Adopting an open source model for the JavaTM programming language is still being hotly debated among the industry's top executives. A forum was arranged at the 2004 JavaOneSM Conference for the IT community to listen to proponents on both sides of the issue.

Taking part in the debate were Chief Technology Officer of Sun's Developer Products group Dr. James Gosling; IBM Vice President Rod Smith; Apache Software Foundation Board of Directors member Brian Behlendorf; Sun Vice President and Fellow Rob Gingell; Principal Analyst and Founder of Redmonk James Governor; Director of Operations for Major League Baseball Advanced Media Justin Shaffer, among others.

During the debate, Gingell questioned what exactly would be gained through having Java be open source. "What I ask people is, if open source is the answer, please tell me the problem," Gingell said.

The Java programming code is available to developers who can propose their own changes to the language. Projects officially based on Java are required to be certified as compatible with the Java specification. These amended changes then go through the Java Community ProcessSM (JCPSM) where the community votes on whether to adopt the changes. Approved amendments are then submitted to Sun, who ultimately maintains control of Java technology by either approving or vetoing the submission. Sun has never used its veto power.

Smith takes issue with this method stating that it is limiting in time and innovation. "I think going forward, we want to see innovation happen at a more rapid pace," Smith said.

During the conference, Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy admitted that Sun and the JCP were sometimes slow at making updates to Java. However, he said the rapid spread of Java to 1.75 billion devices shows that the company's stewardship is yielding results. "I think IBM is suffering from Java envy," McNealy concluded.

Smith has been a prime instigator in generating the open source Java debate. In February, Smith wrote an open letter to Sun asking the company to make Java into open source software, meaning it should give away the source code and allow others to modify it as long as they shared their changes.

On the other hand, panelist Shaffer countered this point of view, "Why take something that's working very well for many businesses today and put it at risk?" This comment drew rousing applause during the forum.

As the debate progressed, Sun executives continued to express their concern regarding this issue referencing the probability of incompatibility. Along these lines, Gosling warned that allowing multiple, open source implementations of Java technology could yield incompatibilities like those with UNIXR and Linux distributions. "They're really close and they're almost interoperable but they're just different enough to be a pain in the butt," Gosling said.

However, Smith noted that what's really important is the bottom line and having an open source sharing of JavaTM 2 Standard Edition (J2SETM) would lower the cost of integration and help technologies get to market faster.

Gosling asserted that information bases on Java are published in the public domain. "(Sharing) happens already. All the bug databases are published," Gosling said. "You can find every last wart that everybody has ever found. You can download the full sources of J2SE. When you download the SDK, you get all the sources for all the APIs, and really the source is all out there." [...read more...]

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