Technology

Sun has finally opened Java by releasing the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE), the Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) and the Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), the same license as GNU/Linux.

For those who want to see real source code (to be sure that they are not dreaming), here is the Hotspot Virtual Machine (VM) and the Javac compiler…

Quoting Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun:

“One of the strongest motivations to select the GPL was the announcement made last week by Novell and Microsoft, suggesting that free and open source software wasn’t safe unless a royalty was being paid. As an executive from one of those companies said, “free has to have a price.”

That’s nonsense.

Free software can be free of royalties, and free of impediments to broadscale, global adoption and deployment. Witness what we’ve done with Solaris, and now, what we’ve done with Java. Developers are free to pick up the code, and create derivatives. Without royalty or obligation.

Those that say open source software can’t be safe for customers – or that commercially indemnified software can’t foster community – are merely advancing their own agenda. Without any basis in fact.

They’re also fighting a rising tide.”

That’s beautifully said. And this is fantastic news for poor countries like Mauritius. Paying for software is hard enough when you are poor… but when the software is some crap beta-release from Microsoft then it is plain stupid… Sorry, but that’s truth :-)

The future is soooo bright that I have to wear shades. I’m sure the Tomcat, JBoss, Spring and Eclipse guys are as happy as I am with this announcement. They should be. This is history in the making.

An update: I was speaking to some colleagues and they asked me the same question: Why? Why is Sun doing this? What will they gain?

Ok, if you are asking yourself the same question, you should know that developing quality software is really expensive and not that lucrative (because of piracy for example). That’s why IBM has (more or less) phased out AIX and is advising its clients to use Linux instead.

Sun does not want to use its (limited) funds to develop Java anymore. They want to concentrate on hardware (perhaps) and services (where big money is – ask IBM…) But they still want Java to thrive (a first step was the setting up of the Java Community Process some years ago). And now they release J2SE, J2ME and J2EE under the GPL (which is bound to please us, OSS geeks: even RMS is delighted!) and hope that those who do Tomcat, JBoss, Spring, Eclipse, etc. will start innovating (now that they have the source code of the Hotspot JVM for instance) and make J2EE become something so formidable that even our friend Bill won’t be able to mimic it…

The tide is rising. Open source is the future. Microsoft is the past.

Where do you want to go today?

Following my post from last year, I am happy to announce that the Sony PlayStation 3 has been released in Japan today.

The Premium version of the PS3 features Wifi wireless Internet connectivity and multiple memory card readers. It also has a 60 GB harddisk. It is backward-compatible with the PS1 and PS2.

From Wikipedia,

The PlayStation 3 is based on open and publicly available application programming interfaces. Despite earlier rumours of programming being difficult, IGN reports that they were told that the dev kit “seemed extremely adaptive and easy to program for”. Sony has selected several technologies and arranged several sublicensing agreements to create an advanced software development kit for developers. In addition, in 2005 Sony purchased SN Systems, a former provider of Microsoft Windows-based development tools for a variety of console platforms.

The open standards are specified by the Khronos Group, and are intended to work with Nvidia’s Cg programming language. Scene data are stored with COLLADA v1.4, an open, XML-based file format.

Rendering uses PSGL, a modified version of OpenGL ES 1.0 (OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant except for the use of Cg instead of GLSL), with extensions specifically aimed at the PS3.

Other specifications include OpenMAX, a collection of fast, cross-platform tools for general “media acceleration,” such as matrix calculations, and OpenVG, for hardware-accelerated 2D vector graphics. These specifications have GPL, free for any use, and/or commercial implementations by third parties.

Sublicensed technology includes complete game engines, physics libraries, and special libraries. Engines include Epic‘s Unreal engine 3.0. Physics libraries include AGEIA‘s PhysX SDK, NovodeX, and Havok‘s physics and animation engines.

Other tools include Nvidia’s Cg 1.5 (a C-like shading language, which HLSL was based upon), SpeedTree RT by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (high-quality virtual foliage in real time), and Kynogon’s Kynapse 4.0 “large scale A.I.”.

So lots of opportunities for programmers! Notice the use of various open standards with implementations released under the GPL.

The PS3 also runs any PowerPC-compatible Linux (for example, Yellow Dog Linux) and, for once, Sony fully documents the procedure (i.e. they want lots of people to run alternative OSes on their PS3…)

As most of you already know, the PS3 has a fantastic new processor called Cell and a GPU from the Nvidia GeForce 7 series.

There is also a Basic version (compared to the Premium) without Wifi, memory card readers and with a smaller 20 GB harddisk.

The PS3 will cost $499 in the US (i.e. Rs 20,000) and therefore I guess it will be available around Rs. 30,000 in Mauritius in some time.

Is it worth it?

Personally, I’ll never put Rs. 30,000 in a game console. But I don’t mind paying that amount (of course, I’ll have to convince Christina first) if I get a world-class game console compatible with PS1 and PS2 games + a complete media center (MP3, CD, DivX, DVD etc) with top quality audio and video and recording capabilities + an Internet Web browser with full support for latest W3C recommendations)