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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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Another technology that is quickly storming the gates of corporate America's computing infrastructures is Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is thriving -- not languishing -- under the stewardship of a standards body.
Critics of Sun's continued control of Java also point to the platform's inability to live up to its potential for cross-vendor interoperability in the absence of a neutral organization overseeing compliance as a sign that Sun should step aside.
That fact could become quite clear to Java developers with the release this month of Java 2 Enterprise Edition for which Sun will provide reference implementations and testing guidelines, but will not oversee each vendors' tests.
According to Dana Gardner, research director for Internet infrastructure at the Aberdeen Group, that could provide a convenient yet troubling loophole for companies who feel obligated to favor their competitive imperatives over adhering to the letter and law of Sun's specification.
"The problem is we don't know how well vendors will play along with the standard [due to the way the process is arranged today]," Gardner says. "There might be a temptation to compete first and play later."
Presumably that temptation would not be as strong under the oversight of a governing standards body.
The X factor
As with any discussion of standards, the presence of Microsoft has to be taken into account when discussing the future of Java.
Although weakened by legal troubles, including the recent Department of Justice ruling as well as a loss in its legal battle with Sun, Microsoft is still seen as a shark in the waters anytime Java development is discussed.
Although the company has publicly hinted that it is abandoning Java-related development in favor of XML, Java proponents still worry that it could rise up to smite the platform should Sun let it out of its sight.
"For its entire history as a company, Microsoft has always taken the same approach to standards, which is to embrace, extend, and eliminate," says Rob Veitch, director of business development for Sybase's Internet application division in Emeryville, Calif. "So far Sun has been able to block them from doing that, but there is some danger if [Java] was out of Sun's control."
Of course, Veitch notes, Microsoft is not in the leadership position it was in just 18 months ago, so even if it was able to hijack Java from a standards body, whether anyone would fall in line behind it is not clear. The risk, however, still seems too high for Sun's supporters.
"Microsoft has its own interests, and in many cases those do not align with the interests of the industry as a whole," notes one developer. "I can imagine that if Java had been controlled by a standards body, we might, for example, be using Microsoft's [Application Foundation Classes] instead of JFC/Swing, and that would have been a tragedy."
The existence of a higher power
A final consideration in the Java tug-of-war is the notion that Java's path has already been determined, with neither Sun nor a standards body paving the way. Indeed, Sun's own Pat Sueltz, president of the company's software products platform division, admits that Java is now bigger than one company.
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