Sun: Brew-It-Yourself Java?
After keeping programmers guessing for years, Sun is finally ready
to open the code to its popular Web language Java. Will it be worth
the wait?
Simon Phipps opened a can of open-source worms. It was the final week of
June, and Phipps, a British-based Sun Microsystems (SUNW) executive, was
speaking at a conference. He was responding to skepticism over whether
Sun would ever make that bold step awaited by many software developers:
When, exactly, would Sun publish the code of its Java programming
language freely and openly online? In industry parlance, when would Sun
"open-source" Java?
The question has long plagued Sun executives, and there's a lot riding
on the answer. After all, the move would make the language open to
legions of programmers, who could make the technology more widely
available and relevant—to say nothing of how the move might generate
interest in Sun's other products and reduce costs for a company
struggling to achieve profitability.
Phipps, Sun's chief open source officer, said the transition would come
in a matter of months, not years. What he meant was it would happen
within the next 10 or 11 months. But what attendees quickly trumpeted to
the blogosphere that the move was imminent. So Phipps had to go back to
the press to clarify that it wouldn't be happening quite that soon. And
so began a fresh round of concerns whether Sun was dragging its heels on
open-sourcing Java.
HIGH-PROFILE PROJECTS. The back and forth is emblematic of Sun's efforts
to embrace the open-source movement. Executives like Phipps frequently
point to the company's open-software roots in the 1980s, and Sun's major
contributions to high-profile projects ranging from Mozilla's Firefox
Web browser to the OpenOffice project to the Apache Web server.
And if that's not enough, Sun is in the process of open-sourcing almost
all of its software. Not even IBM (IBM)—long friendly to the open-source
Linux operating system—has gone that far. You can't attend an
open-source conference or event without a cameo appearance by Phipps or
other Sun bigwigs like Chief Information Officer Bill Vass, Executive
Vice-President of Software Rich Green, or even Chief Executive Jonathan
Schwartz.
For all these efforts, Sun gets few props from the open-source world.
Critics say the company open-sourced its Solaris operating system only
because Linux had already beat it in the market. Others say Sun retains
too much control of projects even after making them open-source, failing
to build a community of developers who together can influence the
direction of the software.
BADMOUTHING LINUX. Even Sun executives own up to miscues. Schwartz and
his predecessor Scott McNealy used to regularly badmouth Linux and the
low-cost servers on which it runs in an attempt to defend Sun's more
expensive and reliable competing products. That gave rivals like IBM and
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) grounds for painting Sun as an enemy to
open-source and Linux, a rap that's hard to shake.
Then there's the debate over Java, the language used throughout the Web
and corporate programming. "Java is the only thing people ever wanted
them to open-source," says Peter Yared, a former Sun executive who's now
heading up an open-source startup ActiveGrid. It's a question that
several ex-Sun executives have scratched their heads over. Says former
Sun executive and BEA Systems (BEAS) founder Bill Coleman, who now heads
software startup Cassatt: "I personally think they should have done it
years ago."
Now that Sun appears ready to give in, the question is what does it
gain? The simple answer: a lot. Consider Java's roles for Sun. First,
there's Java, the industry standard on which third-party companies from
Oracle (ORCL) to BEA base their applications and even leading
open-source projects like JBoss rely. Then there are actual Java
programs, add-ons, and support sold by Sun. While Java the standard has
been one of the most important movements in software, Sun itself makes
very little direct revenue from it.
AVOIDING FRAGMENTATION. To people who think like Coleman, that's all the
more reason to open-source it. During the end of his tenure as CEO of
BEA, Sun was employing some 1,200 engineers to maintain Java—a cost of
several hundred million dollars a year and it was only bringing in a
tiny percentage of the company's total sales. Costs like those are
exactly what has made life so difficult for Sun as it tries to move from
a company selling pricey proprietary servers and software to one that's
relevant in a world where customers want cheap, flexible commodity
technology.
Still, Sun moved cautiously. Phipps points out that because Java is a
standard and a Sun brand, the company had a responsibility to make sure
it was well-maintained. Open-sourcing it too early could have meant
having the code fragmented into several versions, undercutting the point
of having a standard. As Phipps puts it, Java works because no one
company has an unfair advantage over its development and it always works
the same in any environment. "The question was how do we make it
open-source and preserve those two values, and it turns out that's not
an easy question to answer," he says. "People who don't have the
responsibility pretend to have an easy answer for it."
But, those debates are behind Sun now. Sun says it has unequivocally
come down on the side of open-sourcing Java. Even if it's five years too
late, it's the right move. For one thing, there are other popular Web
scripting languages like PHP and Ruby on Rails that are starting to
steal some of Java's thunder, at least for writing Web applications.
Yared's company, ActiveGrid, works on making these languages robust
enough to use instead of Java in business applications. If Phipps
believes Sun has a responsibility to the world's Java developers, then
the company has a duty to make sure these other languages don't continue
to erode Java's importance. More practically, many feel Java will get
stronger as a result of input from the open-source community.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. There are other benefits for Sun. It's not
really giving up revenue by open-sourcing Java, and the more prevalent
the language, the more Java gains a foot in the door to sell compatible
operating systems, Web servers, and the like. Then there are the less
tangible effects. It's likely to reinvigorate Java's software
development community, give Sun some good PR, and be another important
step in proving Sun can be an open-source good citizen.
In his short tenure as CEO, Schwartz has already left an imprint,
announcing a sweeping restructuring that many said was long overdue, but
still welcome. Making Java open-source may be his next
better-late-than-never maneuver.
Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post.
_____________________________
MEDIANEWS mailing list
medianews@twiar.org
To unsubscribe send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
