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Java tug-of-war
Sun decides to retain control of Java; the Java community voices mixed reactions
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Invoking history is a two-way street
Those who support Sun's continued control of Java tend toward the pragmatic when it comes to technology. Not only are they happy with the functionality of what the Java Community Process churns out, but they feel no need for undue change when the status quo is working just fine. That is a logical position considering the success with which other de facto standards have evolved, says Tom Dwyer, a research director at the Aberdeen Group, in Boston.
"There are a number of examples where technologies that ended up being widely embraced by the industry got that way without a standards body anointing them, so there are all types of proof points for the de facto industry approach," Dwyer says.
One specific example of that is Visual Basic, which has become a useful development language without ever being officially sanctioned by a standards body.
That example has led Jayson Minard, a developer on the team that created the JavaBean specification and now chief technology officer at Open Avenue, to believe Java is better off left to grow with Sun.
"Controlled languages have historically done better than standardized languages," Minard says. "Plus, while there probably is a concern [that Java could become too proprietary] in the long, long run, I'm not sure any language ever has a long enough life for that to come into effect."
In addition to pointing out examples of languages that have survived proprietary development and grown into useful, de facto standards, Sun's backers also point to technologies that have foundered under the weight of standards bodies.
One such example, says Rogue Wave's Patten, is C++ -- a language that Java is quickly surpassing in electronic-business programming environments. The reason, Patten says, is that Sun has helped Java mature with unprecedented speed while remaining true to its core value propositions, allowing Java to grow less platform-dependent and closer to its 'Write Once, Run Anywhere' promise.
C++, on the other hand, has been made to endure the excess baggage that can come when standards bodies control a language.
"So far, Sun and its many partners have done a great job of cooperating to produce highly functional supporting libraries," Patten says. "Contrast this to C++, where ANSI took years to produce the very low-level standards library and nothing higher-level has ever been standardized."
Of course, history always has two sides. Those who feel it is time for Java to grow on its own can point to just as many, if not more, examples of nonproprietary technologies that have flourished and are currently flourishing on their own. The most obvious recent example is Linux, which in a short time has grown from a hobbyist's operating system to a competitor that even Microsoft is taking seriously -- without the restraint of a controlling entity.
Mark Field, president of Sterling Software's application development group, believes that success should send a signal to Sun.
"Once you open the source code, let it out into the community, you create a powerhouse," Field says. "Sun should learn from Red Hat and learn to let go a little bit."
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