Sun Says Java Source Already Available

mjdroner writes "In an InfoWorld article, Java CTO James Gosling says that source code for Java has been available for 10 years. Gosling claims Java is close to an open source model, though discounts Sun joining the Eclipse Foundation. He goes on to say that Eclipse's endorsement of the standard widget toolkit destroyed interoperability, saying it's based on the windows API, making it problematic to run on other platforms."

The best Java windowing toolkit isn't Swing or SWT

[mrchaotica]

...it's Cocoa! [apple.com] : D

(burn, karma, burn!)

BUT!!!

[gameforge]

I enjoy scrolling up and down 15,000 line source code files as much as the next guy. That's why it's so much fun to look at the GCC sources.

Occasionally, it's actually useful to see how someone implemented something, for educational purposes.

But can I modify it, make it work on my new OS and processor and sell it without paying royalties? Maybe, distribute it under the GPL so it can come with FOS OS' in a truly free sense?

Having source code isn't everything. Back in the old days, there was always source code for everything; UNIX on any of twelve or so different platforms wasn't binary compatible, but source compatible. So if you wanted to make a program and sell it, like PeachTree (yeah it's that old), you HAD to distribute the source code. Otherwise, you'd either have to distribute dozens of different binaries or stick with a single platform, which wasn't profitable.

It was copyright infringement to make money by changing the code and selling it... and you couldn't give any of it away to someone who didn't have a license to it. And even if you did make modifications, you couldn't use them when the next release came out unless you ported them over each time.

There's a difference between something being OpenSource and just having the source. Even if it's a free product like Java.

What can you legally do with it? What separates it from being truly open source? I'd read the article, but it seems /.'d at the moment.

Re:Swing

[lokedhs]

It's faster on Windows too. An interesting comparison is IntelliJ IDEA [intellij.com] versus Eclipse. IDEA is significantly faster than Eclipse, even though IDEA uses Swing.

IDEA is also a lot better than Eclipse functionality-wise but that's not really releveant for this comparison.

Re:Swing

[adolfojp]

Sorry, but this appears to be FUD. If you want a native look and feel you need to put in one line of code to tell the UIManager to use it. A few more lines can give the user control of the L&F.

No it doesn't. Every app in my system uses font anti aliasing. Every Swing app in my system doesn't. The Swing fonts will look awfull when compared to the fonts of everything else.

Using themes doesn't work that great with Swing either (Not Swing themes but Gnome, KDE, Windows global themes). Swing apps will stick out like a sore thumb.

Re:It's available?

[magicjava]

Ummm...that error message just says you need to download the source code in order to build it.

The "restrictive license" you refer to allows you to make any changes you want to the source, but to call your code "Java" it has to pass Java certification. This is to enable the "write once, run anywhere" capabilities of Java.

Let's Define Our Terms

[fm6]

Half the issue here is that everybody (including the Slashdot editors, natch, but a lot of other folks as well) is very sloppy with the terms "Java" and "Open Source"

Java is not the Java Development Kit, or any other specific peice of software. To Sun, "Java" is a trademark, so they can't even use it as a noun. But the rest of us can get by with thinking of Java as a collection of specifications: the Java language, the Java class libraries, and the Java VM spec. None of these is software — software can only be a implementation of Java.

That might seem like a silly distinction, until you remember that Sun is not the only vendor for Java implementations. Not only are there commercial implementations, but there are open source implementations of all [gnu.org] three [sourceforge.net], specs [kaffe.org]. Of course, these all lag way behind commercial implementations, as open source clones are wont to do.

Anyway, when people say "Sun should open-source Java" what they really mean is "Sun should open-source their implementation of Java."

Which brings us to:

"Open source" is not software where the source code is freely available. It software where you can obtain the source code provided you agree to a license. That license specifies that you must make any changes to that source code available to anybody else who agrees to the same license.

And here's a non-legal issue: if you're serious about making your product open-source, you don't just throw the source code over the wall and say "go crazy!" You make a serious attempt to fold contributed code back into your main source tree. That's a serious administrative cost, and a big reason so many companies are unwilling to OS their products.

How open does it need to be?

[Zigurd]

How open does Java licensing need to be?

Answer: Open enough that the most important Linux distributions will include Java.

It is correct that Java is close to being FOSS, but that makes it even more the pity that Sun could not make the few adjustments needed to attain this goal.

Sun should by now be over the trauma of Microsoft attempting to hijack Java and accept things like SWT as the kind of sideshow that the Ubuntu/Kubuntu thing is.

5.0: Java's Death Knell

[Dyst Mingus]

Although Sun has been generous with their source and created great opportunities for clever developers, Java has generated the need for a new cross platform OO language. The decision to implement generisity using type erasure has irrepairably damaged the run-ime integrity of the language. This will become more and more apparent as people become better aquanted with the new specification. Hopefully the open source community will build on the experience gained through working with Java to create a new truly type safe cross-platform OO language. If not... all hail .NET chime... chime... rattle.

Re:Download Link

[AKAImBatman]

That's the SDK. It's for developing Java applications.

<tweety-bird>He don't know Java wery well, do he?</tweety-bird>

As another poster pointed out, the JDK contains the JRE. In fact, the JDK is nothing more than the JRE + Compiler Tools. It's fairly easy to mod a JRE to become a JDK just by moving a few JAR files. (And the 'javac' executable if you want an easy way to launch the compiler.)

As a result, it almost always makes more sense to install the JDK rather than the JRE. The only purpose of the JRE is download size. Since it includes less "stuff" (including a lack of a soundbank!), it's a much smaller download than the JDK.

Re:Destroyed Interoperabilty?

[magicjava]

Eclipse has shown that the market can indeed rally around Java optimized for Windows. I'm not trying slam SWT, but it hasn't really generated much of a market for Java desktop apps. To be fair, Swing and AWT haven't either, but your complaints about Swing being slow is a bit dated. Swing's pretty crisp these days. The problem really isn't the GUI front-end, the problem is Java as a whole has not made much of an impact on the desktop.

MOD PARENT DOWN!

[javacowboy]

The parent is a troll (possibly an IBM troll).

Sun paid tons of money and spent years writing the class libraries. Why should they give their work away for free? They license this code to IBM, Oracle and BAE for a significant sum. Why should they give up this revenue?

Sun has changed the licensing for the JRE to allow it to more easily be integrated into Linux distros. The parent is either ignorant of that fact or deliberately omitting it.

Sun is less likely to maintain to maintain the standard if they open source the code. What kind of ass backasswards reasoning is this?

Why embrace SWT? This is IBM's attempt to bastardize the JDK. What's more, it's not pure Java. For instance, when I bought my Intel iMac, NetBeans 5.0(pure Java Swing) worked immediately, whereas an SWT library needed to be replaced for Eclipse. Why should Sun integrate a less than fully platform independent competitor's attempt to break a standard?

See this blog for more analysis on SWT vs Swing:

http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t18544.html [javalobby.org]

The jury is out on whether SWT is technically superior to Swing.

If you think Eclipse makes Java development easy, you obviously haven't used NetBeans 5.0, which is significantly superior to Eclipse in every way. It includes functionality out of the box (JSP compilation) that you need to pay for (MyEclipse) with Eclipse.

You obviously have an IBM bias with the following stated positions:

1) Open Source Java so IBM doesn't have to license class library source from Sun.
2) SWT should be included in JDK, thus polluting the standard.
3) Eclipse is the best IDE and makes developing Java "easy", with no mention whatsoever of the clearly superior NetBeans 5.0, or, for that matter, IntelliJ.

Re:Open source is more than that

[gluteus]

Like just about ANY toolkit, a lot depends on the ability of the developer using it. You can write lousy Swing apps, but if you know what you're doing, you can also write a pretty good one too. You might well argue that it's too difficult to write a good Swing app, but don't conclude from your failures that everyone is doomed.

One thing that too many people here don't appreciate is that what Sun set out to do is almost impossible to get right the first time. Think about it, a cross platform, highly customizable GUI toolkit that mimics the look and feel of every platform it runs on. With one very major player (MS) set to break it.

Look at what Apple did with Swing. A Swing app running on OS X can look almost like a native app, without breaking cross platform compatibility, because Apple EMBRACED Java and Swing. What would have happened if Microsoft did the same thing?

Re:Swing doesn't suck anymore

[DrXym]

It isn't FUD. I'm writing an app with swing and the paint / resize delays are painful. Perhaps Java 6 will solve everything but to believe that is to ignore those same promises made with every release. Besides which Java 6 isn't even out yet.

Swing in Java 5 uses uxtheme on XP and it looks far better than other versions, but it is still superficial compared to a native app. Elements such as the file chooser mimic the common file dialog but behave nothing like the real thing at all. A simple demonstration would be to run SwingSet and right mouse on any file in the file dialog and see what popup appears. This is not exclusive to Windows. I suspect the GTK / Mac choosers are just pale imitations of their respective choosers too. Edit fields don't have a clipboard popup for cut / copy / paste operations. Accessibility tools like the Narrator also don't work. Other annoyances include the slow resize time and the way that you have to release a window sizing frame for the contents to resize.

All these little things are seriously distracting and make a Swing app stick out like a sore thumb. SWT apps aren't native speed but they're not far from it and they pick up the behaviour as well as look of the platform. Given the complexity of an app like Azureus, the performance of the UI is really rather impressive. I don't have a problem with the speed of Java, just Swing.

Java being open sourced...

[bill_kress]

Java developers, meanwhile, want to preserve interoperability and reliability, which is maintained by the current rules governing Java, Gosling said. To be certified as Java-compliant, software most undergo a test suite.

"They really like the fact that we're very compulsive about the whole testing thing," Gosling said.


Exactly. I think that the people calling for Java to be open sourced don't get the concept. Honestly, I think they must all be either people who are against java just because they have a platform they prefer (A very common occurrence among engineers) or they are trying to destroy the advantages of Java (Simplicity, slow and deeply considered addition of new features, compatibility) in order to make it easier to sell a competing product.

The fact is, nothing will be gained from open-sourcing Java that you can't get by evolving the existing license (for instance, sun is modifying it to be able to ship the JDK with other products). On the other hand, much will be lost. Sun has been a creator and beneficial guardian of this language, and has crafted it into something that many users just love.

Now, many people don't need Java. For instance, if you are making a smallish website, you are just stupid if you try to use java--use ROR or .net technologies that just slide together.

However, if you have a project with an architect, a handful of software engineers and dozens of programmers working on a huge code base at the same time I don't think you can pick a better platform.

If you are not in java's target audience, please SHUT THE HELL UP about it having to be open source. You don't have to feel bad about java not being appropriate for you! I give you permission to go use a scripting type of tool and solve your problem much quicker, but don't try to mold my favorite tool into something that fits your job just because it has a cool name and you think you should be using it because everyone else is.

Those of us who really need java like it pretty much as it is--slow intelligent improvements, fewer terse, confusing or overloaded language features and a large number of users more interested in making readable/reusable code (as opposed to the users who just want to get the job done with write-once code). Overall it's just a good, solid, readable language, leave it at that.

Re:Shills polluting the conversation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, what?

You have to be kidding... With all of the uber popular web programs out there that look *nothing* like windows, all of a sudden a native look and feel is your topmost priority?

Even aside from that, I don't understand at all where people can reasonable call eclipse a program that looks like windows. Have you ever pulled up word and eclipse next to each other? Look at the tabs! The colors! Nothing like windows.

As much as I like eclipse, I find all these arguments really silly.

Just like the now 4 or 5 year old arguments about how slow java is, or how slow Swing is. (Neither of which are true by the way, and I have a large swing application running against a 1GB-sized database to prove it).

Re:Java being open sourced...

[Ozwald]

Clearly you're as clueless as Sun.

Why is everybody say "it works on my version of Linux"? What about the BSDs? Smart phones? Embedded devices? My own crackpot system using vacuum tubes? We don't want it all open source, all we want is the C code opened, changable, and distributable. The stuff that's platform dependant. Give me this, and I'll know that your JSP web page will work on my server (which it doesn't).

Sun: You said you had a write-once-run-everywhere platform. Well? Where the hell is it? Do you really think we want the source so we can screw it up? We want what you promised, write once, run on my platform. And as long as I cannot build it for my platform, then it's of no friggen use. And no, you can't make OSS and third parties fill in the gaps, that's when you get the write-once-test-everywhere/lowest common demoninator fiasco that we have now.

Oz