The Fellowship / Fellows / florianhaas / Random Rant / SUN, Java and how I hate Open-Source

SUN, Java and how I hate Open-Source

Florian Haas

Tuesday 18 July 2006

According to this article, SUN will be "open-sourcing" huge parts of the JAVA-Platform in 2007.

As a programmer using JAVA almost every day, i feel intrigued by the idea. Of course, "open-sourcing" could be everything from BSD-style licensing to "look, but don't touch" marketing-speak.
Looking at the discussions around that announcement, one can see one thing: The marketing-initiative OSI has done harm to the Free software movement. The term "open source" does not mean anything, it is a shell of a word leading to confusion.

I am too young to have witnessed the start of the Free software movement and cannot judge if "open source" was necessary in its time. But one thing is clear: today, it harms us.

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Comments

Good to hear some facts

florianhaas

Monday 24 July 2006

Thanks, shane !

Open source on Java

shane

Sunday 23 July 2006

I was talking with Simon Phipps and he reasserted that open source Java is on the way. According to Simon having six million lines of code to audit is a bit of a trial and there are patents to consider as well. He made no comment about which license the code would come under. It's possible they will have to create a new license.

I guess it might be quite literally open source rather than Free Software. A lot is bound to depend on patents held by third parties.

evolution

federico

Thursday 20 July 2006

I think the nineties saw a poor marketing of free as in freedom. Therefore the term "open source" was necessary to spread the word. And I agree it was an incorrect word.
Latest years saw a pretty good popularity of free software and a wide spread of open source. And open source is still important for the spread to keep on.
More and more users understand it is not just open source and it is quite impossible to find someone from the technical who doesn't know what Linux is.
It is a task of the old users, those who NOW use free software, to help young users understand the different meanings of the words in the FOSS acronym.
And to invite new users by talking to them about freedom (and national finance): maybe the time is more ripe now.

Clarity is important

shane

Wednesday 19 July 2006

Open source is a concept that sounds attractive but has been used to introduce confusion. I guess that some people who wanted kudos but to avoid actually empowering their users found the term attractive. There are also those who act both in good faith and with the best of intentions who use the term.

As time goes by I become more and more aware of how the term Free Software is actually quite good. It is clear about what type of technology we are talking about.

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