Open Source Rules
A couple of major developments have occurred during the past few weeks in the world of open source.
First, Adobe has open sourced portions of the Flash player. Specifically, they've donated the ActionScript 3.0 virtual machine to the Mozilla Foundation. Now listed as Project Tamarin, the foundation intends to use the code to accelerate JavaScript. Since ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same standard (EMCA-262) Mozilla plans on incorporating the code in a future version of SpiderMonkey-the JavaScript interpreter built into various Mozilla tools (including the Firefox browser). One of the interesting aspects of the code is the first steps in creating an ActionScript interpreter in ActionScript. The parser is pretty raw, but at least its a start in fixing the long broken ActionScript eval() function.
The other big story is that Java has been open sourced. This has been a step people have been expecting (and waiting for) for a long time. This is likely to inject Java with renewed enthusiasm-but a fear many developers have is it really the first step towards fracturing the language?
Although the open-sourcing of Java has been talked about for a long time, the one mild surprise here is that Sun is releasing the code under the GPL. This has led to Sun being praised by, of all people, Richard Stallman. It does seem puzzling though. Sun has dragged their feet on making the Java open source for the past couple of years. Whenever they were asked about why this was the case, Sun invariably would answer they wanted to be very careful about exactly how they would release the source-you would get the impression that they were busy crafting a very specific license or plan on the release. If they were just going to use the GPL, why didn't they do this years ago? What was the big thing?
Whatever 2007 brings, its sure to be interesting.
2 comments:
As someone at Sun who did some work on the open-sourcing of Java, I can tell you it was not a trivial effort, and takes a large amount of time from engineers and other parts of the company, not least marketing and legal.
Releasing something under the GPL indeed requires more work, not less, than customising a license to suit your own needs. For example, you need to verfify that the code is all yours to GPL, otherwise you can face costly litigation (and Sun has done so in the past). The GPL is a great license, but it is not easy to release an existing, proprietary, closed-source product under, and certainly not something can be undertaken at any moment. Further, I'd say that Sun has hinted for a long time that it would do this, but in this context you should not announce something until you've reached the point of no-return. If that is perceived as dragging our feet, well, that's unfortunate, but better that than announcing something and then not doing it. Hope this provides at least a partial explanation. regards, Patrick
I hope you don't think that I was trivializing what Sun has accomplished; nothing could be further from the truth. And you're right; examining the code from a legal perspective with a codebase as huge as Java is certainly an enormous undertaking.
I have no doubts that Jonathan Schwartz didn't wake up one morning and say, "I know! Why don't we open source Java? I'll call in and see if the guys at the office can have it done by tomorrow. Preferably by lunch." But on the other hand, its not something that even from a legal and marketing perspective I would have expected to take years.
Out of curiosity sake; to put things into some perspective-when would you say that Sun began to look at open sourcing Java seriously? (Your perspective on this is probably much better than my own ;-)
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