Open letter

Story: IBM's Open Letter to SunTotal Replies: 4
Author Content
runen

Feb 26, 2004
6:01 AM EDT
By far the best open letter written to Sun lately!
dave

Feb 26, 2004
6:03 AM EDT
Short and sweet with a direct proposal. The lack of all the long-winded language that has been traditionally associated with these "open letters" gives Sun less room to work in.

Really, IBM has been behind open source (related to Java) since 1999, when Dave Shields introduced Jikes to the free software community. They (IBM) are the best people to help Sun with this transition.

dave
bigmase521

Feb 26, 2004
6:11 AM EDT
great follow-up to Eric Raymond's open letter to Sun about opening up java. with IBM and the open source community heavily behind the movement, java could go places never imagined.

I just hope Sun listens to reason and opens up Java.
bob

Feb 26, 2004
8:15 AM EDT
This is just the boost that Java needs right now. I'm casting my vote...
zimon

Feb 27, 2004
8:39 AM EDT
If Sun opens up Java and makes it under GPL, what will prevent MS to add new Microsoft Windows dependable features and making that MS-Java "de facto" Java, just by shipping it with Windows?

Just what MS did with HTML by adding MS-specific features to IE. MS may not be interested to keep it "write once, run anywhere"-type (WORA) of language anymore. Of course they would had to share the source for the extra features, but rest of the world wouldn't able to use those features without Wine, VMWare or something.

I haven't decided yet my opinion, but I have a feeling GPL is not suitable for Java. There would have to be some sections in the license, which will guarantee it would be WORA-type language in the future also. That would mean, it couldn't be a "real open source" type of license.

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