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You've Gotta Have Faith

By Allen Holub

May 15, 2004 — (Page 1 of 3)
Maybe it's the full moon, but weirdness seems to be in the air.

The big news in the past few weeks is Microsoft's big-bucks settlement (and "collaboration agreement") with Sun, with everyone wondering what impact this agreement will have on Java. Rick Ross (of JavaLobby) spearheaded the hand-wringing with his article "Where Is Java in This Settlement?".

Rick has two main worries: First, Microsoft, which has a history of subsuming its "partners," will leverage its position to get control of (and destroy) Java as a platform. Second, since Sun is far from financially healthy (it posted a US$760 million loss last quarter), it won't put any of the Microsoft settlement money into Java, and the language will wither.

Meanwhile, the lunatic fringe (I know I'll get flamed for that one) put in its two cents in the guise of Richard Stallman's "Free But Shackled: The Java Trap"

Stallman is advocating that we abandon Java because it's not "free" (in the goodness-and-light sense). Our Java software is bound by Sun's licensing requirements since it requires Sun libraries (and practically speaking, a Sun JVM) to run. In other words, Sun is under attack by Microsoft, so we should abandon Java for a "free" alternative such as Perl, PSP or Python.

Sun's James Gosling responded to this attack in his Web log: "We have not sold our soul to the Dark Side. We haven't overnight turned into mindless lap dogs. We've had a lot of experience with Microsoft over the years, and it has made us very cautious...We're not a bunch of moronic secret subversive Microsoft lap dogs…Relax. Have a little faith." (today.java.net/jag)

So can we relax and place our faith in Sun?

Developers have to predict the future to write viable software. Systems that we're working on now will be released months (or years) from now when the world may well have changed. Technical choices that we make now affect the long-term viability of those projects. When we use existing technology, we're taking a risk that it won't be obsolete when the product is released.

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