Re: Compiere now #1 on sourceforge

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, 29 May 2002 11:44:53 EDT, the world broke into rejoicing as
"ROBERT CAMPBELL" <address@hidden>  said:
> They consider themselves J2EE-compliant, but the official Sun test is =
> cost-prohibitive.  JBoss is licensed under the LGPL.
> 
> I know it's silly to ask, "Why aren't you using JBOSS/Java/whatever" at
> this late stage and knowing your ideals.  But I did want to clarify JBoss'
> status.

"Late stage" is an important point, to be sure.

Changing over from one language to another is a MAJOR undertaking, 
irrespective of the merits of the language in question.

Note that JBoss doesn't solve the "independence from Sun Java" issue; it 
requires a fully functional JVM version 1.3.  Try and find one of those that's 
not licensed from Sun...

The most meaningful set of links I've found to the Java licensing issues are 
the following:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/docs/support/faq-release/FAQ-java-linux-8.h
tml#licensing
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/ch2.html#s2.3

JBoss may be free, just as Compiere may be free, but the body of code that is 
needed to run these applications isn't.

And it is NOT an irrational choice for a free software project to steer clear 
of "Java versions > 1.1" due to "Java versions >1.1" not being available as 
free software.

After all, there are _lots_ of languages available with free implementations.  
C, C++, Ada, Lisp, Perl, Python, Ruby, Eiffel, OCAML.  Those are just the ones 
I can name off the top of my head for which there are bindings available to 
PostgreSQL (providing DBMS access) and GTK (providing graphics access).  
Others may prefer the idea of there being some further criteria; feel free to 
add your favorite criteria.  I figured that having the three criteria of 
[libre implementation, DBMS access, graphics] was sufficient for them to all 
be defensible options.

Java's pretty neat, but the set of libraries that people expect to use are a 
morass of license complexities; there are no two ways about that.  When GNUe 
was started, as a project, Java wasn't an acceptable option.  Today, with the 
licensing complexities, it's still not an acceptable option.

If we could step back in time, there's no good reason _now_ for GNUe to have 
chosen Java as the implementation language _back then_.

Note carefully that I haven't said anything technically critical about Java as 
a language, or about any of the libraries available for it.  (That would be a 
completely separate discussion :-).)
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/internet.html
"End users  are just test loads  for verifying that  the system works,
kind of like resistors in an electrical circuit."
-- Kaz Kylheku in c.o.l.d.s