I read an interesting series of threads on Slashdot over the last few days. First…..

Red Hat plans open source Java. At first I thought *oh, kewl*. A complete implementation of the JVM and JDK that is entirely open source _and_ endorsed by Sun (the Blackdown project already has an open source JVM, but it ain’t endorsed by Sun). Then I saw they planned to completely rewrite the JVM. Huh? That’s progress? Re-inventing the wheel? What?

A lot of open source folks only put up with Sun because they aren’t Microsoft. The Java API (and the JVM implementation released by Sun) isn’t open source. It is what Sun calls Community Source…meaning that there is a review board consisting of many people from the industry to oversee and steer Java development at Sun, but the source isn’t “open”, and Sun doesn’t appreciate it when you tinker with JVM without their permission (see Microsoft). I’m beginning to realize this is the downside of being an open source/free software zealot — you become so focused on the license of the software, and how it is developed, you lose sight of why you’re developing software in the first place. The Sun license isn’t very restrictive…anyone can download it and use it. Sure, it isn’t the GPL, but it’s plenty good for 99% of the development population. Why spend time and money rewriting the JVM? I just don’t get it.

Next interesting bit….a discussion on the if/when Linux will overtake OS X. The thread was quite interesting (and humorous). The general trend on Slashdot is that 80% of the folks that post to a discussion don’t read the linked article (or even the item description at the head of the thread). So a lot of the posts said *of course Linux will overtake OS X…it’s just a better server.* Well, duh. Apple didn’t introduce OS X to overtake Linux on the server (though it could, really).

Personally, I love OS X. I’ve got an old iMac at home (thanks Dave) and I like using it. All the little things are easy to do (pull photos off my digital camera? No problem. Pull video from my digital video camera? No problem. Write Python scripts? No problem.) The interface is beautiful. Now, if you run KDE with Liquid, the Linux UI looks a lot better, but Liquid doesn’t work too well with RedHat. In fact, my only complaint about the Mac? My CD-RW doesn’t work. I know, it’s partially my fault for not doing my homework, but I just plugged it into my Linux boxen, and it just worked, no driver needed. If OS X is built on BSD, shouldn’t it work there too? But that’s really a minor pain, and like I said, it’s partially my fault.

With the new G5s, Apple does have the chance to chip into the workstation market, though I think that might be a very very slow migration. For companies running Unix workstations (Suns and SGIs), the G5 could make a lot of sense, especially since you can run MS Office in OS X, eliminating the need for a Windoze machine for administrative tasks. It might be a bit harder to chip into the Linux workstation market, due to cost (you can buy a cheap refurbished Dell and throw a Linux distro on it for under $700), but I’d love to be on a G5 right now instead of a PC running RedHat…..

In other news…..

I’ve become slightly obsessed with purchasing a Vespa…..

Posted on 24 June 2003