Bruce Boyes's Blog

No more "Java Trap" as Java goes open source?

"It'll be very good that the Java trap won’t exist anymore. It'll be a thing of the past," said Richard Stallman...president of the Free Software Foundation. The so-called Java trap was a situation in which distribution of free software containing Java was inhibited by Java's previous licensing terms.

This Infoworld article is one of many announcing the open-sourcing of Java, including the Micro Edition, under the GPL license. Oddly (I don't understand it, but maybe someone else does) IBM whined about this, insisting Java should have been made part of the Apache Foundation.

Why can't IBM and Sun kiss and make up? If Sun and Microsoft can, you'd think IBM could. Oh, yeah the sparring IDEs... c'mon guys. Eclipse is a great product, one I think Sun should support instead of continuing to push NetBeans. There are more productive things Sun could do rather than paddling upstream in the IDE war.

So, open-source ME - what does this mean for embedded systems and robotics? Possibly wider acceptance and streamlined porting to other hardware platforms. If the commercial licensing of Java has also been simplified, and cost reduced, we could hope for much more standardized and widely available Java VMs or native implementations across ARM, MIPs, PowerPC, AVR, etc.

Then, maybe, we embedded folks could start to really claw our way out of the stone age into the new millenium. As it is, here at Systronix, we support four different embedded Java systems (aJile JStamp/JStik, Dallas TINI/TStik, Imsys SNAP, and SunSPOT Squawk). Plus, ARM7 C and assy code, Philips 900 series (8051), Dallas 8051/C400 family, Silicon Labs 8051, and Atmel AVR.

This is insane. At least the Java systems can all share a single IDE and build environment. Runtime libraries are just different enough to drive us a bit crazy. The other micros are all night and day different, especially regarding peripheral support. They way they each do CAN, I2C and SPI is all completely different and non-portable. So we spend way too much time struggling with mundane details instead of applications.

Which brings me back to Stallman's remarks about the Java Trap. What about the C and assembly code trap? It's all a big trap, or more accurately, a Tar Pit. The sooner we can unstick ourselves, the sooner we can get Real Work done. And Java still gives us the best hope of doing that. Open-sourcing Java, while a step in the right direction, is just a step. There's a lot more that needs to be done to make developers more productive.

Comments

• BTW, at this point Stallman should really post an update to the "Java trap" page... shouldn't he?

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on November 14, 2006 at 12:48 PM

• maybe he can replace the references to Java with C#? "The C# Trap".

  leouser

  Posted by: leouser on November 14, 2006 at 04:53 PM

• ;-)

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on November 14, 2006 at 06:10 PM

• I think this post has some good ideas about IBM's perspective. I also think IBM's reaction this week is a bad PR move. On the other hand, I'm glad I haven't seen Sun badmouth their reaction. It's better just to ignore their rants from an official perspective.
  

  Posted by: tompalmer on November 15, 2006 at 08:54 AM

• Actually, for this article, I'll forgive IBM this time.

  Posted by: tompalmer on November 15, 2006 at 10:51 AM

• I think most folks actually involved in the IDE space think that Eclipse and NetBeans are the best things to happen to each other. The competition got both companies to invest more in development than either would have otherwise. This is one instance where the competition has been truly healthy and good for everybody, especially end users.

  Posted by: richunger on November 15, 2006 at 12:18 PM

• Rich, you make a good point about the IDE competition. Where I start to find it annoying is when Sun only makes plugins for NetBeans (as if that will make Eclipse go away), and tries to keep their own employees from using Eclipse. Perhaps it's a matter of balance. Could Sun still promote NetBeans but also write Eclipse plugins?

  Posted by: bboyes on November 15, 2006 at 01:46 PM

• IBM is doing quite a nice job of writing eclipse plugins, I think. Getting Sun employees to use NB is a good way of forcing the NB team to deal with the problems of real developers. It makes them "eat their own dogfood." This is a common practice in many companies. I don't see why Sun should be responsible for supporting the Eclipse platform, when they already have a corporate parent in IBM (which, after all, has even more resources than Sun does).

  What happens if/when the market share moves towards 50/50 (and it does seem to be heading in that direction). Would you be asking IBM why it's not writing NB plugins? Probably not, and neither would I. They should be competing. After all, if they're both competing by writing software that's better than the other guy, then we all end up with better IDE's from both of them.

  It's really not a zero-sum game.

  Posted by: richunger on November 15, 2006 at 03:07 PM

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