Sun to Release Java Source Code

pete314 writes "After resisting for years, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz at JavaOne this morning said that he will release the source code for Java. The company is asking developers to provide feedback on how to best get there and prevent forking and fragmentation."

Its Simple

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Use a spoon. Not only does it prevent you from forking, but its really hard to fragment anything with it.

Just don't break it, please

[mattypants]

Although the source for the reference platform has been available for some time, the fact that it may become 'free' means forks are inevitable, and that's the only thing that's missing from Java, namely the freedom to fork it. Mind you, if the C++ crowd get hold of it that's what it will be... completely forked.

Re:Its Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no spork.

Re:Its Simple

[LordOfTheNoobs]

#define spork(a) fork(a)

sweet...

Re:Its Simple

[Surt]

Unfortunately, there is no spoon.

"Look at Perl."

[Dystopian Rebel]

Just so I fully grasp your analogy, do you mean Perl < 6.0, which was damnably hard to read, or Perl >= 6.0, which will be impossible to understand?

YES

[JavaLord]

I can't wait to make the Javalord JVM. Soon the internet will be overrun with craplets that only work on my JVM. MUHAHAHA

In other news..

[dmt99]

Duke Nuke'em forever will release their source code....

Re:Misleading Headline

[FatherOfONe]

Ok, I will throw out an example.

Microsoft says "Great Sun open sourced Java". We will take it bundle it with windows, change all the underlying code so that it actually uses windows API's, remove anything that competes against our stuff like SWING, EJB's, Servlets, messaging API's et al, and make it so that our Java only runs on Windows, and even if you try to run a "normal" Java application , it will not work unless you change it to support com.microsoft.xxx libraries, and jump through a ton of hoops.

Now you and I would say that we would NEVER code to that, but the reality is that the management dorks out there would say that we would have to because it is on 95% of the worlds computers. Thus who really is the standard? It would be the defacto standard, much like IE is today. It sucks but it is the reality of the situation. Trust me, this has happened to me before and the best thing that EVER happened to our development staff was when Microsoft "dropped" support of Java. The management dorks had runs Sun's JVM and suddenly stuff started to work well and we could code to open standards, not Windows standards.

So, on one hand I hope that Sun does open source Java to shut up all the people bitching, but the last thing I want is IBM or Microsoft doing their own fork. I as a developer do not EVER want to have to change my code to run on some specific platform or JVM. If I wanted to do that I would code in C++. Heck it is open, and if peopl code to "standards" they can just port their apps with little trouble.... Oh wait that never really worked out did it?

The good news is that at the point Microsoft probably won't mess with Java, they have to worry about a bunch of other stuff, but that won't stop IBM.

Re:Why is this a surprise?

[BigCheese]

Aha! So Sun has figured out how to Use the Schwartz.

Sorry, that name just begs for a Spaceballs reference.