Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Using small Java commercially: bring your checkbook

For the last decade I have been a strong supporter of Java. And still am, especially on small embedded system devices. My company (Systronix) has been a developer of such devices (TStik, JStamp, JStik) for about 10 years - back when embedded Java first became possible and practical. Read my "Why Java" page and download the white paper for more details about that. I'm grateful for many opportunities to speak at JavaOne, Embedded Systems Conference, and other venues. I've personally written a fair amount of embedded Java code on hardware from a variety of vendors. Employed appropriately (don't pound in screws with a hammer and then blame the hammer for doing a crappy job) Java can have huge benefits over languages such as C.

I have enjoyed personal and professional relationships with a lot of great folks at Sun for many years. All of this is to say that the point of this rant is not to bash Sun or Java, but to plead for Sun to wake up to the realities of 2009 and stop missing opportunities.

We are living in the time of Open-Sourcing of Almost Everything. Attorneys get paid to write open-source license agreements, too, and there's a reason you don't get a law degree in nine months of online courses. The devil is in the Fine Print. And: don't make the obvious/common mistake of equating "open source" with "free to use as I please". Enough preliminaries.

So: is Java open sourced? Yes. Can it be freely used? In a commercial product? Can you call your product - which includes your deployment of open source Java - "Java"? It depends. JavaME, PhoneME, and Squawk all lack the so-called "classpath exception" (GNU explanation) (Sun Open JDK example) with which other editions of Java are licensed. In general, as I understand it, this means that you either must also freely open source all the software you "bundle" or "link with" with these no-classpath-exception-products, or you must negotiate a commercial license with Sun. Commercial licenses typical start around $100,000 per year, plus royalties on each device shipped) for Java ME. That's for a small company with less than a $1M per year in revenue. Larger companies can expect to pay a lot more. If you are shipping Java on a cell phone and will be shipping millions of units, maybe you get a better deal.

But here we are concerned with the Little Guy trying to launch an innovative product. There are many reasons Little Guy, Inc would want to use a widely supported development platform like Java.

Even if you do want to open source all your code (like Bug Labs), if you want to use the name "Java", you must test your conformance. How do you do that? With a Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) which is only available from Sun, and only as part of a commercial license. "Huh?" you might be thinking.

Here's an example. Bug Labs got surprised by this in 2007 when they found out late in their development that they needed a commercial license for their use of open-source Java, even though they were open-sourcing all their Java-based software. See this blog for some discussion of the path they took as a result.

Today it's hard to sell a word processor for $500 when you can get a great one for free. Electronic CAD tools which were $12,000 two years ago are now selling for $4000. IrDA stacks once sold for $250,000. TCP/IP stacks were commonly $10K or more. Now that all seems pretty laughable. It also seems like vendors of such products have a lot harder time making money the way they used to.

So why does Sun seem to be stuck in the 1990s?

Imagine what could happen if every small company nearly free or affordable access to important software such as an operating system, a modern IDE, or a smartphone platform? Oops - they can... and none of these are Sun products.

Sun used to be four guys with some interesting ideas. They went on to change the world. If those four guys were starting over today, what would they think about licensing Java from Sun?

Monday, July 13, 2009

What happened to the love?

Sometimes a simple googling produces completely surprising results. Such was the case tonight when I stumbled across Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog (online or PDF) wherein he warmly welcomes Google Android to the Java community.

What in the world happened since then? Google wrote/bought their own virtual machine(Dalvik) instead of licensing the Sun JVM. Why? Does anyone know the real story about all this? Today Sun folks are slamming Android as "not real Java" and predicting it will soon crumble as developers adapt it to, and deploy it on, more diverse devices.

Adding to the irony is that Eric Schmidt (currently Google's CEO) was formerly Sun's CTO and led Sun's Java development. If there is anyone who understands what Java is about, you'd think it would be him. This makes it doubly interesting that Google chose not to license Android Java from Sun. And this helps explain some of the animosity radiating from Sun.

It's also interesting that Schmidt's salary at Google is quite low: A base of $1 in 2006. Yet he has become a billionaire due to the value of his stock options.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Zen of SPAM

Here are some recent logs from today's SPAM quarantine. These are unedited - the log contains only the two lines you see here. My comments are in italics. I've included the spammer's email so that you too can share the wealth... although some are obviously purloined or otherwise bogus.

From: Penelope Esparza (aggrandizingak6@sn-web2.seniorennet.be)
Subject: You can afford immeasurable amount of watches.
If the price of each watch is greater than zero, and I can afford more than I can count, then I must be about to receive immeasurable wealth: see PayDay message below. Coincidence? I think not. It's just too bad this won't bestow immeasurable time upon me.

From: PayDay (
John7409@patterntosuccess.com)
Subject: No Interview
Who could say no to a PayDay? Entitlement at it's best. No interview, so I guess it doesn't matter what I do (or don't), or even if I show up? Wait a minute - this is the PayDay... but what about the PayCheck?

Oddly, if you go to patterntosuccess.com
you are automatically redirected to an unsubscribe page... either they want you to confirm your email address for more spam, or the pattern didn't work out so the only reason to go there is to bail out on more messages from John7409, and perhaps John[0000-7408]. Hmm, I wonder if all these Johns might be alien clones among us?

From: Patty Potter (
ngbells@yahoo.com)
Subject: abundant absentee
Any relation to Harry? Shouldn't the email be something like "ppotter@..."? Anyway, alliteration apart, this ties in nicely with the immeasurable watches and wealth which will soon come my way (the abundance), plus the PayDay with no actual job needed (the absentee). This is getting freaky.

From: SilkZzz
(SilkZzz@mail6.runningincense.com)
Subject: Pillowcases made of silk
Mmmm, sounds nice. I can recline on these and gaze upon my immeasurable watches.

From: Printer (
lizzyu@walllinernovel.com)
Subject: Produce high quality documents with a new printer.
This is sooo exciting on multiple fronts. First, it's a LOT better than producing crappy documents with a new printer. And second, I guess all I need is this magical printer. It somehow does the document production just by sensing what I need: Awesome. It can even send out emails (like this one).

From: Brian (
brian-v@sprinklelife.com)
Subject: Just Maybe, Bruce...
Yes... I can imagine the possibilities.

From: Easy Flirt (
caroline@amoureux.com)
Subject: Des rencontres 24h/24 dans ta ville
Not being a Francophone (does that need to be capitalized?) I went to ets.freetranslation.com and found out that this means "Of the meet 24h/24 in your city". Recalling some basic algebra, 24h/24 = 1h. So I guess Caroline is offering an easy 1-hour flirt. Well, I don't have an interview today, so Just Maybe...


From: Bionic Hearing Aid (
hearing@www.kickassvicky.com)
Subject: Finally, hassle free hearing
So much of what I hear is a hassle: racism, global warming, bill collectors, rampant unemployment, wars, global hunger, that 'scritchy/squeeky' noise when I hit the brakes, H1N1, radical islamists who cut off people's hands, etc, etc. What a relief to have a solution! Sadly, kickassvicky (probably a purloined URL) is only under contstruction.

From: Brian (brian-v@sprinklelife.com)
Subject: Resend: Did you get our last email, Bruce?
Just Maybe, Brian...


From: PayDay (Dean@orionmusicmanagement.com)
Subject: 5 jobs to start now
Forget this! Five jobs for One PayDay? John7409 has a much better offer above.