Sun plans to open-source Java--someday

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You Are Correct

You are exactly right! Essentially Sun complained that MS was causing Java to fork. By Open Sourcing Java, Sun is practically begging that Java be forked many times over. As for innovation, there is no evidence that Open Sourcing software leads to cutting edge innovation. Open Sourcing software simply leads to the development of many versions of the software having different feature sets. Also I see no evidence that software companies, or companies seeking to earn more revenue from software, make much money from OSS. Hardware companies do. But many software companies that deal with OSS have to scramble back to using proprietary licenses to make money.

Open Sourcing software has essentially become a gimmick for generating interest in software that was not doing well on its own. It is very much apparent that Sun believes that Java cannot out-innovate .Net. However, what are the long term implications for doing this? Is Sun willing to go to an anemic software development model where a lot of money is driven out of the development of Java in favor of a community development model? Will this not aggravate Java?s plight of not being able to out-innovate .Net? Will this not lead to the massive fragmentation of the Java standard and open the door for a company like IBM to come out with a more popular implementation that overshadow?s Sun?s Java?s standard ? as I believe Mr. Berlind pointed out some time ago?

I don?t believe Sun has thought its decision through very well. It cannot continue to use the Java community process to advance Java and hope to compete against .Net because the process is much too slow. If it Open Sources Java, it would be a good PR move for a while, but will fundamentally cripple its ability to out-innovate .Net. Sun has to decide if it serious about competing with .Net; seize direct control of Java; and out do what MS has done through hard work and smart thinking. It is that simple. Resorting to Open Source gimmickry will not let the company competet against MS in the long run.

Posted by: P. Douglas   Posted on: 06/05/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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