java

When open source eats itself: SpringSource acquires Covalent

Ostensibly, SpringSource today announced the acquisition of Covalent to beef up its support for the Apache-sponsored project Tomcat. The problem with such thinking is that if this is the real reason, SpringSource got very little for its money.

There's no doubt that Spring+Apache is a recipe for success. In my own experience, I've seen widespread adoption of both, and often together (not the least being within the product my company, Alfresco, ships). Rod Johnson, CEO and founder of SpringSource, states:

We see Apache code being used by many of our customer accounts--the Apache Web server, Tomcat, Web services frameworks, Active MQ and a slew of other Apache technologies. We see pent-up demand for services from folks using Spring and Apache technologies.

It's unclear how an acquisition furthers this, since the best that SpringSource has acquired is a few developers associated with the project, but not the project itself.… Read more

Sun releases cool PDF renderer/viewer

Sun has just released a cool Java library - called the SwingLabs PDF Renderer - which "can parse PDF files and draw them to the screen."

Write a PDF once and run it anywhere? Sounds like a good fit for Java! Combined with PDF writing libraries (like iText), you can do pretty much anything you want with PDFs.

Sounds like an exceptionally cool piece of code to drop into a content management system or other code that deals with documents in any way. LGPL and so compatible with a wide range of open-source licenses.

Open-source Java continues to grow up

Last year Sun open sourced Java. One year later, as Linux.com reports, the community around Java is growing and thriving, though not without hiccups. The Java community has had to learn how to work with Sun and, more pertinently, Sun has had to learn how to work with the Java development community.

It has not been easy:

Inside Sun, developers have also struggled to adjust. "A point Simon Phipps [Sun's chief open source officer] often makes," says Reinhold, "is that when you take what has been a proprietary internal engineering team and move it to open development, the right model is not, 'Oh, now we're going to grow a community outside our company and then figure out the right way to interact with them.'… Read more

Java to sneak onto the iPhone?

The thing about open source is that if you give it an inch, it will take a mile. Take Java, for instance. Apple has not stepped up to enable its iPhone to run Java, but that's OK. The community appears to have plans to do Apple's work for it:

Apple has not made Java capable of running on the [iPhone]. But Sun's Terrence Barr, technical evangelist for Java ME (Micro Edition), believes Apple's plans to release a software developer's kit for iPhone in early 2008 may result in the open-source phoneME version of Java ME … Read more

Sun's worried that Google Android could fracture Java

Update: I added comment from Google.

Painful flashbacks are beginning to torment those of us who lived through the Java wars between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft that began 10 years ago.

Earlier this week, Google released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone software project that shun the existing Java standard-setting process in favor of a Google-specific variety. Sun responded on Wednesday by expressing concern that Google's Android project could fragment Java into incompatible versions.

"Anything that creates a more diverse or fractured platform is not in (developers') best interests," said Rich Green, executive vice president of Sun'… Read more

Google's Android parts ways with Java industry group

Google's Android software gives Sun Microsystems' Java technology a starring role--but not the version of Java the rest of the mobile phone industry has been developing since the 1990s.

Instead, Google struck off on its own in an attempt to improve performance and openness for the software used in the Open Handset Alliance phones. That means programmers will have a new variety of Java to reckon with--offset somewhat by Google's $10 million code contest to draw developers in.

One difference is Google's development of its own core Java virtual machine (JVM) technology called Dalvik, the software that … Read more

Google releases Android programming tools

Google on Monday released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone alliance for download, giving developers the ability to start writing software for phones due to start shipping in 2008 and $10 million in prizes to lure them.

The software development kit (SDK), an open-source package available for download for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X machines, shows that Java is indeed the programming language for software running on the Linux-based phones.

Accompanying the SDK is a raft of details that wasn't available when Google and its partners announced the Open Handset Alliance a week ago. The Android software includes … Read more

Red Hat working on JBoss security certification

Correction 10:05 a.m. PST: This blog initially misstated when Red Hat made the announcement. It was Thursday.

Red Hat is working on gaining the Common Criteria certification for its JBoss Enterprise Application Platform for running Java software, the company announced Thursday.

Such certification is a significant step in gaining acceptance among governmental and international customers. The Linux seller is seeking Evaluation Assurance Level 2 across multiple operating systems, not just Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a company representative said.

RHEL 5, the company's main product, currently has EAL 4+ certification, a higher level, on both Hewlett-Packard and IBM … Read more

Red Hat, Sun finally buddy up on Java

Sun Microsystems' move to make its core Java software a true open-source project may still be a project in its early stages, but on Monday the effort produced some concrete results: a partnership with long-time holdout Red Hat.

The top Linux seller announced Monday that it's signed an OpenJDK Community agreement, a move that gives it access to the Sun compatibility kit that can be used to ensure a Java software foundation meets requirements to properly run Java software. Although Java has caught on widely in the server market--Red Hat's core customer base--Red Hat shied away from tight … Read more