SunMink

Simon Phipps's other Weblog
(a WebMink in the Sun)

Meet Me At JavaOne 2008

If you're attending JavaOne this year, do come to my session on Wednesday at 2:50pm. It's T-7064 and I will be talking about the Adoption-Led Market and the challenges it brings to the open source and free software community of communities. It's in room 305.

Alternatively, come to the Thirsty Bear on Tuesday evening around 8pm and I'll see you at the open source un-BOF for chat, food and drink.

An Adoption-Led Business Model In Action

If you've been following my series on the adoption-led market, you may have been looking for some solid examples of how a software vendor can build a business model that is designed for an adoption-led market. Solaris is already there, offering subscriptions for updates, defect resolution, indemnity and more of the values that the deployers of Solaris look for. I've kept looking to OpenJDK waiting for the same business model to emerge.

Well, today it happened. Sun announced Java SE For Business. It's not something that's likely to show up much in bids for new business. Rather, it offers companies that have already adopted the Java platform a new subscription that will reduce their overall costs and improve their success in using the Java platform to run their business. There are three levels:

• Standard Support extends the life of existing Java applications for your organization and for your customers. Fixes provided to you will continue to be made available to Java SE for Business customers along with new operating system support and all other maintenance in quarterly updates. Perfect for customers whose primary interest is in running their Java applications much longer than ever possible before.
• Premium Support adds the ability to have a fix provided to you by Sun to also be incorporated into Sun's next available bi-weekly standard revisions, ensuring your network of customers and partners can leverage that same fix, faster than ever before. Premium support is perfect for customers' whose Java application are critical for their and their customers businesses.
• Premium Plus Support further adds the ability to request a quote for a Java SE for Business custom revision for an older update or revision of the Java platform (additional terms and conditions apply). Premium plus support is perfect for customers seeking maximum assurance for their Java applications from Sun.

No lock-in. No hard-sell. Just a value proposition that can be calmly evaluated on its merits. Java users have the complete freedom to work as they were, or to invest in a subscription and reap the benefits. Since Sun invests so heavily in the core contributors to the platform, it is uniquely positioned to offer the subscriptions. This is the heart of the primary business model for the adoption-led market and I believe we'll see a lot more of it.

[Previous: Why Adoption-Led Is Not Trialware | Root: The Adoption-led Market]

Glassfish gets trawler crew

Eduardo P-L has announced the membership line-up he's proposing should form the Interim Governing Board of the Glassfish community. We'll be devising a constitution to ensure that all of the contributors to the rapidly growing Glassfish community have a say in how the community is governed.

The other Board members represent a great selection of stakeholders in the user community for this application server and Eduardo has done a fine job identifying them. As for me - well, you may think it's a foregone conclusion that I'd be included, but it wasn't (and hasn't been for any of the others) and I'm honoured to have been asked to contribute.

Red Hat Joins OpenJDK

I was very pleased just now to see that Red Hat has announced they are joining the OpenJDK community to work on and use the Java implementation being developed over there. They have signed the contributor agreement as well as the OpenJDK TCK license. I hope we'll see IcedTea become an OpenJDK project as a result of this - the Classpath folk have been doing an awesome job.

Creating an environment with licensing, code and governance acceptable to groups like Red Hat was one of the primary motivations of our choices around OpenJDK, so this is fantastic news all round, and an interesting counterpoint to the approach others have taken in other projects.

Update: Interesting comments from Mark Reinhold, positivity from Mark Wielaard, congratulations from Dalibor, early coverage on JavaLobby. And later still: NetworkWorld, CMP, eWeek (quoting this blog), WRAL, CNet and TechTarget (also quoting this blog, almost) and even later: InternetNews, which includes interviews with me and Shaun Connolly of Red Hat.

JavaOne Call for Papers Open

I hear that the JavaOne Call For Papers is now open. I'd love to see a big turn-out from Java-related open source projects across the board.

The open source content my team moderated last year was so popular that open source has been made a feature of all the tracks. I also gather that there are an even larger number of non-Sun paper reviewers this year. Put together, those factors mean so your paper submissions have a high chance of acceptance. So, get going!

Glassfish v2 swims free

News today from the Glassfish community is that their new version is released today, including the new version of Java DB (that's Sun's supported version of Apache Derby). There's a bunch of news from the team so go take a look. Meanwhile, it's interesting to see the maturity and scope of this open source project. The Free software at its heart is having a real impact, both by being widely used (even by competing projects) and by becoming a significant player in the Java EE market. Congratulations to the whole community!

OpenJDK has a JCK License

After many weeks of soul-searching, I'm delighted to say that the OpenJDK community has v1 of a license for use of the Java SE 6 JCK. I was going to blog all about it but I see Tom has given pointers to everything with hard facts, Rich has gone for the philosophy and context behind the thing and Dalibor has spoken wise words that I think I completely agree with.

So just some footnotes.
First, I think the license is a huge achievement. It gives OpenJDK and the communities around it very easy access to the JCK, far easier than I feared would be possible. We got rid of five whole pages of terms in the discussion process.
Second, despite this, I regret that it wasn't possible to meet all my own goals for it. In particular I would have liked the confidentiality terms to go too, and there are a few people who I know are disappointed by some things - sorry, let's keep working on it. Nonetheless, it hit all the goals I set for it in March.
Third I'd encourage people to engage positively and point out what's stopping them progressing - and then progress when we fix it!

Java Liberated

Today is the day I have been working towards for the last seven years, and I am delighted. Sun just made the source code to Java SE Free software in the OpenJDK open source community. There is a fully buildable JDK available, complete with a set of projects for NetBeans to allow an easy start with the code. I am also delighted to have been asked to join the interim OpenJDK Governance Board and I'm humbled by the challenge that faces us to create an inclusive and effective governance for OpenJDK.

In SF for J1, C1, and more

Finally made it to San Francisco ready for CommunityOne today (I'll be at RedMonkOne as much as I can) and then JavaOne the rest of the week. Hope I'll see you here, not least at the Thirsty Bear on Wednesday evening.

Open Source at JavaOne

I recorded a podcast yesterday with Sys-Con about the new open source stuff that's part of the programme at JavaOne this year. In the teaser for it, they got their wires a bit crossed, so here are some details. This is by no means all the cool free/open source stuff that's at JavaOne, I'll provide some more updates later.

• First, there's a new, no-charge pre-conference called CommunityOne, which has Tim O'Reilly as a keynote. It includes OpenSolaris, NetBeans, Glassfish, even RedMonk (running their very first RedMonkOne UnConference). Although it's free of charge, we're expecting a large crowd so you must sign up if you want to get in - NetBeans Day already has over 800 registered delegates, and the rest of the tracks are filling fast. Oh, and as Barton says, the Solaris vs Linux track looks pretty interesting too.
• The .Org Zone on the exhibit floor at JavaOne Tuesday to Thursday is open to bona fides .Org FOSS communities - I wrote about it earlier. I gather it is over 90% full so you'd better hurry
• There's an Open Source Track at JavaOne itself, where I will be moderating a panel with Eben Moglen and Cliff Schmidt of Apache - great place to compare-and-contrast licensing philosophies.
• There's a new unConference called JavaOne Camp taking place on site - JavaOne attendees must register (for free) to attend.
• There's a place to park your boss while you attend JavaOne - the new Business Day on Tuesday. I'll be speaking at that about open source models.
• Finally, my group (Sun Open Source Group) is running an unBOF at the Thirsty Bear on Wednesday evening, including the traditional Blogger's Beer Bash.

Lots of new stuff, big focus on open source - see you there!

Full Java Stack In Ubuntu

I just got back from Brazil, where I was honoured to be a speaker at FISL 8. Attended by over 5,000 people, FISL is one of the world's largest Free software events. I gave them an update on progress making the Java platform Free software in an open source community. The reaction was overwhelming - I kept having people come and thank me for Sun's contribution to Free software.

I wondered why so many people were so grateful, and once it was explained I understood. In Brazil, almost all the banks have online banking interfaces written as Java applets; the tax authorities have a tax filing applet; the use of Java is pervasive. This was great - except for people on GNU/Linux. It turns out that making the JDK available in Debian made an enormous difference to the Brazilian Free software movement, since they were finally able to gain the same access to the necessities of modern online life as those trapped on proprietary operating systems.

So I assume they will be delighted with today's announcement, made a little while ago by Sun software EVP Rich Green in a speech in São Paulo. The news is that a full Java developer stack with tools is available from today in the Multiverse repository for Ubuntu 7.04 (that's Feisty Fawn). It includes JDK 6, the Glassfish Java EE server, the NetBeans development environment and the Java DB database. From today, Ubuntu becomes a first-class Java developer platform (just like Solaris Express already is). That also makes deployment easy - having Glassfish or Java DB as a dependency becomes almost trivial. More details on Sun's GNU/Linux page. Ubuntu gets a new colour!

Dot-Org Zone at JavaOne

Back in January, Geir asked for an area for open source communities at JavaOne. Well, after much negotiation with the show organisers (not actually Sun, you know), we've been able to secure a ".Org Zone" at JavaOne for Free and Open Source communities.

If you represent a bona fides FOSS project, have a .org domain and would like to staff a presence in the .Org Zone at JavaOne this year, consider applying to be in the Zone. You'll have to staff a table for one or more two-hour slots, and you'll get a pass for JavaOne that allows you attend keynotes on the day you are there as well as gain access to the exhibit pavilion. And you get to come to our party on Wednesday night too!

First come, first served, and we're at about 40% capacity as of start of business today. To apply, write to Laura-dot-Ramsey-at-Sun-dot-Com right now and ask for details.

JavaOne Business Day (Free T-Shirt Too)

I'll be speaking at a new event at JavaOne this year. We've arranged for a day of content for your business people so they can come with you to JavaOne in San Francisco. JavaOne Business Day will happen on the opening day of JavaOne, Tuesday May 8th.

It includes access to the keynotes and then a great track of sessions for business and marketing people wanting to understand trends in the Java market, including the move to open source, the secrets of the Java branding programmes and a great panel moderated by Anne Thomas-Manes from the Burton Group. I'll be speaking about open source principles and practice - please bring your business and marketing guys and girls along with you for the day on Tuesday.

To make it just that bit more tempting, there's a free t-shirt involved. Bring a colleague to Business Day and, as long as they mention you when they book, you'll get a free t-shirt.

JavaOne Discount

Word to the wise: If you're coming to JavaOne, registering before next Wednesday will save you money. And if you're coming, remember the blogger beer bash is Wednesday evening at the Thirsty Bear.

JavaOne Beer: Save-The-Dates

I've been at Sun for seven years this June. My very first day was the opening day of JavaOne in 2000. I have attended every JavaOne; indeed, I was responsible for IBM attending the first one in 1996 when I managed to find a colleague with budget to pay for it (hi, Gabriel!)

So it's with some pleasure that this year I actually have a substantial involvement with the event for the first time since I joined Sun. My team is running some stuff on May 7 that will soon be announced there; we are acting as managers for the open source track which is appearing there for the first time this year; and we are helping connect people for track sessions, demos, informal events and even (we hope) announcements.

I also hope to host a bloggers beer bash again at the Thirsty Bear on the Wednesday evening, so if you have a blog save the date. And if you will be in San Francisco on Monday May 7, save the whole day, something good (and free) is coming!