Re: Towards Java Libre
Arnaud:
Please allow me to elaborate on some points not covered by David....
> 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.
This is the src.zip file that is part of every JDK.
You are concerned about "tainting" -- and you do not need to
worry about this.
Even if you accepted the JRL and looked at Mustang sources
you still would not be "tainted":
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/editors/archives/2005/04/jrl_faq_18.html
> > Je vous prie d'accepter mes excuses pour cet oubli maladroit,
>
> Je ne pense pas que ce soit un oubli.
>
> I don't think you forgot. I think this is the way you communicate (I
> mean at Sun, not you personnally). I think it's the same with the JCP:
> "open" but discussions are completely closed and cannot go outside the
> people involved. This is not the way we wanna work in here. We talk
> about policy and fundamental changes publicly. I can understand your
> concerns. Your marketing problems, competitors, etc.
We know that we need to be more open... and Simon Phipps is leading
the effort within Sun. I'm trying to do my best as well.
> Things I don't understand is why you want to include the jre/jdk in
> Debian? You already provide rpm's and you are not free yet and we can't
> build jre/jdk from sources. Also, you only provide your software on two
> or three platforms where Debian provides 15! Why do you want to provide
> packages for Gentoo, will jre/jdk be built from sources on Gentoo?
Why Debian? I did market research that identified that fully 40%
of the Linux market is on "unpaid" distributions such as Debian
and Fedora. Sun had no coverage on these distributions. In addition
I have been a Debian user since 2003 (what took me so long?) and was
thrilled when I had a chance to work on this project. In addition
Debian is regarded as a "thought leader" in terms of GNU/Linux.
Debian has really set the standard for technical excellence in
technical and social collaboration. We felt that if we could
collaborate with Debian we could collaborate with everyone.
You can build the JRE and JDK from sources, but for the moment the
JRL license only allows internal use:
(see question 8)
http://www.java.net/jrl.csp
Mustang Sources
https://mustang.dev.java.net/
As you know this is likely to change based on the news from Tuesday.
One of the frequent questions I get from Debian Developers is why
only these two architectures. The reason is that these are the two
architectures built internally for our standard Linux bundles.
I realize that we need to cover more architectures -- especially
plugin for 64-bit architectures -- and hopefully we can collaborate
on working out issues with doing that on Mustang *now* so that
we are ready when new licensing allows distribution of the newly
built binaries.
We don't provide packages for Gentoo. Gentoo (and other distributions)
have expressed intent to exercise the DLJ to produce distribution
native bundles. The DLJ bundles that Gentoo will ship will be based
on exactly the same pre-built "upstream" bundles as those used
for Debian.
> I feel like you want Sun everywhere without understanding the
> specificities of the different distros... or without even discussing
> (well, maybe you did but I did not see no mail about that).
We would like developers and users to have the choice to use
Sun Java in their "non-free" archives. Sun recognized
the importance of understanding the specificities of Debian by
sending Simon and I to Debconf. Clearly we cannot do this with
every distro, but as I mentioned above we think that Debian is
the most important community for us to begin this work.
Up until last night I've been running on about 4-5 hours sleep for
the past two weeks -- much of it spent trying to understand
the specificities of Debian. I made a significant personal
investment in Debian. And I hope that by sharing my enthusiasm
for the Debian community with the press on Tuesday that it will
help Debian get more recognition.
Understanding Debian is a process and I've only begun...
I need your help.
> Anyway, it seems to me there will be a culture clash and it could be
> very interresting. I don't have that mutch time to help at the moment.
> Maybe it'll be easier in some weeks.
It may surprise you to know that the biggest culture clash is
happening within Sun at this very moment. Many, perhaps 99.99%, of Sun
people were shocked by Rich Green's announcement on Tuesday.
What's really happening is Sun culture is *changing* to better
mesh with Free Software communities. As Simon mentioned at Debconf
there is every reason for Debian and Sun to be friends (e.g. all of our
open source contributions for Gnome, Xorg, OpenOffice, Grid Engine,
NetBeans, OpenSolaris, Open SPARC, Open Single Sign-On, Roller,
GlassFish, Looking Glass, etc. etc.).
All I ask of you is that you consider helping everyone update
their preconceptions of where Sun is -- because it
is not at all like where Sun has been in the past.
Regards,
--Tom
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