IBM, OpenSource, FUD and a little bit on Java
Just my 2 cents on CNET news.com "IBM cool to Sun's open-source Java plan"
I can't believe it. All IBM has to say about open source java, is that Sun is using the wrong (GPLv2) license? They would have preferred Java under an Apache license, since they are involved in the Apache project Harmony. The guys at Harmony are doing a pretty good job, I'm sure, but this is ridiculus. Harmony may import any of the released code into their own project, if they want to.
GPL v2 was chosen, since it is designed to help advance projects and code commons by requiring innovation sharing with the commons. This definitely leads to less proliferation and minimizes proprietary forks. And that is most important for the Java plattform. We already have pain enough in getting to run all our software on the current variety of Sun's, IBM's and BEA's varoious (incompatible) JDKs.
Open source Java would have been a great opportunity for IBM to show their own achievements and commitment to the plattform, instead they move themselves into the offside. IBM still seems to fight in the cold war and pulls the old (but well known) strategy "fear, uncertantiy and doubt" - FUD.
IBM's proprietary approach to software portfolio is probably all what this is about. We have seen this in the JBI (JSR-208) discussion earlier: Openness and in particular open standards seem to be a little bit against the corporate software strategy.
Cheers, Armin
PS: Disclaimer: I've really enjoyed working with a lot of excellent, skilled and congenial IBM people in my past projects. Some of them often frowned when we talked about corporate things during lunch break 
Posted at 10:02AM Nov 23, 2006 by Armin Wallrab in Java | Kommentare[0]