» Harmony: an Apache-licensed Java
Harmony: an Apache-licensed Java
Apache launches "Harmony", a new and independent implementation of J2SE 5.0 under the Apache license.
This project is likely to change the Java landscape, if it comes to life, by federating energies around a fully-featured opensource Java implementation. Once we have that, Java will be no more considered as a non-free technology and can spread on Linux boxes everywhere.
Interesting times ahead...
This project is likely to change the Java landscape, if it comes to life, by federating energies around a fully-featured opensource Java implementation. Once we have that, Java will be no more considered as a non-free technology and can spread on Linux boxes everywhere.
Interesting times ahead...
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Well, after spending hours to have a workable java environment on Fedora core 3 (yumming all the Apache stuff from Jpackage is not as easy at is should :-) ), I could agree.
But in a time where Java is becoming older and older, i am more eager to see 1) a stronger eclipse IDE, fully integrated with productivity and MDA in mind, as well as a 2) stronger integration of desktop (Eclipse and open office) and apache suite. .NET and Office 2003 are catching up, and developping in Java is still quite a challenge in many situations.
Any way if Harmony can be alive fast (it could no?), that it would be a great step, and probably a way to see more innovation in the Java world.
I just don't get this:
"... opensource Java implementation. Once we have that, Java will be no more considered as a non-free technology and can spread on Linux boxes everywhere."
How is the development kit (JDK) and the runtime (JRE) _not_ free right now? Are the download pages I've been using to install both of these on Windows and Linux boxes all these many years somehow magical, and only discovered by me? Have you all been paying for this stuff all this time?
Can some explain to me why java is considered "non-free" by some people, because I must be some kind of idiot to not "get it".
Mike, I'm talking here about free as in "free speech" (what opensource and free software are all about), and not as in "free beer". Yes, you can download the JDK from Sun's website without having to pay for it, but that doesn't mean you get all the sources and are able to modify and redistribute them.
Mike C, the non-free part about the jvm is that it's not included in the standard linux distributions. You have to download it from SUN or another JVM vendor if you want it installed. I have no experience using SuSE Enterprise or RHEL so i don't know if they include a sun/ibm jvm/jre on the install cd's. Blackdown is available, but that's worthless.
Denis, having a free jdk will do nothing to provide features to eclipse. I'm curious, does .NET provide MDA with it's standard IDE?
Harmony is going to take quite some time to get to a 0.9 release that is worth using. They're starting with designing a generic VM specification, then they're going to implement a VM that's compatible with java 5.