Posted by
Russell McOrmond-2 on
May 19, 2006; 4:18pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Re-Census-2006-available-for-Linux-tp609p628.html
Judyth wrote:
> Today's New York Times seems to indicate Java may not stay
> proprietary
(BTW: This is GOSLING community stuff.. but...)
Sun has been saying that they will be opening up Java for years, and
I'll believe it when I actually see it. The recent announcement is not
about the opening of the Java language to standardization, but a change
in the copyright/patent licensing that Sun is using for their
implementation of a proprietary language.
Just because there is an Open Source implementation of a language
does not make the language either a standard or non-proprietary. The
two are not identical concepts, and for the government the issue of
standardization is more critical than the license of any specific
implementation.
In order for Java to become an appropriate choice for what the Census
was doing the language needs to be brought to a standards body and very
specifically not remain solely in the hands of Sun. This is what
Microsoft did with C# (similar to Java in many ways) and the CLI
(Similar to the JVM in many ways) through the ECMA. This is why the
Mono project is able to have a far more complete implementation of
C#/CLI than the Kaffe project is able to have of Java/JVM.
Eventually Sun/Java/JVM may catch up to the openness of
Microsoft/C#/CLI (their implementation known as .NET), but I'm not going
to hold my breath. I've also seen more innovation/advancement in the
C#/CLI community, so would be happy if people just upgraded from Java to
the standard.
(Note: Yes, I expect to get hate-mail from the anything-but-Microsoft
camp ;-)
> To me, this is one of the many sub-issues within the broad heading of
> "civic access" but I hardly know what we can do as a group to
> sensitize a federal government which routinely places business
> interests above the public interest. Any ideas of where we could
> start?
Not sure where to start, but do suggest that we don't put "business
interests" into one category. Many of the initiatives we support are
very good for business, just different businesses than the 'incumbents'.
Much of the lobbying comes down to competition issues: the
incumbents want things to stay the same and the innovators want things
to change. Whether part of the voluntary, public, private, civil
society, education (etc, etc) sectors, we are just a group of innovators
trying to move forward.
I make this note as it comes up in copyright reform conversations all
the time, and how the "more is better" philosophy has captured the minds
of too many people. When you get people talking about your actual
needs you will then find a debate of authors-vs-authors, which is really
just another form of incumbents-vs-innovators in yet another field. I
witnessed that last weekend at the PWAC.ca conference, with the debate
between these professional writers getting pretty heated.
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <
http://www.flora.ca/>
2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
Movie and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
Send a letter to your Canadian MP! -->
http://digital-copyright.ca/