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Re: Towards Java Libre



> I have problems to trust the way Sun is doing it. I understand it like
> "we'll deliver a real java implementation to those poor little free
> guys". I'd prefer a less commercial approach and a word from Sun to
> support free implementations (GNU Classpath and friends): promise not to
> sue them, help with the tck and so.
> 
> Here, I feel like contrasted: of course it'd be good for some of our
> users (those who are not conscerned by free -as in speach- software) but
> what about my friends from the free J implementation?
> 
> I saw a sun-jdk-source package or something... that means all those who
> install this package and look at the sources will not be able to help
> GNU Classpath. In my POV, one of the important thing we can do in Debian
> is helping the GNU Classpath project and friends.

In an ideal world Sun would see the value of releasing Java under a
truly free license, allowing them to harness all of the parallel efforts
that are being spent not only by the Classpath project and all the free
JVM projects, but also by IBM and anyone else who wants to build a Java
implementation (whether free or not).

I think that Perl is a good example here. Even though it is free, there
is only one Perl, and rather than having multiple disparate groups all
building their own Perl implementation, everyone works together to make
the one good free Perl implementation.

Imagine what Java could be now (or could become) if all of the different
communities who keep rewriting the same code could instead work on
moving Java forward. Even if there were competing branches, at least
they could all share the same solid foundation, rather than rewriting
everything from scratch.

Charles

-- 
Men
Who've tested
Every brand
Are just the ones
Who now demand
Burma-Shave
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1937/men

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