Page III: Sun Microsystems is grappling with applying an open-source philosophy to its Java software as the company weighs risks and benefits over whether it should jump in further or not. But some experts are suggesting a middle ground.
Open-source reference implementations and test kits would make it easier for organisations to create Java compatible software without joining the JCP.
Groovy, a programming language, is designed to enable the Java environment to run simpler instructions called scripts and will be a test for the success of open-source test kits and reference implementations, Behlendorf said. "We'll see what happens with Groovy," Behlendorf said. "It's a test case. Does this process result in higher quality?"
Gosling said Sun already has embraced some of the merits of open-source software, namely the ability for others to see its source code.
"The source is out there," Gosling said. However, Sun has included a provision to enforce compatibility. "There's a catch in the licence: You can't redistribute it, if it's deviant," he said. That constraint is not present in the open-source realm.
In addition, Sun has released one chunk of Java code as open-source software with great fanfare: the Java 3D package, which handles three-dimensional geometrical and lighting display tasks.
Legal entanglements complicate the existing Java regime. Because access to the JCP is contingent on signing a legal participation agreement, there's a barrier to outsiders who, for example, want to suggest bug fixes -- a barrier not present in the open-source realm. At the same time, open-source programmers have their own ways of dealing with some problems before the lawyers get involved, Behlendorf said.
"Defects in compatibility are seen as bugs to be fixed, rather than legal terms to be violated and litigated. It shifts the responsibility and the onus from the lawyers to the developers," he said.
The march of progress
The JCP has changed and will continue to change, said Rob Gingell, the Sun vice president who oversees that effort.
"Two years ago with Apache, we evolved the way Java was managed to make things more inclusive," Gingell said, forced to respond by the fact that Apache wanted to participate and help with developing the code for servers, but wasn't allowed to.
Now history is repeating itself, Gingell said. At dinner on Wednesday, Geronimo developers told Gingell of bugs they had discovered in a compatibility test kit that they were prohibited from fixing.
Sun believes it's made some progress, for example, in the case of "real-time" Java, a version of the software designed for machines that must respond to some events quickly. In 1999, several companies unhappy with Sun's rules began their own work on a real-time Java standard under the purview of a group called the J Consortium.
But the companies who had headed in their own direction "are thinking of joining the JCP," said Greg Bollella, a Sun senior staff engineer and a lead developer of real-time Java. "We're kind of healing the rift," he said.
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