Sun yanks FreeBSD's Java license

Sun yanks FreeBSD's Java license

Posted Jan 11, 2005 22:00 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Sun yanks FreeBSD's Java license by mrshiny
Parent article: Sun yanks FreeBSD's Java license

Nobody who uses Java would claim that GCJ is a better Java than Java.

Unfortunately. gcj has the potential of being much better than any JVM; faster, smaller, more flexible, more portable. It's bad for everyone that, since Sun keeps augmenting (some would say bloating) the JDK, it's nearly impossible for its developers to catch up.

Compiling "to the metal" is actually a disadvantage, since the JVM is faster than the compiled code.

This blanket statement is not true; arithmetic operations are quite faster using gcj. Object creation is however slower on my machine.

Also, you have to distribute binaries for multiple platforms, and you lose optimizations available when the JVM improves its runtime compiler.

It is actually much more versatile to distribute source and compile to the target architecture; you take advantage of the wider support in gcc. Also, you can recompile to get the new optimizations whenever the compiler is upgraded.

Your only advantage with the JVM is to be able to distribute opaque "binaries"; but, since .class objects are trivial to decompile, it's not much of a protection anyway. Distributing precompiled gcj binaries would actually be a much better obfuscation.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see MORE stuff being virtualized as just-in-time compilation becomes better and better. But I digress.

I would expect exactly the opposite: more stuff being distributed as source and compiled on the spot; witness the success of source code distributions like Gentoo, and free software in general.

Java is much, much more than cross-platform compatibility anyway.

Luckily for Sun, since cross-platform compatibility is laughable. After deciding between Java's Windows, Linux or Solaris (with Mac OS X and AIX hopefully supported by their respective vendors), take a look at the platforms supported by Python (about 20) or Perl (about 100).

It is incredibly useful, widely supported in industry, and has an array of fantastic tools to support development and deployment.

Good argument; but it's just as valid for C#, Delphi and many other proprietary offerings. The alternative value offered by gcj is the not-so-shiny freedom to modify and distribute it, which carries along a host of advantages. But I digress :)

---

(Log in to post comments)