Free java

Free java

Posted Jan 12, 2006 8:42 UTC (Thu) by mvirkkil (subscriber, #28737)
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's Obviously Incorrect 2006 Predictions

My prediction for 2006 is free java. Sun won't go to a (dfsg-/gnu-)free license, but instead gnuclasspath will be ready for all practical uses. This means both 1.4 and 1.5 parity (generics branch).

Jikes, kaffe and/or gcj will become default parts of several linux distributions. The webplugin will see some interest or possibly a completely new version based on some other vm instead of gcj.

JamVM will gather more interest from embedded developers, and at least one commercial physical product will include or the company will distribute it.

By the end of 2006 java will be Free, and deployed in large numbers.

Reasons:
* Classpath compatibility with 1.4 is at > 98% and to me it seems progress has been accelerating.
* Classpath 1.5 work is done in the generics branch in parallel to 1.4 work
* JamVM has already been ported to gp2x
* Sun's redistribution policy has annoyed distributions for a long time.

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