ciaran
|
08. junio 2007
|
about:
java
The IcedTea
project has been launched
by GNU
Classpath. It's goal is to make Sun's recently freed Java
implementation,
called OpenJDK,
work in free software environments. This involves replacing some
binary blobs with code from GNU Classpath, and making or adapting a
free software build system for OpenJDK.
As the
announcement says, it's just in the experimental stages, but
it's great to see progress being made through the collaboration of
Sun and the free software community.
In other
news, Xandros
and LG Electronics
have signed patent deals with Microsoft for the privilege of
distributing free software. That MS are rushing these deals out the
door before GPLv3
comes into usage could be a sign that they don't have much
confidence in getting more of these deals post-GPLv3. The direction
the money is flowing in (not toward MS) also seems to be a sign that
MS
does not have much confidence in it's patent claims.
When GPLv3
is released at the end of June, these companies will have to
disclaim those deals if they want to distribute future versions of
software that moves to GPLv3 (such as all GNU projects). So these
deals will be exposed as useless and MS's patent claims will be
undermined by their refusal to go to court or even detail which
patents are infringed.
Meanwhile, this week, Slashdot ran yet another "Stallman is
splitting the community" article (it seems the next round of the
anti-GPLv3
campaign has started). When Slashdot is publishing this crap,
is there a place for people to get free software news and
participate in informed debate? Bruce Perens's answer was to set
up Technocrat, although it has
a science/technolgy focus rather than a free software focus. A new
website with a free software focus
is FSDaily, so I wish
them luck.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan,
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