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• Apple Deprecates Java

  Apple has finally lost patience with Java and tossed it from the Mac. The update that just happened is the last they’ll bring out, and OS X Lion won’t include Java support. 

  It’s been an off-and-on relationship for quite some time, rescued by 1:1 contacts each time the end has been threatened. This has to be a big negative for all the many developers who prefer to use a Mac than Windows to develop their Java code. Looks like the future for Ubuntu as a developer desktop just got several degrees brighter – does Steve Jobs ignore the Ballmer Imperative at his peril?

  It’s hard to see how this can be recovered unless Oracle can sweet-talk Apple the way Sun used to each time someone screwed up. Having Oracle take over the development would be hard for several reasons:

  • First, the Java port in use includes a lot of Apple know-how that is not generally available (such as private UI interfaces) to make Java integrate well rather than using just X11.
  • Second, it belongs to Apple, so Oracle would either have to receive a copy of Apple’s implementation or start again with all the UI and platform native code.
  • Third, distribution would move outside Apple’s update mechanism so keeping it patched and secure would be difficult – a new installer and update mechanism will be needed.
  • Fourth, the new AppStore rules will make sure there’s negligible demand for consumer Java on the Mac.

  It’s possible that an open source implementation could step into the breach, but I still have my doubts. OpenJDK for example is actually developed largely by Oracle, and after that (a long way after) by Red Hat, so the community would need to magically gain some hard-core Mac experts. I think this is actually bad news for everyone and that Apple’s pursuit of platform control in this specific case harms their customers. [Expanded version at ComputerWorldUK]

Also:

• AWS Free Usage Tier
  I was actually surprised to find Amazon didn’t have a sandpit for AWS, so this new offering really doesn’t surprise me. They still have no easy-start developer environment that I have found, that’s a serious lack and an invitation to try Node.js
• Physics of How Wet Dogs Shake Out
  This has to be a candidate for an IgNobel Prize.

Filed under: Links | 11 Comments »

• Every email and website to be stored

  “Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.”

  Despite promises from both the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems during the election to end the surveillance state, the crazy, abusive idea of making ISPs keep records of every UK internet connection and phone call for at least a year so that they can be used for investigations have been revived. Their earlier promises are still there on the web, and we still remember them, yet they have absolutely no shame. I am disgusted at these hypocrites.

• A (Final) Few Words on FRAND Licensing

  “Once again, then, it is clear that the only fair and practical solution for open standards is RF: Restriction-Free licensing.”
• Battling the Hydra: FSFE’s work on Open Standards
  Given how well-funded the pernicious hydra FSFE (and the rest of us) are fighting actually is, I remain amazed that meaningful opposition is even possible. Huge kudos to FSFE (of which I am a proud member) for keeping this battle going against all odds, even despite Quislings.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Who Will Watch The Watchmen?

• When a company asks for your copyright

  “When a company says which of these conditions it will accept, that will show you how far it plans to depart from the principles of free software.”

  An interesting discussion by Richard Stallman that indicates he is still willing to tolerate copyright aggregation by corporations. The fact is no corporation will accept these extra clauses he has written, so unless they include them in their standard agreements by default, he might just as well say (as I did) “avoid copyright aggregation.”

• Open standards dispute flares up again at the EU level

  “lobbyists have attempted to put the focus on “mixed solutions with open and proprietary code” and have FRAND licenses declared compatible with open software”

  The people involved definitely should know better than this. While it is possible to build specific cases of FRAND licensing that can be considered compatible with open source licensing, the class in general never can be and the voices saying otherwise should be ashamed of themselves as they attempt to sell everyone’s freedoms in exchange for corporate marketing dollars.

Also:

• ForgeRock Training
  ForgeRock’s training group is now ready for business and pumping out courses on OpenAM and OpenDJ. This page is the new training calendar.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Gaming The System

• Sender ID Finds Followers Ahead of Approval
  If anyone has forgotten why RAND and RAND-Z terms are a defect awaiting exploitation to undermine software freedoms, this article – from 2005 – ought to jog your memory.

• Have you checked the Java?
  You can tell the world has changed when there's a malware alert about a massive rise in malicious exploits of Java flaws, and it's raised by Microsoft. Is the problem here that there's no automated update mechanism for Java on Windows for most users (or it's turned off), I wonder?

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Plus ça change

• Split JCP: a compromise proposal
  Stephen Colebourne articulates what I am sure has been on many people’s minds – that it’s time for an independent JCP, and that the only way Oracle would tolerate such a thing would be to remove core Java from the JCP. This is the start of a great proposal and I hope it receives recognition, serious consideration and a response from Oracle.
• Meritocracies – built to fail
  While I agree with the article which I beieve is a well observed reflection on politics and society, I disagree with the title as a general statement as I believe open, meriticractic oligarchy to be the proven and true pattern for open source governance.
• Benoît Mandelbrot, Novel Mathematician, Dies at 85
  Mendelbrot is someone I would have loved to have met. We were both at IBM at the same time, so it might have been possible, but we never did. His work has profoundly influenced me. I believe he discovered a new fundamental aspect of reality that we will continue to discover allows us to objectively explore and explain things previously thought to be purely subjective. One of the greats of the 20th century has left our community, and left it immeasurably richer.
• Prostate cancer urine test nears
  This could be a profound health breakthrough for men.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Monday Links

• FLOSS Weekly 139: Alfresco
  It was a long session, but the conversation flowed between me, John Newton and Luis Sala of Alfresco and FLOSS Weekly anchor Randal Schwartz.
• A Darwinian theory of open source development strategies
  Nothing new to people who understood software freedom from the beginning to mean open collaboration between equal participants, but all the same it’s good to see an analyst saying it. Given previous analysis latency this presumably means we’ll hear Forrester saying it in 2014, VCs investing on the basis of it by 2015 and Gartner inventing it for the first time around 2017 😉
• IBM, Oracle and Java: The Q&A
  Excellent summary of the situation from O’Grady (as usual). The only thing lacking is speculation about the new power distribution in the community. With Oracle winning the bet that might would defeat right, there seems space for some analysis of whether the Java community just became sharecroppers.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Turning Point Discussions