Google turns 9 today. The official chronological history is online at the corporate history page.

Their most important contribution is the effective search engine they provide. Today, the word searching on the web pretty much implies “googling” ! However, there is another extremely important contribution from their side and that is sharing the code that makes them succeed. Most of you already know and use some of the Google APIs.

So Google now influences not only how you use the web but also how you continue to build the web. This can imply either of the two outcomes - (1) Google the savior - in which case it accelerates liberation of most closed software and compels others to follow and (2) Google the tyrant - in which case it monopolizes not only your business but your mind. What do you think may be the probable outcome? Do you think it makes you uncomfortable that a 9 year old rules your life?

Tushar Joshi has authored an article titled “Introduction to Spring IDE 2.0″. The article describes the required steps and dependencies to install Spring IDE and demos some basic features of version 2.0.

Tushar concludes his article by stating that: “Spring IDE provides features like Spring Explorer, Beans Cross Reference, Graph View and Code completion in the bean XML editor hence making the life of a Spring Framework user easier.”

http://www.springframework.org/node/523

JavaFX: Anyone out there using it? What are your reactions?

JavaFX was the big announcement at JavaOne this year, and in the intervening months, let’s just say the roar of adoption and support has been underwhelming. Or has it? Post a comment if you are planning to use JavaFX in the near future.

Responses to the previous post: OpenJDK TCK License

Simon Phipps responded to my previous post telling me that I was “free to fork OpenJDK”, but that wasn’t the point. He also goes out of his way to paint me as an Apache partisan. He then went on to say that a TCK license wasn’t even appropriate for Kaffe, Harmony, or GCJ because they weren’t complete. Sorry to belabor this point, but all three of those independent implementations have sought access to the TCK, they did so because they wanted a measure of compatibility (or completeness if you will). Simon is essentially saying neither implementation is worthy of access to the compatibility tests because they are not compatible… Sun is playing word games, and if they want to use open source as a marketing tool, we should be holding them accountable. Play it however you will, but you are using your position as spec lead for Java as a lever to squash any hope for an independent, open-source implementation of an open standard.

Other than this TCK licensing curfuffle, I think Simon Phipps deserves a few minutes of sustained applause, possibly even an uncomfortably long standing ovation for helping to free Java. (I’m just a stickler for details.)

Red Hat’s response to the TCK license

In all fairness to Simon, I wanted to repost some of the inital reactions of RedHat to the OpenJDK TCK License. Andrew Haley of RedHat posted this to openjdk-discuss shortly after the TCK license announcement on August 13th. Here are some excerpts:

…I’m disappointed that the TCK isn’t going to be
available to all GPL’ed Java implementations, including those not
based on OpenJDK. I had hoped to get the Java Compatible stamp of
approval for GCJ.

And, more:

It has been somewhat frustrating that we haven’t been able to work
more closely with Sun on ironing out these problems, but there are
still some legal issues to sort out, and opening up Sun’s
well-established processes is doubtless a huge sink of time.

However I must point out that even given these problems we in the
free software community are in a far better position today than we
were with GCJ (and other free VMs) and GNU Classpath: with IcedTea
based on the OpenJDK code base we are much closer to Java
compatibility.

I’m very excited by the prospect of a 100% free and 100% compatible
Java, and I’d like to thank Sun for that. But still, there is work to
be done.

It’s a mixed reaction but one that seems more positive than negative.

IcedTea

For people who don’t know of the IcedTea distribution it is a temporary form of OpenJDK.

I remember back to this year’s JavaOne, it was A LOT OF FUN to sit in that press briefing room while jon Schwartz and Rich Green (and the UN guy) talked about how Sun is focused squarely on making the world a better place through developing JavaFX(TM), open sourcing the JDK, and providing mobile phones to impovrished third-world nations.

But, there’s a problem… Sun Microsystems hasn’t really “open-sourced” Java(TM). That’s the truth.

You: What? What do you mean? I went to JavaOne and saw that Sun had “open-sourced” Java(TM)?

Me: Well, technically the source code for OpenJDK is covered under the GPL, but you won’t find any other open source implementations of Java floating around the internet any time soon… Sun is too concerned about competition and maintaining control over the platform.

Me: Java(TM) is a trademark and you haven’t really created a Java(TM) virtual machine until you’ve passed a compatibility kit from Sun. hmmm….

You: Ok, GREAT NEWS, Sun is licensing the compatibility kit to open source implementations. That fixes everything, now Java is really Open Source.

Me: Er, well, not really. They are making it available for JDK implementations derived from OpenJDK. They weren’t really interested in the open source community per se, they were really just interested in bundling Java with Linux distributions. If anything they’ve actively worked to exclude the most dedicated open-source Java developers in a ploy to retain control of “The Platform”. Here read for yourself…

“Implementations must be substantially derived from the OpenJDK source
code and must be distributed under GPL which of course would be a
requirement of any implementation making use of code from the OpenJDK
code commons”

That’s what I get from Rich Green’s Orwellian game of verbal twister. It’s just a shame because while it might satisfy the conditions of the FSF in terms of licensing, it has little to do with the freedom to fork (or reimplement) that makes the open source community a vibrant one.

What is Rich Green and Sun Microsystems so scared of? Competition? Are they fearful that Microsoft, Intel, or IBM might start contributing to a non-GPL distribution of Java and improve upon it? Yes, I leave messages in the URLs, from his blog post, it reads clearly: Rich Green is scared of competition.

UPDATE (9/19/07): Just one day after posting this blog entry, we see Can IBM save OpenOffice.org from itself? over at ComputerWorld. Evidently Sun’s other OpenOffice effort is suffering some structural/governance issues.

Which IDE is best for writing Java code? Leaving aside NetBeans (a big assumption given that it now has excellent Ruby and JRuby integration), the choice was between Intellij or Eclipse. IntelliJ while commercial, wasn’t too expensive and ‘just worked’ out of the box. Eclipse, if you were willing to install multiple plugins, could be more powerful but more intimidating.

My way around this was to install JBoss IDE. Whether or not you used JBoss , it gave a good set of standard plugins on top of the standard Eclipse to get productive immediately. But it hadn’t been updated in 12 months - until a couple of weeks ago when it was relaunched as Red Hat Developer Studio (RHDS). If you’re interested in the detail, my notes on getting started with Red Hat Development Studio (RHDS) are here.

So, having waited for 12 months, is it Red Hat Development Studio any good? The answer is ‘yes but…‘ . The good bits are:

• It has excellent Seam , Ajax and JSF integration - a product of the Red Hat Partnership with Exadel.
• It’s stable (hasn’t crashed on me yet) and is based on the latest Major Eclipse release (3.3 Europa). I found less conflicts when installing plugins compared to the (now 12 months old) JBoss IDE.
• It has a good set of standard plugins - for Spring , JBoss workflow (jBPM), Web Tools - already installed.

and the bad bits

• The size: a 524mb Download is bigger than some of the early Red Hat Distros of Linux.
• What’s missing: No Maven integration. No Subversion Integration. Although these can easily be added, their omission seems odd given that both are becoming a defacto Java Development Standard.
• JBoss Rules is missing. Or maybe I’m stupid and can’t find it (but I’ve looked long enough). This is a step backward from the previous version, and especially disappointing given my personal interest in Drools and Rule Engines (blog link).

Credit where credit is due; It’s only in Beta. Already it’s very good. Here’s hoping that it can be great.

I definitely think that dynamic languages for Java platform is an important topic. In that context, a Scripting API as a standardized scripting framework has its own role for Java developers. It is definitely a good thing it is included in JDK 6, but the lack of proper support for earlier JDK’s, in my opinion, slows down its wider adoption.

Why is this important? On one side, there are developers that work on “in-house” applications and solutions. Although it may seem that JDK (or JRE) upgrade process in such environments is not a big deal, it is usually a process that is pretty inertial. Many arguments are used in discussions, from compatibility issues and testing needs to “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”, but also the inertia factor could be often associated to plain laziness.

On other side, you have developers of Java libraries and general-purpose Java applications who try to have user base as wide as possible. In that manner, they usually keep their products either compatible with JDK 1.4 or provide a special “retrotranslated” version of it.

So, it is not hard to see why general scripting support (through JDK 6 exclusive Scripting API) in applications and libraries is not something that we can see on regular basis in Java projects today (especially when there is no official JDK 6 release for OS X yet).

The Second Ignite Boston is taking place this Thursday, September 6, from 6 to 10pm at Hurricane O’Reillys. If you have already RSVP’d your name is in our list and you will be entered into a drawing for $300 worth of O’Reilly books, and a Free Beer, or drink of your choice. If you have not RSVP’d or if you think a friend or two should join you, send email with your name to IgniteBoston AT oreilly DOT com. The talks are listed below.

Keynote: Ben Fry - Visualizing Data
Visualizing large data in a compelling style with tools that scale.
1. Alessandro Pace - Flash Lite mobile technology
   I would like to showcase how to create Flash Lite content for mobile phones. I would be able to show sample applications
2. Yael Maguire - New Uses of Long Range RFID
   Agile RFID reader technology.
3. Jon Orwant - Google Book Search
   
4. Ned Gulley - A wiki-like programming contest
   Picture a programming contest that’s open source, fast-paced, and competitive. Addictive collaboration ensues
5. Andy Gregorowicz - Mining Wikipedia
   An overview of how we mine the Wikipedia to create massive networks of concepts and terms with interesting visuals.
6. Hari Jayaram - Waiting for the MySpace scientist
   Science is getting so complex that we need to open things up, collaborate and use technology more than ever before
7. Neil Henry - Digital Image Glut
   Articulation of an unmet need of modern consumers. The scarcity of time to organize, rate and enjoy digital images
8. Jesse Liberty - Sliverlight
   Learn what is cool with Sliverlight.
9. Ivan Schneider - A proposal for rules-based payment processing
   Why should affiliates and suppliers wait for a check when the payments network can divvy the spoils for every purchase?
10. Shava Nerad - Convergence: games, virtual worlds, social networking
    They grew up on their own — now corporations enter. How will they deal with convergence and big money colonialism?
11. Greg London - Bounty Hunters
    Looking at copyright law as a bounty/reward shows how to set the terms of copyright to some reasonable length.
12. Michael Burns - Securing the OLPC
    Millions of XOs are being distributed this year. Bitfrost is the system to protect these child users. How does it work?
13. Matt Douglas - Founder
    Develop a mantra for your product: how we make design decisions at MyPunchbowl.com
14. Brian Olson - Ending Gerrymandering Through Automatic Redistricting
    Lots of states have crazy congressional districts drawn to the benefit of one party. Let a computer do it fairly!
15. Daniel Olguin Olguin - Sensible Organizations
    Social sensor network technologies that will help individuals and organizations work better.
16. Michael Colombo - AIR from the commercial trenches
    Seen enough Web 2.0 mashups? Let’s discuss building a business case, managing, and executing in an Adobe RIA universe.
17. Ted Gilchrist - Extending Robocal to do “talking driving direcctions”
    Robocal is a talking Google Calendar, that you can call up. Now you’ll get driving directions to your meetings.
18. Renat Khasanshyn - Enterprise 2.0 and Data Mashups: Bridging the Web 2.0 Information Gap
    In today’s enterprises, most data integration projects never get built. The ROI on these projects is simply too low. Co
19. Dan Stolts - Free Local Technology Resources
    The local user group community is thriving. Get a taste of what the community is doing for the community.
20. James Turner - 5 Ways to Keep an Editor Happy
    So, you’d like to write something for the ONLamp Family of Websites? Here’s 5 basic boo-boos to avoid.
21. Daniel Berube - Storytelling
    As Leader of the BOSFCPUG, I would like to discuss Final Cut Studio 2 as a tool for storytelling and video on the iPhone
22. Keith Erskine - Launch: Padpaw
    Padpaw is out of the Garage! Padpaw helps your group with important updates and information using your cell phone
23. Greg Raiz - Launch PicMe Photo Sharing
    PicMe is a desktop based photo sharing application. It allows users to view and share large collections of photos.

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