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| | | A Developer's Perspective | |
 | Rick Ross is the founder of Javalobby. He is a frequent speaker at Java-related events and a well-known advocate for Java developer interests.. |
 Let's not convict Microsoft too quickly
Just about everyone here knows I have never been shy about criticizing companies for behaving badly, especially Microsoft. As dramatic and silly as it sounds from a distance of several years, there were even times in my life when close friends told me I should be concerned for my safety because of my public positions on Microsoft's behavior. My record speaks for itself, and if I thought Microsoft (or any company) was treating developers poorly I would not hesitate to call them on it. All prelude aside, however, I feel there's a decent probability Microsoft is currently getting a bad rap at the hands of bloggers and opportunistic media outlets (including our own, it seems) that are presuming the "little guy" is being abused by the corporate behemoth. I'd say the case is not so clear - not by a long shot. In brief, a developer named Jamie Cansdale has built an extension for Microsoft's free Visual Studio Express product. Microsoft does not believe the extension is permitted under the terms of its license, so it has requested Cansdale to remove his extension's support for the Express products. Cansdale sees no reason his extension would not be permitted under the license, and he has not removed support as Microsoft requested. The two parties have had a long chain of correspondence back and forth about the issue, much of which you can read in this detailed story on InfoQ.com. I'm neither a judge nor a lawyer, thank goodness! As an ordinary person reading these emails, I have to say that it seems Microsoft's Jason Weber (in my experience a genuinely pleasant, open-minded and peaceful man) was trying to work out an amicable resolution with Cansdale. Cansdale seems to have dug his heels in on an issue I doubt he can win. Even if he is correct that the present wording of Microsoft's license can be interpreted to permit his extension due to some technicality, it is unmistakably clear that it was not Microsoft's intention for Visual Studio Express to support any extensions. If Cansdale tries to mount a "legal" defense of his present posture, then Microsoft can easily respond by modifying the license to more specifically represent its intention to prohibit plugin extensions. This is a no-win for Cansdale, and in my opinion Microsoft has been patient in trying to resolve its differences with him. I don't think they have bullied him, and should Cansdale obtain victory in any form it will only be Pyrrhic and short-lived. Microsoft changes the license, the door closes on Cansdale's extension, and his relationship with a strategically important partner is permanently marred. Some may see this whole thing as a matter of principle, but I don't. Microsoft had no obligation to make Visual Studio Express free, and they only did so with the understanding that developers requiring certain features (like plugin extensibility) would have to upgrade to their payware products. There is a saying at Microsoft, one which Matt and I have learned to keep in mind, "This is a business." Why should they have to permit Cansdale to leverage some technicality to do something they clearly intended to prevent? If I understand the context correctly, his product has no market whatsoever without theirs. Microsoft could simply decide headaches like this aren't worth it and get rid of the whole Visual Studio Express product. Who wins then? It's not as if Microsoft needs any more apologists than it has, but it bugs me that the blogosphere and a large number of tech media sites jumped so quickly to the conclusion that Microsoft was unfairly bullying the poor, helpful developer who created good things for their tools platform. That's not my read of the story, and I'll be interested to see how this continues to unfold. Rick Ross saying Microsoft doesn't appear to be a bully. Imagine that! What have things come to? Until next time,
Rick Ross
rick@javalobby.org
AIM or Yahoo Messenger: RickRossJL PS - We've had a really interesting experience this past week using Java 6 and JMX Remoting tools to profile our server applications. Next week I promise I will make every effort to focus more on Java, and I'll tell you the story of our new "WatchPig" process. It will make you laugh, but not in a particularly comfortable way. PPS - This link to "Realtime Swing Reflections" was pretty cool. So is this one on "Java running faster than C." Enjoy! | | |
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| | | Matthew Schmidt
is the man behind the scenes at Javalobby. If you have questions
or concerns, feel free to email him at matt@javalobby.org. |
 Google Gears - Why Not Java?
By now, I'm sure that most of you have heard of Google Gears, Google's latest developer tool that lets you run your web applications in an offline mode. It seems to do this through a native browser plugin for IE and Firefox (on most of the major operating systems) that bundles a small database (SQLite). This morning I came across a blog entry by the java.net editor asking why couldn't Google Gears have been created using Java? With the penetration of the Java plugin these days, it would seem that they could have gotten much better bang for the buck immediately by leveraging the existing install base and a Java DB. I know that Mike has been talking about things about HSQL in his latest project and Derby is certainly an option as well. So, the real question is: did Google ditch Java for this project because of the bad rap that applets and Java on the client have? Even though Java has made great strides, most people still have Java 5 installed on their PCs and I'd venture that the Java plugin for Java 5 was not nearly as smooth as the one for Java 6. What were the reasons for Google to create their own new plugin? Most likely, it allows for easier integration with their toolbars and Google Desktop on the platforms where these apps are supported. It's anyone's guess what Google's decision making process was on this, they use Java in a lot of places and certainly Java isn't the right solution for everything, but would there have been advantages to making Google Gears a Java app or applet? Would it have even made sense? Your guess is as good as mine. Ruby vs. Java Myths
Over the past week or so, Stu Holloway has been posting some Ruby vs. Java myths on his blog. While these are primarily focused on marketing Ruby and Rails, they are indicative of the kind of issues that the Java community is facing these days. In fact, the first four myths that he's posted are actually quite well thought out and are only mildly aggressive towards Java. The fact is, that for Myth #1, he's most likely correct. Let's take a look at DZone and what could be considered at least a medium sized project. We have over 200 classes these days, some of them quite large and somehow rely on just over 100 different jar files for the webapp. When I noticed this HUGE number of jars the other day, quite frankly I was astonished. I said, "Self, how did we get so many jars?" I replied, "I dunno, it just happened…" This is exactly the type of things that often happens with Java. The huge library of third party libraries out there can be both a blessing and a curse. Its true that you can find a library to do nearly everything you can imagine, but the downside of this is that you quickly find yourself in a new breed of "dll hell", "jar hell". Say for example that you need a tool like JBossCache. You don't just get the JBossCache jar, you get anywhere between 3-6 other jars that JBossCache itself needs to even function. I'm not just picking on JBoss here; there are a lot of other libraries that have the same problem. Not to mention that they all likely rely on log4j or some other Apache library, and of course each library gives you a different version of log4j (or said library). How do you discern which version you need? What if you take a version that one of the other 99 jars in your system isn't compatible with? You see the mess that this problem has started to create. I'm not sure I know how to deal with this problem. Do tools like Ivy and Maven help with this problem? Is there a better way to manage all these jars or to even cut them down? Let me know. DZone Network Server Upgrades Coming
Over the weekend, Rick and I started the long and painful process of finally upgrading our three-year-old servers to some hardware that should let us scale and meet the needs of the network for the foreseeable future. With these new servers, comes some upgrades that many of you have been trying to beat into my head for months now, including an upgrade to a recent a version of Roller (powers JRoller) as I can find, and an upgrade to the latest and greatest Codebeamer (powers JavaForge). In addition, there's also going to be a much-needed make over to Javalobby and EclipseZone. Of course, these changes won't happen immediately and we'll be migrating to the new hardware first, but keep your eyes open for some nice updates to nearly all our communities. These upgrades have already started and we'd appreciate any feedback you have on whether things like Javalobby and EclipseZone are working properly. Drop me a line if you notice anything not working properly or feeling slow. Until Next Time,
Matthew Schmidt
matt@javalobby.org
Yahoo IM: mattschmidtjl | | |
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| | | most clicked this week from dzone.com |
Most-clicked links this week |
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| | | A recap of
some of the most popular and active Javalobby.org
discussions this week. |
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Can you see the future?
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Each morning when I wake up and peer into my crystal ball, I find that it's been getting a bit hazy lately. What will the future of applications as we know them be? Desktop, web, or mobile? All 3?
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Full Discussion |
Posted By: Matthew Schmidt - (10 Replies)
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| | | Technical papers & research related to Java development. |
| Product and
service announcements for Java developers. |
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Citra FX 1.1
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Kiyut just released Citra FX 1.1, an image filter effects for digital photos or images. It allows anyone, regardless of experience, to turn digital images into unique artistic looks.
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Full Announcement & Discussion |
Posted By: Kiyut - (0 Replies)
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Crionics jPDF 7.02
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Crionics jPDF Suite is a full featured PDF manipulation and rendering API for Java. The suite includes six major PDF products to view, print, merge, secure, create and fill form fields.
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Full Announcement & Discussion |
Posted By: Olivier Refalo - (0 Replies)
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JScience 4.0
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JScience is now available in new release 4.0
This new version is based on the Early Draft Release of JSR-275 (Measures and Units)
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Full Announcement & Discussion |
Posted By: Werner Keil - (0 Replies)
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EJOE 0.4.0 released
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The EJOE project has announced the release of EJOE 0.4.0.
0.4.0 adds remote reflection, different serialization strategies, Crispy and WSIF extensions, partial HTTP support and IPC communication.
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Full Announcement & Discussion |
Posted By: Michael Manske - (0 Replies)
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Perspective
