John "jbob" Bobowicz's Blog

April 2005 Archives

When your code and my code becomes "our code".

All licenses need to be obeyed and there should be consequences for those that violate any license.

Security specialist, Fortinet, just found themselves in the cross hairs of the GPL Police (aka gpl-violations.org). A C|Net News.com article is reporting that the founder of gpl-violations.org has filed for a court injunction against Fortinet for violating the GNU General Public License.

Now, if the allegations are true, I am completely in support of what is happening here. However, this action, or the article itself, is not the topic of this weblog entry. It's the thoughts and images that are invoked by this that I wish to discuss.

I guess the real question is: What happens when my code and your code becomes our code? If Open Source is the enabler of this, shouldn't open source licenses handle this openly (and fairly)?

There has been a lot of discussion and debate over the merits of GPL as "the open source license", or more correctly, the lack of merit of non-GPL licenses. There are people that will go so far as say that "Open Source == GPL". I've heard opinions that GPL is the only real open source license because it provides the most freedom.

But, what about freedom of choice?

Phrases like "court injunction" and the mere existence of a gpl-violations.org watchdog seem to contradict the nirvana of freedom and openness that has been made synonymous with GPL.

It's one thing to try and propagate a philosophy through a license but is all of this a sign that a philosophy is becoming fundamentally extreme? Nobody is debating the right to enforce a license and I hope the first sentence of this piece made that clear, but I find the whole situation ironic and humorous.

All this tells me is that GPL does not provide more freedom than other licenses. It merely provides different freedoms while removing others - just like every other license out there. I personally don't like people telling me what license to use for code that I have written on my own. I have just as much of a right to pick my own license for my code as other do for their code. You can dictate to me when, where, and how to use your code, just don't dictate what license I have to use for my code. If your code and my code becomes our code, don't I have a say about what license to use for our code? GPL doesn't seem to think so.

Sidebar: Greg Papadopoulos has a blog entry titled "My Views on Open Source" that I think it is a good read and makes some thought provoking points about GPL.

I'm also aware that I have the right and freedom to not incorporate GPL code in my code if I disagree with the license. After all, we have to obey licenses whether we agree with them or not.

Thanks for reading.

Tech Galaxy 2005 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL

This past Saturday, April 23rd, I attended the 2nd annual Tech Galaxy event on the campus of NOVA Southeastern University in Davie, FL (Ft. Lauderdale, for all you non-Floridians). Tech Galaxy was formed by the founders of the South Florida Java Users Group (SOFLOJUG), and the founder of the Florida Linux User xChange (FLUX).

I believe there were about 250 registered attendees, which is not bad for a Saturday. If you've seen how beautiful the weather has been in Florida lately, you'd realize that you need a really good reason so stay indoors on a weekend.

I gave a 45 minute session on Sun's new Java Studio Creator tool and was pleasantly surprised at the attendance. My talk was basically a tour/demo of the product and thankfully Murphys' Law stayed home. There was a lot of interaction and what I found most notable was the broad range of developer types that expressed an interest in Creator. There were accomplished J2EE developers, as well as Java newbies, and even a bunch of .NET developers in the room that seemed very impressed with Creator.

I'll be blogging more on Creator in the near future, as I also seem to have gotten hooked. It's a really cool tool and the "Java Studio Creator Field Guide", by Gail and Paul Anderson is an extremely useful companion book. More on that in a later blog.

This was the second Event that I attended and spoke at for the South Florida JUG and both have been rewarding. I have a lot of respect for Jeanette Lawrence for what she's done with the SOFLOJUG and especially in putting together Tech Galaxy for the South Florida technology community.

If you're a Java developer in South Florida, you should definitely look up Jeanette and the SOFLOJUG and if you're in town next year, I'll see you at Tech Galaxy 2006.

Thanks for reading.

"Run anywhere" or "Runs everywhere"?

Everyone knows that Java's mantra has always been "Write Once Run Anywhere" (WORA) and there has been a lot of discussion over the years about that claim.

Putting the WORA discussion aside (it's already been beaten to death), I see the real value being in that Java, itself, seems to run everywhere. No matter where I need my application or data to get to; desktops, servers, wireless devices, sensors, it is highly likely that Java will be there for me to use. That's a powerful statement that I believe is rather unique.

As Windows is the common denominator for desktops, Java is becoming the common denominator for everything.

Additionally, if my application is written in Java and I need it to integrate with or interoperate with something that also supports/runs Java, I believe I am less likely to run into complications (Maybe that's wishful or naive thinking...) then if I am trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Unlike WORA, I'm not thinking specifically about code reuse but rather knowledge and skill reuse. I already know one discipline of Java (EE, SE, ME) so expanding my application's reach only requires an incremental increase in knowledge. Therefore my experiences with Java become an annuity of sorts. This has got to be better than learning a whole new set of languages and syntax for every different device, platform, or "thing" that I want to engage.

I've thought this for a while but it was today's Editor's Daily Blog that got me to write about. In it, Daniel points to a blog by Bill Bumgarner titled "Why Java on the Desktop Doesn't Matter" that focuses on the thoughts of John Carmack and why Java hasn't been more successful on the desktop. (Apologies to Bill and John if I am not characterizing this properly....read it to keep me honest)

Bill and John make some valid points about UI performance. I believe the biggest reason for Java not reaching it's potential on the desktop is largely because Java doesn't have the same access to OS internals that native code is typically given. To be very specific, the most widely used desktop continues to be Windows and from what I have heard, C++, C#, and VB all have richer access to things like the Registry and other OS internals. Someone writing a desktop application targeting Windows is going to use the language that offers the richest set of capabilities so that the resulting application is best integrated into the OS it is running on. There's only so much that the Java community can do on the Windows front without help from the OS.

Linux, being that it is open, provides an opportunity for Java to add more value on the desktop. It remains to be seen if this will be realized. It seems that in this case more emphasis is put on licensing then the fact that all Java applications run on Linux (and therefore you don't need a "Linux version" of a particular application). Apple does a great job of integrating Java into OS X and some of their desktop utilities. The fact remains that if success is a numbers game, then for now, success on the desktop = success on Windows.

I also believe that it won't be another OS that will replace Windows' monopoly, I believe that it will be devices that will replace desktops. As more and more services and applications get accessed by more and more devices and more of these devices run Java, Java on the desktop becomes more relevant. If you have to support web, device, and desktop access to your application, Java makes sense.

To that end, and based on the beginning portion of this blog, I think that Java on the desktop matters a great deal. I think that the ability to run Java running everywhere is a big deal, including running it on the desktop.

Thanks for reading.

SouJava becomes first JUG to join JCP

In case you haven't heard, the Brazilian Java Users Society (or SouJava) recently became the first Java User Group to join the JCP.

Bruno Souza, a founder and coordinator of SouJava, is also a community leader on java.net and runs the java.net JUG Community.

Congratulations to Bruno and all the members of SouJava for this big step and showing that JUGs can make a difference.

Community 101: Be visible and easy to find

Do you have a people page in the java.net People Wiki?
I do

Do you even know what I'm talking about?
By that, I mean do you know what the people wiki is?!

Does your people page have enough useful information on it to make it valuable to you and others?
Mine doesn't, but I promise I will do as I say after this blog.... ;)

The java.net people wiki is a member maintained wiki for java.net members to create a page for themselves. There are no hard and fast rules about what you should put there, but there is a lot to consider. First let's look as some common situations where a people wiki page could be helpful.

Have you ever gotten a project role request from someone known only as some obscure ID?
Wouldn't it be great if you could easily learn more about the person requesting the role?

Imagine if we held an election for a post on java.net (i.e. the Fairness Board) and the only information you had about the candidates was their user ID?
Wouldn't it be great if you could easily see their bio?

There's over 100k members on java.net, but how many of them have worked on the kind of application that I have questions about? How can I tell if they are open to being contacted.
Wouldn't it be great if you could easily look up peoples skill sets?

I'm sure there are lots and lots of additional scenarios that hopefully you will contribute as comments to this blog entry, but let's get to the point.

All of these scenarios have one thing in common. They are all born from the fact that the only identity that people really have on java.net is their user ID. For a lot of reasons, we do not collect or capture personal information during registration. We don't even require a real name. This can make some decisions tricky.

The people wiki was created to assist in these situations. It certainly cannot solve these problems because, as a wiki, some of the information (i.e. skills) can be subject to the perceptions of the author. But it can help.

Let's consider some types of information that might make the people wiki more valuable:

• Your full name
• Your location (city, country, time zone, etc)
• Your Bio
• The technical skills you possess (Swing, JDBC, Hibernate, performance tuning, etc)
• Your technical interests (what kind of projects do you like?)
• Are you looking for a job? Full Time? Consultant?
• Do you mind being contacted regarding any of this?

There's lot's of other social things you could add, including a picture (so we can recognize you at Java One!) and what books you're reading. The people wiki page itself also lists a lot of good ideas, but I'm trying to focus on things that might be helpful in getting things done.

Like before, this is by no means an exhaustive list of things you could put on your people page, so please comment on other things or if any of these above are a bad idea.

As more and more members create useful people pages, some of the scenarios become easier to deal with.

• Having a people wiki page with your skills and background might speed up the role request process.
• If you're looking for a specific skill set, you can search the people pages for the right skills and/or experience.
• You can use your people wiki page as an online resume and that might even find you a better job!
• You could more easily find people local to you with the same interests.

Just remember that it's easier to include you and collaborate with you if we all know who you are and something about you. The people wiki is completely voluntary as is the information that you put there.

I hope this was helpful.....now, if you'll excuse me, I need to update my page.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.