Category Archives: oracle

java, open source, oracle, professional, software development

IBM to harmonise its open source Java efforts with Oracle

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IBM’s Bob Sutor, VP of Open Systems and Linux, says in a blog post that the company will now shift its open source Java effort from the unofficial Apache Harmony, to the official Open JDK. The announcement is also covered in an Oracle press release.

Sutor’s post is curious in some ways. He focuses on a long-standing issue, the refusal of Sun and then Oracle to make its testing suite available (TCK – Testing Compatibility Kit) under a suitable license so that users of Harmony could have confidence that its implementation is correct:

We think this is the pragmatic choice. It became clear to us that first Sun and then Oracle were never planning to make the important test and certification tests for Java, the Java SE TCK, available to Apache. We disagreed with this choice, but it was not ours to make. So rather than continue to drive Harmony as an unofficial and uncertified Java effort, we decided to shift direction and put our efforts into OpenJDK. Our involvement will not be casual as we plan to hold leadership positions and, with the other members of the community, fully expect to have a strong say in how the project is managed and in which technical direction it goes.

We also expect to see some long needed reforms in the JCP, the Java Community Process, to make it more democratic, transparent, and open. IBM and, indeed Oracle, have been lobbying for such transformations for years and we’re pleased to see them happening now. It’s time. Actually, it’s past time.

The interesting question is what has really changed, since the situation with the Java TCK is not new. It reads as if some intense negotiation has been going on behind the scenes, of which this is only part of the outcome. It is not yet clear, for example, exactly what changes are happening to the JCP, which controls the Java specification subject to Oracle’s approval, although Sutor refers to them almost as if they are a done deal.

IBM’s announcement gives a boost to the official Java platform at a time when it is under a cloud, following a JavaOne conference which was run as a sideline to the Oracle OpenWorld event last month, and rumblings of dissatisfaction from the JCP and from Java inventor James Gosling.

Another important player is Google, whose Android operating system uses the Java language but an incompatible virtual machine called Dalvik. IBM’s move will strengthen Oracle’s position as steward of the official Java platform.

This is a blow to Harmony. The current list of contributors  has 31 names, of which 9 are from IBM, 3 from Intel, 1 from Joost, and the others independent. It is a shame to see an important open source project so much at the mercy of corporate politics.

database, microsoft, open source, oracle

Why Oracle is immoveable in the Enterprise

At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday I spoke to an attendee from a global enterprise. His company is a big IBM customer and would like to standardise on DB2. To some extent it does, but there is still around 30% Oracle and significant usage of Microsoft SQL Server. Why three database platforms when they would prefer to settle on one? Applications, which in many cases are only certified for a specific database manager.

I was at MySQL Sunday earlier in the day, and asked whether he had any interest in Oracle’s open source database product. As you would expect, he said it was enough trouble maintaining three different systems; the last thing he wanted was a fourth.

database, open source, oracle, professional, software development

Oracle: a good home for MySQL?

I’m not able to attend the whole of Oracle OpenWorld / JavaOne, but I have sneaked in to MySQL Sunday, which is a half-day pre-conference event. One of the questions that interests me: is MySQL in safe hands at Oracle, or will it be allowed to wither in order to safeguard Oracle’s closed-source database business?

It is an obvious question, but not necessarily a sensible one. There is some evidence for a change in direction. Prior to the takeover, the MySQL team was working on a database engine called Falcon, intended to lift the product into the realm of enterprise database management. Oracle put Falcon on the shelf; Oracle veteran Edward Screven (who also gave the keynote here) said that the real rationale for Falcon was that InnoDB would be somehow jiggered by Oracle, and that now both MySQL and InnoDB were at Oracle, it made no sense.

Context: InnoDB is the grown-up database engine for MySQL, with support for transactions, and already belonged to Oracle from an earlier acquisition.

There may be something in it; but it is also true that Oracle has fine-tuned the positioning of MySQL. Screven today emphasised that MySQL is Oracle’s small and nimble database manager; it is “quite performant and quite functional”, he said; the word “quite” betraying a measure of corporate internal conflict. Screven described how Oracle has improved the performance of MySQL on Windows and is cheerful about the possibility of it taking share from Microsoft’s SQL Server.

It is important to look at the actions as well as the words. Today Oracle announced the release candidate of MySQL 5.5, which uses InnoDB by default, and has performance and scalability improvements that are dramatic in certain scenarios, as well as new and improved tools. InnoDB is forging ahead, with the team working especially on taking better advantage of multi-core systems; we also heard about full text search coming to the engine.

The scalability of MySQL is demonstrated by some of its best-known deployments, including Facebook and Wikipedia. Facebook’s Mark Callaghan spoke today about making MySQL work well, and gave some statistics concerning peak usage: 450 million rows read per second, 3.5 million rows changed per second, query response time 4ms.

If pressed, Screven talks about complexity and reliability with critical data as factors that point to an Oracle rather than a MySQL solution, rather than lack of scalability.

In practice it matters little. No enterprise currently using an Oracle database is going to move to MySQL; aside from doubts over its capability, it is far too difficult and risky to switch your database manager to an alternative, since each one has its own language and its own optimisations. Further, Oracle’s application platform is built on its own database and that will not change. Customers are thoroughly locked in.

What this means is that Oracle can afford to support MySQL’s continuing development without risk of cannibalising its own business. In fact, MySQL presents an opportunity to get into new markets. Oracle is not the ideal steward for this important open source project, but it is working out OK so far.

.net, internet, iphone, java, microsoft, oracle, software, Sun, Web, windows

Open season for patent litigation makes case for reform

It seems to be open season for software patent litigation. Oracle is suing Google over its use of Java in Android. Paul Allen’s Interval Licensing is suing AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Yahoo and others – the Wall Street Journal has an illustrated discussion of the patents involved here. Let’s not forget that Apple is suing HTC and that Nokia is suing Apple (and being counter-sued).

What’s next? I was reminded of this post by former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. He confirms the supposition that large tech companies refrain from litigation – or at least, litigate less than they might, refrain is too strong a word right now – because they recognize that while they may have valid claims against others, they also most likely infringe on patents held by others.

The gist of Schwartz’s post is that Microsoft approached Sun with the claim that OpenOffice, owned by Sun, infringes on patents held by Microsoft thanks to its work on MIcrosoft Office:

Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, “Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice.”

Sun’s retort was in relation to Java and .NET:

“We’ve looked at .NET, and you’re trampling all over a huge number of Java patents. So what will you pay us for every copy of Windows?”

following which everything went quiet. The value of .NET to Microsoft is greater than the value of OpenOffice to Sun or Oracle.

Oracle, however, seems more willing to litigate than Sun; and I doubt it cares much about OpenOffice. Might we see this issue reappear?

That said, Microsoft also has a large bank of patents; and who knows, some of them might be brought to bear against Java in the event of legislative war.

The risk though is that if everyone litigates, the industry descends into a kind of nuclear winter which paralyses everyone. Companies like Interval Licensing, which seemingly exist solely to profit from patents, have no incentive to hold back.

Can any good come of this? Well, increasing software patent chaos might bring some benefit, if it forces countries like the USA to legislate in order to fix the broken patent system.

Protecting intellectual property is good; but against that you have to weigh the potential damage to competition and innovation from these energy-sapping lawsuits.

We need patent reform now.

google, java, oracle, search, Sun

Oracle still foisting Google Toolbar on Java users

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Oracle may be suing Google over its use of Java in Android; but the company is still happy to take the search giant’s cash in exchange for foisting the Google Toolbar on users who carelessly click Next when updating their Java installation on Windows. If they do, the Toolbar is installed by default.

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This is poor practice for several reasons. It is annoying and disrespectful to the user, particularly when the same dialog has been passed many times before, bad for performance, bad for security.

Sun at least had the excuse that it needed whatever income it could get.

I know certain other companies do this as well with their free runtimes – Adobe is one – and I like it just as little. However, as far as I can recall Adobe only adds foistware on a new install, not with semi-automatic updates.

google, java, mobile, oracle, professional, Sun

Apple not Android is killing client-side Java – so why is Oracle suing Google?

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Oracle is suing Google over Java in Android; the Register has a link to the complaint itself which lists seven patents which Oracle claims Google has infringed. There is also a further clause which says Google has infringed copyright in the:

code, specifications, documentation and other materials) that is copyrightable subject matter

and that it is not possible for a device manufacturer to create an Android device without infringing Oracle’s copyrights. Oracle is demanding stern penalties including destruction of all infringing copies – I presume this might mean destruction of all Android devices, though as we all know lawyers routinely demand more than they expect to win, as a negotiating position.

But isn’t Java open source? It is; but licensing is not simple, and “open source” does not mean “non-copyright”. You can read the Java open source licensing statements here. I am not a licensing expert; but one of the key issues with Google’s use of Java in Android is that it is not quite Java. Oracle’s complaint says:

Google’s Android competes with Oracle America’s Java as an operating system software platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices. The Android operating system software “stack” consists of Java applications running on a Java-based object-oriented application framework, and core libraries running on a “Dalvik” virtual machine (VM) that features just-in-time (JIT) compilation.

Note that Oracle says “Java-based”. Binaries compiled for Android will not run on other JVM implementations. I am no expert on open source licensing; but if Google is using Java in ways that fall outside what is covered by the open source license, then that license does not apply.

Despite the above, I have no idea whether Oracle’s case has legal merit. It is interesting though that Oracle is choosing to pursue Google; and I have some sympathy given that Java’s unique feature has always been interoperability and cross-platform, which Android seems to break to some extent.

James Gosling’s post on the subject is relevant:

When Google came to us with their thoughts on cellphones, one of their core principles was making the platform free to handset providers. They had very weak notions of interoperability, which, given our history, we strongly objected to. Android has pretty much played out the way that we feared: there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers.

though he adds:

Don’t interpret any of my comments as support for Oracle’s suit. There are no guiltless parties with white hats in this little drama. This skirmish isn’t much about patents or principles or programming languages. The suit is far more about ego, money and power.

The official approach to Java on devices is Java ME; and Java ME guys like Hinkmond Wong hate Android accordingly:

Heck, forget taking the top 10,000 apps, take the top Android 10 apps and try running all of them on every single Android device out there. Have you learned nothing at all from Java ME technology, Android? Even in our current state in Java ME, we are nowhere as fragmented as the last 5 Android releases in 12 months (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and recently 2.2).

Fair enough; but it is also obvious that Android has revived interest in client-side Java in a way that Sun failed to do despite years of trying. The enemy of client-side Java is not Android, but rather Apple: there’s no sign of Java on iPhone or iPad. Apple’s efforts have killed the notion of Java everywhere, given the importance of Apple’s mobile platform. Java needs Android, which makes this lawsuit a surprising one.

But what does Oracle want? Just the money? Or to force Google into a more interoperable implementation, for the benefit of the wider Java platform? Or to disrupt Android as a favour to Apple?

Anyone’s guess at the moment. I wonder if Google wishes it had acquired Sun when it had the chance?

Note: along with the links above, I like the posts on this subject from Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady and Mono guy Miguel de Icaza.

java, open source, oracle, Sun

Oracle breaks, then mends Eclipse with new Java build

Somewhere in the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) is a company field, identifying the source of the JVM. Following its acquisition of Sun, Oracle reasonably enough changed the field in version 1.6.0_21 to reference Oracle rather than Sun.

Unfortunately some applications use the field to vary some command-line arguments according to which JVM is in use. “If Sun JVM do this, if IBM JVM do that.” Eclipse was one of these, so Oracle’s update caused “crashing and freezing issues” for Windows users. There is more information here.

When the problem was discovered, Oracle issued an update that reverts the change. Hence Ian Skerrett at Eclipse has posted Oracle Demostrates Great Community Support and Fixes Eclipse.

The issue demonstrates that almost any software change can have unintended consequences, especially if the software is an application runtime.

Should Oracle have checked for this before release? Possibly; though it cannot check every build against every application on every platform. Still, everyone has done the right thing here.

Will the JVM now say Sun for ever? I would think for some time to come, bearing in mind that companies may standardise on specific Eclipse builds and stay on them for an extended period.

microsoft, open source, oracle, Sun

Novell’s Michael Meeks downbeat on OpenOffice.org project

There is a fascinating interview over on The H with Michael Meeks, who works at Novell on OpenOffice.org development. It would be wrong to call OpenOffice.org unsuccessful: it is a solid product that forms a viable alternative to Microsoft Office in many scenarios. Nevertheless, it has not disrupted the Microsoft Office market as much as perhaps could have been expected; and Meeks explains what may be the reasons – tight control by Sun (now Oracle) and a bureaucratic approach to project management that has stifled the enthusiasm of the open source community.

Contributors to OpenOffice.org are required to sign over copyright, which is a big ask if you are giving it freely. While Meeks does not say that the trust of contributors has been abused, he does say that that there is a lack of transparency and reassurance, specifically concerning IBM’s Symphony which is based on OpenOffice.org:

In some places they do feed stuff back. We see their changes, but parts of Symphony are not open source, and we don’t have the code for them, and interestingly, there is no source code available so far as I am aware of the version of OO.o that IBM is shipping inside their product, so clearly they’re not shipping this under the LGPLv3. IBM have a fairly public antipathy towards the GPL unfortunately, and as a consequence you have to wonder what terms are they shipping OpenOffice under – and as there is a lot of my code in there, not only my code but Novell’s code and a lot of other people’s code, you have to wonder ‘What were the terms and what was the deal? That’s a shame, and would really help improve the transparency and confidence in Sun’s stewardship around these things. The code was assigned to Sun, and I have no doubt there is no legal problem at all, but a lot of people have assigned their code to Sun in good faith, believing them to be good stewards. Maybe they are but its impossible to tell without knowing the terms under which third parties are shipping the code.

Meeks says that the Oracle takeover is an opportunity for things to get better. Even if you like Microsoft Office you should hope that it does, since a strong OpenOffice puts pressure on the competition to keep prices down and product development up. Further, Microsoft has no plans for Office on Linux that I know of – unless you count Office Web Apps.

.net, adobe, apple, iphone, microsoft, mobile, oracle, software development

Building for multiple mobile platforms with one codebase

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Individuals may have strong opinions about the merits of Apple iPhone versus Google Android versus the struggling Palm WebOS versus the not-yet Windows Phone 7; but sit them round a table to discuss app strategy and those diverse platforms change from a debating point to a problem. Presuming a web app won’t cut it, how do you target all those devices without the unreasonable expense and complication of managing multiple projects? The native languages are all different; Objective-C for iPhone and iPad, Java for Android and RIM BlackBerry, JavaScript for WebOS, C# for Windows Phone 7.

There are three possibilities that come to mind. One is that all the platforms will eventually allow you to write in C or C++, making this the unifying language, though you still have some fancy footwork to do overcoming library differences. Android now allows this via the NDK, and Palm via the PDK. There is currently no alternative to Java for Blackberry, and Microsoft says native code won’t be possible on Windows Phone 7, but well, you never know.

The second is Adobe Flash. This is an interesting one, because Apple prohibits Flash on the iPhone, but Adobe has a Packager for iPhone that builds native iPhone apps from Flash projects. Another issue is that although Flash is available or promised for all the main non-Apple devices – Apple’s gift of a selling point to its rivals – it is not Flash alone that does what it needed, but AIR, the “desktop” or out-of-browser runtime. This has been previewed for Android and promised for other devices including Blackberry. AIR for Windows Phone 7? Maybe, though I’ve not seen it mentioned.

A third idea is a clever framework that does the necessary cross-compilation under the covers. This cannot depend on deploying a runtime, nor compiling to native code, because these approaches are blocked by some mobile platforms. Rhomobile has the Rhodes framework, where you code your app in HTML and Ruby and compile for devices including iPhone, Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry, Symbian, and Android. Rhodes includes an MVC (Model View Controller) framework and an ORM (Object Relational Mapper) to wrap database access. There is also a RhoSync server component to enable offline data with synchronisation back to the server when reconnected; and the RhoHub hosted IDE for buildings apps with a web browser.

Rhomobile tells me that Palm WebOS support is in the works. They also promise Windows Phone 7 support, which intrigued me because Rhodes says it compiles to “true native device applications”. Has Rhomobile gotten round Microsoft’s opposition to native code? Apparently not; VP Rob McMillen eventually told me that this will mean a .NET IL (intermediate language) implementation.

The Rhomobile approach reminds me of AppForge, a company which produced the well-regarded Crossfire add-on for Visual Studio and compiled Visual Basic to a wide variety of mobile platforms. Unfortunately AppForge was acquired by Oracle, and its new owners showed callous disregard for existing customers. Not only did development cease; it also became impossible to renew existing licenses. Thanks to an activation component, that also blocked new deployment of existing applications – every developer’s nightmare.

That said, there is no activation requirement for Rhodes that I know of, and the framework is open source, so I don’t mean to suggest it will suffer a similar fate.

What about Java? On the face of it, Java should be ideal, since multi-device support is what it was designed for. It is a measure of how far Java has fallen that we hear far more about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, than the lack of Java. Microsoft says yes to Flash on Windows Phone 7, though not on first release, but nothing about Java.

Java as a mobile runtime needs a strong dose of lobbying and evangelism from its new stewards Oracle if it is not to fall by the wayside in this context. Hmm, AppForge.

adobe, apple, flash, microsoft, oracle

Adobe Flash vs Apple iPad: RIA in the balance

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Adobe evangelist Lee Brimelow has posted some images of well-known sites that break if Adobe Flash is not enabled. His point: if Apple’s iPad does not support Flash, none of these sites will work correctly.

While true in the short term, I do not think this is an effective line of argument. 

Let’s presume that you run one of these Flash-dependent sites. Now along comes a popular computing device that no longer displays Flash content. It’s already happened with the iPhone; but iPad is more serious because it has a full-size web browser, and many of us tolerate strange behaviour in a mobile web browser because we are used to it. Further, I’m guessing that some of these sites already adapt their content for iPhone.

What happens now? One of two things. Either Apple is persuaded to add support for the plugin; or the site owners fix their sites, detecting iPad/iPhone and substituting Quicktime or HTML5 content in place of Flash. In the case of the major sites such as those Brimelow lists, I doubt that second process would take long.

Result: people complain less, the pressure is off Apple and on Adobe.

I do not take the success of iPad for granted; but it is plausible; and if the device does become popular it is going to make Flash-centric web developers re-think their strategy. Further, if it fails, I doubt it will be for lack of Flash. Users do not care about Flash, they care about content, and the iPad will provide plenty of that.

The problem for Adobe is that much of its strategy is now built on the Flash runtime and its presumed ubiquity. If you compare Creative Suite 4 to Creative Suite 3 you can see how Flash is more pervasive, in several different roles ranging from rendering capabilities to code execution. It will be even more so in Creative Suite 5.

Applications built with Flex are equally affected. And note: if Flash is struggling to get over the wall into Apple’s orchard, Oracle Java will struggle more, and Microsoft Silverlight more still. It is not just Flash, but much of what we think of as RIA (Rich Internet Applications) that is at stake.

It is not over yet. If Apple is primarily concerned about browser stability, rather than controlling the platform, then Adobe may yet satisfy its requirements. Second, the iPad might fail – not completely, but enough to make it an unimportant niche. iPad is expensive and most users don’t get the tablet concept; it is not a sure-fire winner.

If neither get-out comes to pass, what can Adobe do? There are a couple of mitigating factors. One is that Adobe has already been thinking about how to deal with Apple devices. At the Adobe Max conference last year we saw its Flash to native code compiler, which will be in Creative Suite 5. It only targets iPhone; but no doubt iPad can be added. It raises the possibility of more Flash applets becoming native applications in the App Store. Money and control for Apple; but at least your code will run.

We also saw, in the Max sneak peeks, how Flash can be rendered server-side, and served to the browser as video. It’s an interesting thought if you simply must get your Flash content working on the iPad.

Another point is that Adobe is at a design tools company, and it can adapt its tools to be less focused on Flash. Another feature we saw at Max was an Illustrator to SVG converter. It is now in Adobe’s interests to work more intensely to advance HTML standards, to make them better clients for rich content.

Still, Apple has come up with what may be a significant roadblock to Adobe’s ambitions for what it calls the Flash Platform.

Web standards people may cheer this, on the grounds that a Flash-free web is less broken. I am not cheering though. Vendors locking down their devices is not a healthy way to advance web standards. Further, Flash is an amazing runtime. Flash enabled YouTube to succeed. The BBC iPlayer project did not deliver on its promise until it converted to Flash. Flash provides web developers with a consistent runtime that has value in entertainment, in education, and in general applications. One of the first things I install on Windows, Mac or Linux is Adobe AIR, which lets me run a desktop Twitter client.

Here’s my vote for Flash on iPad – and Silverlight and Java too, if the user wants their capabilities.