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by a san juan.
Original Post: Why we should be thankful Sun retains stewardship over Java
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I was reading Russell Beattie's insightful comments on why he switched back from Python to Java, where he mentioned having problems with the lack of standard documentation and implementations as being prime factors in the switch, when I realized that here's one good example of why we should be thankful Sun continues to steer Java on its course.
Sun has been continually bashed by Open Source nuts (and honestly, that's what they are) for not handing 100% control of Java to the Open source movement. They seem to believe it's their God-given right to expect a for-profit corporation to simply hand over ownership of its hard-earned intellectual property based on their say so. It's not enough for these people that Sun has been one of the most open-source-friendly major corporations, or that the premier open source office suite (OpenOffice) was given for free by Sun to the movement after Sun purchased the product from another corporation.
I honestly don't have any problems with Sun maintaining some stewardship over Java, but neither would I be surprised if Sun continues to slowly give up control over the platform in the long run. My main problem with people who so blithely argue that Sun should rapidly and completely "free" Java, is that they do not seem to be concerned at all about possible problems
with open sourcing the platform. There are some pretty important advantages to having strong corporate stewardship over a particular technology:
Standard and complete documentation. We are heavily into open source right now at work, and our main problem seems to be finding documentation that is complete and actually readable. It does not help when the writer of a document seems to have English as his/her third language.
Management does not question using the technology. This is a bigggie, IMO, because it means you do not have to spend half your time trying to convince some higher-up about the relevance of the language you want to use. It helps when IBM, Sun, Oracle, and other heavyweights are on your side.
Riding the media hype. Sure, laugh, but having corporate PR departments to create media blitzes will do wonders for uplifting any given technology.
Jobs, Jobs, and more high-paying Jobs. I could be completely wrong here, but there seems to be quite a lot less open source jobs around (e.g. PHP, mySQL) than the equivalent commercial alternative.
That vision thing. A decentralized and nebulous web of open source figures just does not seem to have the ability to impart as much momentum and excitement to a particular platform as a heavily centralized organization with well-known public figures.
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