When Sun open sourced the JDK (finally a true reality), I was very pleased indeed. It was something the open source community wanted, and Java needed to continue to be relevant in the future. Having said that, I have seen some very positive things happening, much of which has been driven by the Red Hat OpenJDK team.
That team has created a complete open source tool chain to build and package OpenJDK for Linux. We are seeing all the Linux distributions rally around this, and it is very encouraging indeed. Having an open source JDK that is built completely with open source tools, and packaged for all the major Linux distributions is a great thing. It gives developers a platform that they can count on. While this is a great step forward, it isn't the total picture that I envisioned for OpenJDK.
I would really love to see other operating system vendors embrace OpenJDK for their respective platforms as well. Seeing the same base used across all operating system platforms will give developers what Java promised all along. Write once, run anywhere could truly be a reality. Having all operating system platform vendors embrace OpenJDK will yield benefits to developers in other ways besides consistency.
If everyone starts contributing to the same code base, then the network affect of innovation can take off in the OpenJDK community, and we can see real improvements across the board. Whether that be in innovations around garbage collection, innovations around multi-core support, you name it. All the best minds working together, versus working separately, will benefit all the vendors customers, and shouldn't hurt any one vendor either. A rising tide lifts all boats.
So, my dream is that all the operating system platform vendors would bury the hatchet on any past issues they may have had with Sun, and join the OpenJDK community. I would even like to see the open source community working on other JDK implementations start working in the OpenJDK community. We will all benefit!
That team has created a complete open source tool chain to build and package OpenJDK for Linux. We are seeing all the Linux distributions rally around this, and it is very encouraging indeed. Having an open source JDK that is built completely with open source tools, and packaged for all the major Linux distributions is a great thing. It gives developers a platform that they can count on. While this is a great step forward, it isn't the total picture that I envisioned for OpenJDK.
I would really love to see other operating system vendors embrace OpenJDK for their respective platforms as well. Seeing the same base used across all operating system platforms will give developers what Java promised all along. Write once, run anywhere could truly be a reality. Having all operating system platform vendors embrace OpenJDK will yield benefits to developers in other ways besides consistency.
If everyone starts contributing to the same code base, then the network affect of innovation can take off in the OpenJDK community, and we can see real improvements across the board. Whether that be in innovations around garbage collection, innovations around multi-core support, you name it. All the best minds working together, versus working separately, will benefit all the vendors customers, and shouldn't hurt any one vendor either. A rising tide lifts all boats.
So, my dream is that all the operating system platform vendors would bury the hatchet on any past issues they may have had with Sun, and join the OpenJDK community. I would even like to see the open source community working on other JDK implementations start working in the OpenJDK community. We will all benefit!
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