Java even matter? What does "control" of Java mean? According to Scott Stark, JBoss CTO, open-sourcing the Java runtime engine is far less important than full transparency of the TCK. "It [the TCK] should be open sourced to help all of the J2EE community," he said during our discussion. "We need to be able to understand what it means to successfully navigate the certification process. That's what's important."

The panel too was unclear as to what exactly is meant by open source—what part of the code? Is there a problem, or is it simply perception? What's wrong with the JCP (Java Community Process)? Are these licensing issues or cultural issues?

The extent to which the JCP may stifle innovation may be the crux of the matter. To my way of thinking, it is yet unclear that any other community approach would be superior to preserving the benefits of the Java platform without risking divergence and the horrors of creeping incompatibilities, the raison d'etre for Java from the outset. I recall the warning from my own book, Network Distributed Computing: Fitscapes and Fallacies, which I was promoting at JavaOne, in terms of evolution and the notion of fitscapes: innovation cannot proceed faster than the containing fitscape can test the novelty without risking systemic failure. As such, the JCP could be the best we can hope for in light of Joy's Law and the tendency of change to accelerate in these interesting times.

Act Two?

So now, whence goeth Sun? Years of loss can be brutal and become habitual. Clearly, if Sun continues on its current death-spiral, it will inevitably go the way of all other companies whose time has come and gone. The Java community, the JCP, the evolution of the platform...all could be moot if Sun insists on maintaining it's benevolent steward role but fails to deliver substantial financial results. Java's emergence represented the dramatic peak period of Sun's financial performance, which has been followed by an equally dramatic decline.

From 1988, when Sun's revenue first passed billion, to fiscal year 2001, when Sun's Y2K-inflated revenue exceeded 8 billion, the company seemed to be headed for the same meteoric rise as arch-competitor Microsoft. But the combination of the dot-com implosion (the bubble of which Sun helped fuel with "We're the dot in dot-com" marketing), the 2000 election uncertainty, and ultimately the destruction of the twin towers on September 11, 2001 (Sun had two floors in the south tower of the World Trade Center), top line growth for the firm did an abrupt about-face and has never looked back. Fiscal year 2003 yielded revenue results less than those of FY99 for the company; FY04 news should be public any day now, and it will be interesting to see if Sun can reverse a three-year decline. But if the first three quarters of Sun's most recent fiscal year are any indication, the chances of Sun demonstrating revenue growth in FY04 are slim indeed. In all likelihood, the decline will continue.

The '90s were heady times for Sun. The rise of Java, the burgeoning Internet (which Sun helped pioneer), the emergence of "geek chic," the network-age technology acceleration which Sun explained, applauded, and profited from, even while proffering a "stuff-should-be-free" ethic...all this and the growth of Java gave rise to a bloated firm addicted to its own press. But the reality of the twenty-first century has changed all that; a shrinking, RIF-battered Sun circles the wagons, speaks softly to itself in fear and denial, and waits for a return to remembered better days, holding tightly to the illusion that history has thrust a benevolent steward role upon them, one which they cannot shirk without risking a decline into the oblivion of Tower-of-Babel incompatibility.