Sun admits: Java is crap

[Michael N. Christoff]

"* * * Y o u r . S h e p h e r d . A q u i l a . D e u s . ( d 2 0 0 5 x x ,
d 2 0 0 4 x x , d 2 0 0 3 x x , d 2 0 0 2 x x ) * * *"

A q u i l a . D e u s . ( d 2 0 0 5 x x , d 2 0 0 4 x x , d 2


Given the fact that Sun only officially develops JVM for linux, solaris
and windos, why would portability be an issue at all?


Modern OSs provide very good IPC, much better than Java's. If Sun
really wants JVM to be an OS itself, it would be fine. But currently
the "Java OS" is a very crap one -- instead of making general OS
functions cross-platform, Sun just removes those which are not easily
portable, such as ACL for file system and IPC message queue.

If JVM is an OS:
1.No security model for file system.
2.File operations are unclear. For example, can you modify a file
opened by other app?
3.Single-process only (what a joke!). No process control. No fork.
4.No shared libraries.
5.No shell, no job control, no internal scripting system.
...

Sounds a bit like DOS, right?

No. As far as I understand, the main reason for this project is simply to
allow multiple Java apps to run within the same VM.

2.File operations are unclear. For example, can you modify a file
opened by other app?

How are they handled now? I'm sure you're aware that you can have multiple
Java apps running on the same PC but in different VMs, right? When two Java
apps have a resource conflict, the OS handles it. I don't see why it would
be any different with a multi-app VM running on the same OS. That is of
course unless the OS it runs on is DOS .

-mike

 

[Tom Shelton]

In comp.lang.java.advocacy, Olaf Baeyens
<[email protected]>
wrote
Admitting there's a problem, and eadmitting your product is crap are two
different things. Java isn't crap, but it does have problems.

I'm just damned glad that .Net doesn't have any problems!

I would not say this too loud.
.NET is still in it's early stages, some other big problems might occure
regarding backwards compatibility and stuff.
I love .NET but I am also realistic enough that nothing is perfect.


I think the previous poster was being slightly sarcastic, as the
speed of adoption of .NET has apparently been comparable to
that of a snail stuck in jelled treacle, or perhaps that of
a snail stuck in molasses during the month of January.

And of course, since .NET depends for a large amount of its
proprietary functionality on Windows, .NET inherits many of
the problems of Windows, which for the most part revolve
around various bits of malware infecting one's system.

Utter nonsense. .NET has as much (if not more) security built in as
Java does.

However, with Mono one might have a fighting chance to
work around some of these issues; the main problem with Mono
is that it faces, AFAICT, a rather uncertain future, mostly
because Microsoft might very well patent the interesting bits
and leave Mono with the unprofitable dregs.

Actually, I just came across this today:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4557
Importantly, Miguel also said that Ximian had a letter from Microsoft,
Intel and HP stating that they would offer *royalty-free* RAND licensing
to the ECMA-submitted components of .NET. [Aside: He said they were
kicking around catchy names like 'polio' or 'cholera' to distinguish the
free and non-free stacks] I told Miguel he should publicize the letter
more because it was such a relief to me, but he said it would be
premature to promote this before the patent review was complete in case
other infringement was uncovered.

So, it looks like MS, Intel, and HP have already given the Mono team the
go ahead and a license.

But the *ECMA-submitted* components are a pretty small part of .NET. That's
like getting a license for Java the language, the java.lang library but not
JDBC, Servlets, JSP, etc.... Can they get royalty free RAND licensing for
ADO.NET for example?

-mike

Probably not - thats why they already have their own alternatives if
for some reason MS decides to do something about it.

You need to understand that the primary goal of Mono is not necessarily
for compatability with .NET (though, they try hard for that). The
primary goal is to have a great application development environment that
avoids the ABI issues going from one distro to another. I think the
primary reason that Miguel liked .NET over Java was the fact that
CLR/CTS focused on a multilanguage environment. This meant that they
could wrap their C libraries once and provide services to many
languages. The focus on .NET compatability (ADO.NET, ASP.NET,
System.Windows.Forms, etc) - is for the purpose of luring ISV's to
consider more Linux oriented development/porting of their applications.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Lin=F8nut?=]

Tom Shelton poked his little head through the XP firewall and said:

You need to understand that the primary goal of Mono is not necessarily
for compatability with .NET (though, they try hard for that). The
primary goal is to have a great application development environment that
avoids the ABI issues going from one distro to another. I think the
primary reason that Miguel liked .NET over Java was the fact that
CLR/CTS focused on a multilanguage environment. This meant that they
could wrap their C libraries once and provide services to many
languages. The focus on .NET compatability (ADO.NET, ASP.NET,
System.Windows.Forms, etc) - is for the purpose of luring ISV's to
consider more Linux oriented development/porting of their applications.

That's an interesting idea, Tom. Hope it pans out.

 

[Guest]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:14:06 GMT, Tom Shelton


Actually, I just came across this today:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4557
Importantly, Miguel also said that Ximian had a letter from
Microsoft, Intel and HP stating that they would offer
*royalty-free* RAND licensing to the ECMA-submitted components
of .NET. [Aside: He said they were kicking around catchy names
like 'polio' or 'cholera' to distinguish the free and non-free
stacks] I told Miguel he should publicize the letter
more because it was such a relief to me, but he said it would be
premature to promote this before the patent review was complete
in case other infringement was uncovered.

So, it looks like MS, Intel, and HP have already given the Mono team the
go ahead and a license.

That's called marketing.

Not very competent marketing either - making it look as though the
viability of your product is dependent on an offer by email
from an individual claiming to represent some company, offering
promises of future goodwill - and then failing to disclose the
contents or even the author of message in question is really
pretty feeble PR material.

I'm not sure what you mean? This isn't marketing. Novell/Ximian have
never made this public. I happend across this reference and thought it
was interesting. It sounds like they have an actual license. MS reps
have stated multilple times in the media that their patents related to
.NET were available on non-royalty standard RAND terms.

Where? All their .NET patents are available under non-royalty RAND
terms? I don't believe it.

Not all their .NET patents - all their ECMA/ISO component related
patents.

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2887217,00.html

According to Herman, third parties will have to enter into a
reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license agreement with
Microsoft. "But," says Herman, "while RAND sometimes means there could
be a financial obligation, [Microsoft] àwill be offering a conventional
non-royalty non-fee RAND license. We've always made that clear to anyone
who has asked." In other words, there will be no financial obligation.

That was from Michele Herman - MS's Director of Intellectual Property.
The article still calls into question Mono. But, Herman does say
royalty free standard RAND.

http://www.msversus.org/node/225
But Microsoft (and our co-sponsors, Intel and Hewlett-Packard) went
further and have agreed that our patents essential to implementing C#
and CLI will be available on a "royalty-free and otherwise RAND" basis
for this purpose.

This is from the dotgnu wiki (the other open source .NET implementation
by the GNU guys)...

http://wiki2.dotgnu.info/PatentFUD
In response to an inquiry from the DotGNU project, the
secretary-general of ECMA has confirmed that Microsoft has
promised "royalty-free and otherwise RAND" licensing for any
patents that they might get on ideas that are necessary for
implementing the ECMA-334 and ECMA-335 standards.

Some of these clearly state they aren't sure about Mono. But, they do
indicate the MS is promising royalty free rand terms for the ECMA/ISO
components.

This "license" is taking longer to put together than MS's development
of longhorn - why? What's today, year two, three, or four of the
coming licence?

Why do you think they don't have one? I kind of doubt they would just
post it publicly.

Because no one has come out and said they've got one. Because MS or
the other minor contributers don't hold patents for either the CLI or
C# ECMA standard. Because your three cut and pastes are all future
tense. Because any thing I've ever read about the "license" has been
future tensed. Because it's easy to find the shared-source license
from MS for the ISO/ECMA standards but no mention of the RAND license.
Because after reading the following
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofconduct.htm
I assumed it would be easy to contact MS and get a license but it
seems it's not so therefore there's no license.

 

[anoncoward]

Because no one has come out and said they've got one. Because MS or
the other minor contributers don't hold patents for either the CLI or
C# ECMA standard. Because your three cut and pastes are all future
tense. Because any thing I've ever read about the "license" has been
future tensed. Because it's easy to find the shared-source license
from MS for the ISO/ECMA standards but no mention of the RAND license.
Because after reading the following
http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/codeofconduct.htm
I assumed it would be easy to contact MS and get a license but it
seems it's not so therefore there's no license.

I can't believe Tom is still pumping this crap!
I even gave him the telephone numbers, at MS, to
call directly and settle this (for him) once and for all.

You are required to obtain a license from MS to implement (just) ECMA.
Mono does not have and is not seeking a license for ECMA.

None of which matters - because .NET has moved on to version 2
since the tiny subset was handed over the ECMA - that stuff isn't
even available!

Get over it Tom - they have no license (and they won't be getting one anytime
soon, because the stuff they are implementing isn't even up for licensing).

 

[plm]

Admitting there's a problem, and eadmitting your product is crap are
two different things. Java isn't crap, but it does have problems.

It is better to say that Sun tried to expand Java's application
domain. It is perfectly fit for its current main focus (server side
enterprise software). Sun has expanded Java's domain before with the
J2ME (expanding into some areas of embedded software), now it just
tries to further expand the domain.

There is no programming environment fit for every need; the fact that
an environment can be improved and used for new applications does not
imply that the environment currently has problems or is crap.

 

[Tim Tyler]

Tim Tyler wrote:

[Java process management]

Given the fact that Sun only officially develops JVM for linux, solaris
and windos, why would portability be an issue at all?

Because they license their technology to hundreds of other vendors.

Doing it yourself also gives you full control over factors such as
which resources can be shared. You can run multiple JVMs each in
their own OS process today - the problem is that that fails to make
effective use of shared resources.

Modern OSs provide very good IPC, much better than Java's. If Sun
really wants JVM to be an OS itself, it would be fine. But currently
the "Java OS" is a very crap one [...]

Yes - you can't write a proper OS in Java at the moment - Java isn't
up to it.

If JVM is an OS:
1.No security model for file system.
2.File operations are unclear. For example, can you modify a file
opened by other app?
3.Single-process only (what a joke!). No process control. No fork.
4.No shared libraries.
5.No shell, no job control, no internal scripting system.
...

I think you are a bit confused about Java's capabilities, there.

 

[Ilgaz Ocal]

San
Admitting there's a problem, and eadmitting your product is crap are
two different things. Java isn't crap, but it does have problems.

...or trolling newsgroups in your basement.. Whatever, he had reply so
he had won

I think Apple has solved a big deal of memory, speed issues, especially
starting. Sun should not look elsewhere and I bet they work together.

www.apple.com/java

e.g. sharing VM across apps etc.

Ilgaz Ocal