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Patents, for one. Field of use restrictions for another. OpenJDK's classpath exception to the GPL does not apply to JavaME related classes, thus limiting the us
by jaaron 16y ago
Patents, for one. Field of use restrictions for another. OpenJDK's classpath exception to the GPL does not apply to JavaME related classes, thus limiting the use of OpenJDK for all platforms.
- jrockway 16y agoJava's standard library is one of its worst features. A fork could just throw this crap away and it wouldn't be too far off. But honestly, people don't use Java because they want a good programming language. They use it because they're already using Java. That will be a problem for both Java 7 and any future fork.
- rbanffy 16y agoMaybe people use Java because they want a solid cross-platform VM
- ssmoot 16y agoDitto. Though I'd narrow "cross platform" to non-Microsoft. No hate for MS, but I don't see deploying Windows servers and associated licensing costs any more likely for me than buying Oracle licenses. So yeah, as a small Ruby shop that was looking at JRuby as a stepping stone to a robust VM, this concerns me.
- nikster 16y agoLongtime Java dev here, I'd say taking Java, and the JVM, and creating a NEW set of libraries would be awesome. As you said the Java libraries are total crap. Sun was for a while hell-bent on throwing out everything that's good while putting in a lot of badly designed ugly classes. And some things, like AWT and Swing, were just crap from the very start. A fresh start would be awesome. The main thing that's currently good about Java is the JVM, and Eclipse. Ruby is infinitely more elegant but the dynamic typing and lack of IDE support kills it for me.
- spooneybarger 16y agoA lot of the ruby elegance comes from the dynamic typing.
- rbanffy 16y agoWell... It certainly doesn't look like J2ME has a bright future. Keeping it alive under present terms may be enough. The OpenJDK and Apache licenses protect against patent trolling by Oracle or IBM, so, that threat is not significant. The only problem would be the risk of deviating from current "safe" versions into Larry's patentland.
- nradov 16y agoJ2ME effectively died (became irrelevant) years ago. It still continues to ship in some low-end feature phones but no important developers are targeting new applications to that platform.
- incognito3 16y agoWhat about RIM? It uses J2ME for everything. I know it is not a big platform but it is still important.