Comment Conspiracy Theory (Score 1) 676
Sun sued Microsoft for 2 Billion dollars for ruining Java. However Sun put Java in the hands of Microsoft to enable them to bugger it alsmost completely. So they got 2 Billion. I suggested that they take the money and run. They could have shared it all with their employees as a nice Christmas bonus and just disappeared.
But no sooner they had 2 Billion Kodac suid Sun for 1 Billion. Easy come easy go.
Well back then why did Sun not take control of Java and write their own browser, leaving MS out in the cold? Beats me,
Well 1 Bill ain't much (is it?) Mmmm? Wasn't there a deal included not to sue each other for 10 years. Well at least that was public. Mmmmaybe there is something else going on. Sun has control over OO just enough to stifle the development just below that of anything really useful for business. Don't get me wrong OO is very useful to me. There are some things that are still very poor. Such as graphs in calc etc. and MS filters etc.
What? do they want to sell Star Office over Open Office. Somehow I do not think that that is really a big money spinner for Sun. So Why hold back OO?
MS do deals in such ways that I would say were illegal and on the verge of "Evil conspiring organization" stuff. Oh some say "that's business" But is business an excuse to forget morality? NO!
Anyway it would be great to be the Puppet Master of Sun (Not only Sun but lots of other organizations and lets say certain individuals), who do little favors for the Master who in turn grants them breath. (Otherwise "cut off their air supply")
Here the Master is able via many channels to stifle, bug up and generally make Linux (As a desktop System) slightly less attractive to the general end user. Other means are by making deals (Pulling Strings) with software houses to ignore Linux and only support the tight arsed (proprietry) operating systems. Mac plays along with this game also.
I am not surprised if certain individuals bug up certain OSS programs so they either break sightly or never are configured well. Who pulls their strings??? However there are still some individuals that believe that everyone needs to read the code or the poorly documented RTFM and still cower behind a 80x25 70's type terminal playing with stty. haha.
Is Sun stupid or not? They could have had it all with Java but they licensed it the wrong way. And even now they do not even support it well. 5 Years to get 64Bit jnlp. Crickey! There is no excuse. Cups printing breaks - 2 years to fix it.
I did not develop for developer.java.com simply because of their license. (They own my code) Apparently this is the same for OO.
What is Open Source? Is it Open Source or is it Stifle Source. It seems to me that not only Sun but many other companies are using Open Source as Stifle Source. Why has Apple bought CUPS? What about ghostscript (Always 2-5 years behind). Lots of examples of Stifle Source.
Lets not talk about hardware. Grrrrr!!
I guess that neither Java or OO are good money spinners for Sun now, so why should they care.
After all of this rant I do appreciate Sun open sourcing OO and Java (So Far). They have made many gestures to the Open Source community on one hand but on the other?
Open source is open slather for all sorts of skulduggery. Is there that much peer review? Are there that many developers. Who has time? We all have to eat and pay our mortgages, feed our screaming kids etc.
I do appreciate the heroes of the OSS community who put in a great deal of their time to write software for the community. A great form of charity. Thanks.
I do not appreciate companies trying to choke this great work. I do not appreciate individuals poisoning code.
Open Source is a great asset to the entire world. I cannot understand why it is still second best in Desktop and Business. It just is not polished as it should be.
KDE4 - Great coding, lousy usability.
Gnome - Great coding, usability good but not excellent.
Enlightenmment - Brilliant coding for 1997 - What happend? Why was it not embraced by some forward looking company. In some ways Enlightenment is still ahead of its time.
Open Source has so much potential, but it does not seem to reach it. Is it too many opinions? Is it too much opposition? Is it too much marginal code? Is it the lack of organization? Is it a conspiracy?