[nycbug-talk] Sun, Microsoft Red Hat and Open Source

[Kurt Miller]

From: "Matthew Terenzio" <matt at jobsforge.com>
> On Mar 30, 2005, at 1:58 PM, Marc Spitzer wrote:
> 
>> he did open source Solaris and Staroffice/Openoffice is that not good
>> enough even if he never opensources java?
> 
> I'm not arguing for or against Sun or Opening Java up, but one concern 
> is fragmentation.
> Gosling has talked about it before.
> Things can be open, but you don't want to have to think, "Will this 
> Perl script work the same on Darwin as it does on Red Hat?"
> And because of it's semi-openness in the past, it is a concern that 
> complete Java openess could lead to one saying, " This works on on IBM 
> Java on Linux."
> Many of you know better than I how different flavors of the Java API 
> have application server vendors leading their clients down that path of 
> lockdown

And so .... you have hit the nail on the head. Sun has made the jre/sdk
source available under the SCSL. However, they have not made the TCK's
available to the community. You can pay them $50,000 to get access to them
if you want. Without the TCK's you can not verify the compatibility of the jre/sdk.
Without verifying the compatibility of the jre/sdk, you can't use the jre/sdk for 
anything more then personal and individual use.

Both the SCSL and their new research license restrict the _use_ of the jre/sdk
in ways that prevent a business from running any application (say tomcat or
whatever) on it. Until Sun makes the TCK's available to the community without
fee, open source java is just a publicity stunt.

-Kurt