Wednesday July 21, 2004

There is no place like ::1

If you got that joke then you're part of a small club: the few (for now) who can read IPv6 addresses in literal form.

Yes, IPv6 again! Why do I come back to that topic? Because yesterday (July 20th 2004) ICANN officially announced support for IPv6 in their root servers.

What the hell does that mean, do you ask? It means that DNS, the mechanism that translates internet names like www.sun.com into IP addresses, can now return IPv6 addresses as well! The first 3 countries (or subdomains) to follow suite are Japan (.jp), Korea (.kr) and France (.fr).

Things are really moving fast on that front. After the Department of Defense mandate (see my blog entry dated June 28th) this is a very important step towards the large scale adoption.

What we need now is Linksys & Netgear providing IPv6 with 6to4 tunneling in their routers and we're all set!

P.S.: ::1 is the IPv6 equivalent for 127.0.0.1, the loopback address, also known as localhost or ... home.

Tuesday July 13, 2004

Firefox & Thunderbird: my setup

Another technical entry, but this time not Java related.

For quite a long time (years really) I have been using Mozilla a my main browser and mailer. About a year ago, I think, I switched to Firefox (aka Pheonix, aka Firebird) the standalone browser and Thunderbird, the standalone mailer. Both are from the Mozilla Foundation, so they inherited from the years of development and debugging that were put into the Mozilla suite. Why did I switch? Mostly because I wanted something a bit lighter, because I liked the look and feel better and also because I wanted to support an initiative that I thought was worthwhile (meaning: I thought it would be fun).

Besides all the security and privacy advantages, which are getting a lot of publicity these days, I like the extension mechanism and I wanted to share with you the few I use:

• Firefox Extensions:
  • AdBlock: This one is a must. I just can't live without it anymore. It let you filters out advertisements and other nasties (like web bugs, and other tracking meachanisms) based on pattern matching. A real life safer.
  • SwitchProxy: If like me you change your proxy on a regular basis (happens a lot on a laptop, or when switching between VPNs), this is a very useful toolbar. It let you pick a proxy setting from a drop-down menu. Very neat.
  • Dictionnary Search: Another must. Select a word, right-click to get the context menu and launch a dictionary search in a separate tab, and yes, you can configure which online dictionary to use. Very useful when blogging!
  • Noia 2.0 Extreme: Not an extension, but the theme I use. Very nice. On top of that, it does exist for Thunderbird (see below), so I have a unified look and feel for both apps.
• Thunderbird extensions:
  • Contact Sidebar: List your contacts from your address book in the sidebar, below your folders. Pretty neat.
  • Free Desktop Integration: Another must if you're using Linux or Solaris. What this extension does is use the notification area in the Gnome (or KDE) toolbar to let you know when a new mail arrived. That way your mailer can be iconified and you still get a visual notification. The Linux binary is available on the page, I had to port the sources to Solaris (Solaris 10 with Gnome 2.6 to be exact), but it works fine.
  • EnigMail: A very powerful extension that let you encrypt and decrypt your mail with PGP or GnuPG.
  • Noia 2.0: Again, not an extension but a very nice theme. See above.

That's it for now. Don't hesitate to let me know what your favorite extension is (yes, I know about mouse gestures, I just don't like them that much).

Sunday July 11, 2004

java.net API & proxies

I got some interesting feedback from my last entry, and I may post an update, but I'd rather sleep on it a few more days, at least. Thanks to all those who took the time to comment. I appreciate it.

It is my intent to have technical entries in my blog, not just rants or movie reviews. So I figure it's about time I get to it. One thing that bugs me is how badly documented the Java Networking API is. A lot of the bug reports, or requests for new features, we are getting prove that. Many times the answer is "You can already do that using this API" or "This is not a bug, it is supposed to do that". Of course we, the Networking Team, are to blame for that, but as all developers know, documentation is hard to do and very time consuming. The good news is that we've taken steps to remedy that situation. In particular you'll see that, in J2SE 5.0, we've improved the javadoc entries quite a bit. But we're also working on some other means, like white papers and articles that, hopefuly, will end up on the web site.

And that's precisely what I want to discuss here, I have written such a white paper, on proxy management in the Java networking API and I'd like you to review my most recent draft and let me know what you think of it, particularly whether it's clear or complete enough.

Here is a quick overview of its content:

• System Properties: We first discuss all the system properties related to proxy settings, there a quite a lot of them, and how they affect each other.
• New APIs in 1.5.0:
  • java.net.Proxy class: We present the newly introduced Proxy class and how to use it in new methods for Socket and URLConnection
  • java.net.ProxySelector: We go deep into the new mechanism to let applications dynamically assign proxies to the different protocols. The class is described, and using a practical example, we do show how to implement such a selector.

So, if you are interested you can get the PDF file, read it and, I hope, send me feedback, either through this blog or directly via Email.

Also, there are two other subjects I'd like to solicit feedback: What part of the java networking API would like to see described next? (some possible candidates are: Cookie management, IPv6 support, timeouts, etc.). And, what is the networking feature/bug that you think should be implemented/fixed in the next release, and why is it so important to you?

Thanks in advance. (2004-07-11 07:49:33.0) Permalink

Thursday July 08, 2004

Sun and OpenSource: Old but estranged friends?

Something that really ticks me off lately is the whole "Sun vs OpenSource community" thing!

Really, it's ridiculous! It's like watching two very old friends having bitter arguments, while forgetting how much they owe each other, and how much they need each other. Both party are guilty here, if you ask me (and if you didn't ask, or don't care,then stop reading now).

Let's start with full disclosure: I have been involved with the Open Source Community long before it was even called that, back when it was still called "Free Software". Heck, I was one of the main contributors to one of the most notorious, and most enduring (17 years and counting), project. I also co-founded a small not-for-profit organization dedicated to Free Software, which later, much later, became the French branch of the Free Software Foundation. Although I have to admit, my participation was minimal, specially compared to the main guy behind it, Loic Dachary (Hi Loic, how you doing?). But I still ended having that guy as a guest in my place for 10 days, which was quite an experience, as those of you who ever met him may imagine, but that is another story (maybe another blog entry, who knows). Ever since, I have been, and continue to be, a vocal proponent of Free Software and Open Source.

On the other hand, I joined Sun Microsystems almost 10 years ago and I have been invovled with Java, one way or the other, since the beginning (1995 and JDK 1.0.2 if you can believe it). And for the past 4 years, I have been integral part of the Java Engineering team, here at Sun.

So, why this rather long, and I apologize for that, disclosure, to the risk of looking like I'm bragging? Because it shows pretty clearly where I come from and where I stand: I have one foot firmly on each side of the fence (and we all know how uncomfortable it can be, specially when said fence is getting taller with each passing day. Ouch!). The being said, it doesn't mean I'm not bragging too.

Now, back to the main point: Sun and the Open Source community. You know, I remember a time when Sun was so completely synonymous of Free Software that almost all Free Software, including the GNU project, the X11 project, and hundreds of others, were developed primarly on Sun's platform. It used to be that the default configuation to these softwares was for SunOS. There were a number of reasons for that, but more importantly, it benefited both sides. And that special relationship is one of the reasons I joined this company in the first place. Then things started to change, and that relationship got looser. If I do remember well, the first release of Solaris (or SunOS 5) was the trigger, for 2 main reasons: First, it was based on a commercial Unix (System V.4 to be exact) instead of BSD. Second, Sun stopped providing compilers for free with the OS (which, to this day, I still think was a major mistake, but that's just me). Since then, both parties have drifted even more apart. And nowadays, most Open Source projects are developed on Linux, to the point where, more and more often, I actually do have to do dome porting (and I do mean the "messing around with the source code" kind of porting) when I want to run some OSS applications on my Solaris box. The horror, the horror! Specially to a guy who fondly remembers the days when he just had to type 'make' and wait for the build to finish.

Now, when Scott McNealy claims, on stage at JavaOne last week, that no other company contributed as much as Sun to the Open Source idea, he is absolutely right! And I wish the community would remember that. After all, aren't they the same people who are big on giving credit when credit is due?

Of course, Sun, as a company, should also remember that it did benefit quite a lot from all the contributions to Open Source. For instance, the main user interface of Sun's products is based on X11, right? And all these sales to academia, among many institutions, were without any doubt helped by the knowledge that there was this huge pool of free software just asking to be run on Sun's hardware! It was, and still is, a two way street. Both side should have realized that a long time ago, don't you think?

Let's talk about OpenSourcing Java, which seems to be the main point of dissension these days. I, for one, would love to get some of the benefits of the Open Source modus operandi when it comes to Java. Particularly as one the developers working on it. I have wished so many times that we could use the "release early, release often" model, and I would love to get direct, or indirect, help (in the form of code, suggestions or discussions) from all these talented developers out there. Also, considering my background, I would love that out of principle

But you know what? It's not going to happen. And it's almost certainly better that way! I won't go over all the arguments again, as you're probably tired of hearing, or reading, about them. Except for the main one: Write Once Run Anywhere is the obvious decisive factor here. I have turned this all over my head many, many times, and I can't figure a way to keep that without a tight control. It's that simple.

Let me also state again, as many have before me, that nothing stops you from creating an fully OpenSource version of Java. At least, nothing in theory, since all specifications are completely open. But I do know that it is incredibly hard! Almost impossibly hard, because there is more to binary compatibility than following the specifications. A lot more. And Sun should acknowledge that.

Which brings me to this question: What can we do to bridge the gap between Sun and the OSS community? How can we get these two, somewhat, estranged friends to be in good terms again?

To the Open Source Community, I'd say: lay off Sun's back a little! And remember to give credit when credit is due for crying out loud!

To Sun, I'd suggest to find ways to make life easier to the OSS developers and distributors. Why can't we have a license that makes it possible to easily redistribute the JDK with every Linux distribution? Why can't we find a way to make it easier for the developers of Kaffe or GNU Classpath, for example, to test the conformity of their implementation? And overall to play nice and fair with the community.

To me it doesn't seem like it would take a lot of efforts to make all this happen. But I have been known, at least to my friends and relatives, to be somewhat of an utopian. But, you know, sometime utopies do happen.

So what do you say? How about being friends again?