Why should Apple provide Java at all?
October 31, 2007
So Long Apple. The Party’s Over
JavaLobby.org has a pretty long thread on this recent blogosphere topic. Apple did not ship a Java 6 with Leopard. Everyone is up in arms. One of the questions I haven’t seen address anywhere is why it’s Apple’s job to spend time putting together a Java runtime for the Mac. Why is this the expectation? I really don’t know. Did Sun and Apple agree to some mechanism for Apple to build JVMs for the Mac? Didn’t Sun learn anything from the MS JVM situation many years ago? The path each party took may be different, but the net result is the same: current Java technology not running on a major platform to Sun’s specs and the community’s desires.
Perhaps with the openjdk project someone will be able to build a usable Java 6 for the Mac (although the openjdk project is only for Java 7 and onward, I think). I wrote a bit more on my initial Apple/Java reaction over here -> Choose Apple In the Enterprise – Get Screwed but I don’t think I asked the same question there as I’m asking here. Why doesn’t Sun spend the time making their tech work as they expect on all the major platforms? While we’re at it, why not a 64-bit browser plugin for applets? If they can’t even be bothered to do this, then completely remove applet support from future versions of the Java stack. I don’t think we’re moving away from 64 bit support in the future, so why keep clinging on to useless technology that Sun won’t update?
UPDATE – another great post on the subject over at ‘thinking in java‘.
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Tags: sun, java, jvm, java6, apple, leopard
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October 31st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I don’t see how Sun could be held responsible for delivering Java on a proprietary OS that only just shipped.
Apparently Apple made a deliberate choice to get Leopard out before they had Java 6 working. Too bad – a lot of folks are going to be pissed when they discover they can’t run Java 6 on Leopard. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds to this. Clearly Apple isn’t putting as much support behind Java as they used to. Apparently Steve Jobs thinks Java is “not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.” (See http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2007/01/java_to_the_iphone_can_you_hea.html)
Good thing I know Objective-C, I guess!
October 31st, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Sun’s made themselves responsible for shipping Java 6 on linux and windows. java 6 was available for vista soon after vista was released, IIRC. Java 6 was available for XP for a long time, directly from Sun. Seems to me if Sun is interested in people using Java, they need to put the muscle behind making sure good quality versions of the language are available on multiple platforms.
Your objective-c may come in handy in the coming years!
November 1st, 2007 at 7:14 am
Fair enough. Clearly Apple could have worked with Sun prior to the release of Leopard to make sure Java 6 worked. Apparently Steve doesn’t care about Java any more, and maybe he’s right. Certainly for desktop apps, it’s pretty crappy. For server-side it’s OK, but Jobs has never really cared about the server-side or “enterprise” markets.
It is a pretty stupid move on Apple’s part to alienate the Java developers though. I suspect Java developers make up a significant portion of Apple’s hardware sales.
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
I also just found a post by James Gosling on this subject over at his blog ->
http://blogs.sun.com/jag/entry/solaris_and_os_x_continued
“Lots of folks ask “why doesn’t sun just do the JDK for Mac?”. The real answer is “because Apple wanted to do it”. They’ve wanted to do all sorts of customization and integration that only they could do – because they own the OS.”
Why when MS wanted to do customizations and OS-level integration with Java they got sued, but when Apple wants to do it Sun rolls over and hands them effective fate of their language? Because frankly, that’s what’s at stake. Mac devs are early adopters and influencers, and when they can’t develop in something, they will switch to something else. How many Mac developers already proved their tendency to ’switch’ to something perceived as better? Tens of thousands, and the ripple effect is still being felt. Apple rebuilt a large portion of their reputation on this ’switcher’ audience. Don’t think they won’t hesitate to ’switch’ away from Java as better (defined as
better experience on my mac’) tech comes along.
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
13949712720901ForOSX
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 am
mgkimsal: The situation with MS was different. MS was trying to fragment Java and with J#, create a version that only works on Windows. That’s the reason Sun took them to court.
Apple are only implementing the JRE, and not promoting an OSX -only version of Java. But it’s typical Apple arrogance to do this. Nobody likes it, but Apple also know their product is quite a prestige product that no other maker has.
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 am
Dana:
From TSS, I found this comment. I’ve read similar views other places but can not find references to them now.
This is from http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=47375
You may be interested to know that Apple, not Sun, is responsible for providing the Mac JVM; and that this is so by Apple’s choice. They licensed Java from Sun and they added significant new features for OS X integration – which are Apple’s proprietary sources, Sun does not receive these sources back, even though Apple keeps receiving the latest sources from Sun. So, even if a few months ago when Apple started to drag their feet with the Java6 port Sun wanted to assume the job and finish it, they wouldn’t be able because they just don’t have the entire source code. They would have to re-code from scratch all the OS X-specific port and integration work that Apple did in the last several years.
So, what are these Apple-specific integration pieces, and how is that much difference than the MS situation? Seems like I’d be able to write Java that ends up working only, or significantly better, on OS X with Apple’s Java implementation. Am I way off base here?