JavaFX To Be Closed Source, Non-Free? at Simon’s Blog

JavaFX To Be Closed Source, Non-Free?

Update 14 May: Sun has updated their on-line info (see below), and Jonathan Schwartz in his blog has stated that JavaFX will be open sourced under the GPL v2 licence.

I’ve been aware of JavaFX, Sun’s new Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform, since it was first announced a year ago at JavaOne 2007 (and before that, even, when the JavaFX Script language was called F3). A year later, the demos at JavaOne 2008 are looking pretty interesting; and the new cloud systems and services, built to interact with JavaFX, that Sun announced a few days ago (codenamed Project Hydrazine and Project Insight) are intriguing. So far, then, so good.

I watched Dan Farber’s interview with Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, over on CNET News. The strategy sounds as great as the technology. Jonathan said (9 minutes and 3 seconds into the interview),

Free and open are the two attributes that ensure access to 100% of the market place… That applies to RIA platforms as well. So, our ability to say faithfully, and with integrity: we have free platforms that are Open Source… lends credibility and drives volume.

I tend to agree. From this, then, I took it that JavaFX was to be a free and open source RIA platform. I could be wrong - I may have misunderstood what he was saying - but I’m pretty sure that was the message Jonathan intended people to take away.

Overall, then, JavaFX sounds like a great technology. In fact, it was all looking interesting enough for me to take a serious look at starting to use JavaFX, to begin to evaluate it as a technology for our future real-world use. I headed over to Sun’s JavaFX web-site and thence to the JavaFX FAQs. I have to confess - I was more than a little surprised by what I read. Here’s one of the questions, and the answer:

Is JavaFX technology open source?

JavaFX technology is very early in its development. The JavaFX Script language, currently being developed with the community’s help (see OpenJFX project), will have a grammar and syntax that are open source. Some parts of the language are already open source. The JavaFX compiler, runtime engine, player, and tools currently under development are not expected to be open source. You can participate in the OpenJFX Compiler Project, which focuses on creating a JavaFX compiler to translate JavaFX scripts into JVM class files (bytecode). This compiler will leverage and extend the JDK’s javac compiler capabilities.

Update 14 May 2008: the text of the FAQ has been ammended, to read…

We continually solicit and get feedback from the open source and Java developer communities about key elements of our technology, and this ongoing conversation often influences our product development.

To this end, several components of the JavaFX product family are already projects in open source, including JavaFX Script, JavaFX Compiler, JavaFX Script Plugin for NetBeans, and Scene Graph. See the OpenJFX community site for information on how to get involved and contribute. Sun will continue to engage the OpenJFX community as we release JavaFX products. This fall we will be rolling out our open source strategy for JavaFX technology concurrent with the release of version 1 of JavaFX Desktop. In the meantime, developers can go to the OpenJFX community site for information on all the technology components that are currently available.

So, that’s a “no” then! Let me pick out a key part of this answer… The JavaFX compiler, runtime engine, player, and tools currently under development are NOT expected to be open source (capitalization is mine). In other words, JavaFX is mostly going to be closed and non-free.

Something doesn’t add up - compare the Sun CEO’s comments with what’s written on the web-site (by the way, in case anyone at Sun is in doubt, and/or has a different opinion, what the CEO is saying is the right strategy). At the very least, the messages around JavaFX are unclear. I’m pretty sure that potential JavaFX developers would be interested in getting some better understanding on this. Certainly, the lack of clarity has stopped me getting my hands dirty with JavaFX technology for the time being.

For me, it’s not a matter of whether it’s open or closed… it’s simply a matter of wanting to know what it is, one way or another. Of course, the answer might affect my choice (as Jonathan says, free and open guarantee access to 100% of the market), but the point is this - not knowing the licensing terms of a technology is just about as big a barrier to adoption by software companies as you could ever imagine…

Trackbacks & Pings

People Over Process » links for 2008-05-11 on 11 May 2008 at 7:31 am

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Comments

wino wrote:

They are in fierce competition w/ Silverlight. Opening it up would reveal its tricks to M$ and lose the competitive edge.

Posted 10 May 2008 at 4:13 am ¶
simon wrote:

That’s not the issue. It can be open or closed, as long as there’s some clarity about what it is.

The issue is people like Jonathan Schwartz and Ian Murdoch *saying* that Sun is committed to making *all* Sun software, especially software aimed at developers, free and open source; and then deciding to write in the FAQs that their *newest* developer technology and tools will be closed.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Posted 10 May 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶
Alan Powell wrote:

I was near a Sun exec being interviewed about JavaFX, he said it would be free and open source, all of it, via the GPL. Don’t know why the web site doesn’t say it.

Posted 10 May 2008 at 2:36 pm ¶
simon wrote:

Well, the JavaFX site seems pretty specific about what parts of JavaFX are, and are *not*, going to be open source.

One thing that occurred to me is that the On2 codecs that will be embedded in JavaFX might not be open source. So, that might prevent the JavaFX runtime, for example, from being open source.

However, given it’s not yet clear to me what the JavaFX runtime actually is, I don’t know if that makes sense or not…

Posted 10 May 2008 at 9:42 pm ¶
Traroth wrote:

The question is as old as JavaFX, and I read for some time, around july 2007, another blog with the same question. Can’t remember where.
Could it be that the faq is not up to date? For example, the compiler (https://openjfx-compiler.dev.java.net/) is clearly indicated to be under GPL, and the source code *is* available.

Posted 11 May 2008 at 1:16 pm ¶
simon wrote:

Well, I’m not sure it *can* be that it isn’t up-to-date. Sun’s stated strategy, that *all* their software would be open source, pre-dates JavaFX. So, I don’t think it can be that the original plans were to make it closed source, and that they’ve now changed. Also, the openjfx compiler you mention is specifically mentioned in the FAQ as being open source; so that’s not what they’re talking about as being closed source.

I suppose, it *could* be a typographical error - i.e. somone put the word, “not” in by mistake. That is, it should read that the technologies *are* expected to be open source. If it’s just a typo, it’s not hard to correct it.

Posted 11 May 2008 at 1:25 pm ¶
Weiqi Gao wrote:

I posted your question to the openjfx-compiler mailing list, and here is the response by Tom Ball from Sun
https://openjfx-compiler.dev.java.net/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=4173
or
http://tinyurl.com/6zy3cx

It’s a little bit vague, but my interpretation is that this is an issue of “organizational ignorance” rather than “clerical error.” And though they will work on it next week, it won’t be resolved quickly.

Posted 11 May 2008 at 4:19 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:

Organizational ignorance, would be something that Sun executives know a lot about, and further proves the point that Sun needs some fundamental changes at the top….

Posted 11 May 2008 at 4:31 pm ¶
simon wrote:

@Weiqi, thank you for doing that - that’s really helpful. I’m sure it will be really useful for people to get some clarification.

@Asam, LOL! @ “knowing a lot about ignorance”! Interesting concept I suspect, though, it’s not change at the top that’s needed (most smart people I talk to like Sun’s strategy, and are impressed with Jonathan Schwartz), so much as changes in the middle ranks (they really need to execute better in terms of growing their top-line - there’s a ton of market share they could be taking from Dell and HP).

Posted 11 May 2008 at 6:39 pm ¶
Jeff wrote:

One thing I can guarantee is that the official Flash and Silverlight IDEs will never be open source, unlike the tools for JavaFX. This post is just more FUD intended to steal some of JavaFX’s post JavaOne thunder. It’s most likely a typo that is being blown out of proportion.

Posted 11 May 2008 at 7:00 pm ¶
simon wrote:

FUD? Hardly. You clearly haven’t read any other posts on this blog. I like Sun technology. I use Sun software technology. I buy Sun hardware. I want JavaFX to succeed. I think it would be great for the software industry if JavaFX succeeded.

Hiding problems under the rug won’t help, though. The point is - if *I* have a problem with this, then for sure other people will.

If it’s a typo, then it will be super-easy to correct. However, if you follow the links that Weiqi posted, you’ll see that Sun people are implying it might not just be a typo. Seems there are other issues that have to be resolved.

Posted 11 May 2008 at 7:18 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:

Post JavaOne thunder? Did I miss something? More like post JavaOne projectile vomiting after infection with Norovirus,

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/10/javaone_norovirus/

At least with Apple you know the cost is just going to be $99 developer fee, with Sun desperately needing some way of getting an income stream, who knows how much of an arm and leg it will charge in the future, they just seem to want to trap you into the JavaFX world, and once you’ve invested too much time learning to develop for it they’ll spring charges on you. What’s the point of Sun developing all this for free then giving it away, it’s been doing that for years and look where that got it.

Posted 12 May 2008 at 12:48 am ¶
Vinod Singh wrote:

Though I would love to have everything related to JavaFX free and open source. But can anybody expect the same from MS or Adobe?

After all Sun is here to do the business not the charity. So they deserve to get some ROI for the effort they are putting behind JavaFX technologies, that could be by charging tools or may be by some other means.

Posted 12 May 2008 at 4:23 am ¶
simon wrote:

Vinod, of course. Sun can pursue whatever business model it likes. It needs to be clear with people what that is, though.

The company’s stated strategy is that all Sun software is to be free and open source. This is at odds with what the company has written about JavaFX on the JavaFX web-site.

Posted 12 May 2008 at 6:56 am ¶
peter wrote:

It doesn’t really matter what their reasons are. No matter how good it is, the only way this will ever stand a chance against Flash is if they release a version of this under a free-software license, at least for the desktop/browser version. I suppose it could help defend against Flash Lite in the mobile/embedded space, since Java is already fairly entrenched there, and maybe that’s the point of it anyway. I’d really love to see it succeed on the desktop, so I hope they’ll reconsider the licensing.

Posted 13 May 2008 at 4:51 pm ¶
simon wrote:

@Peter

I agree with you. I’m pretty sure that the top team at Sun wants JavaFX to be free and open source, so I’m hopeful that this is how it will end up. After all the work that Sun and others have done to get make the Java platform open, it just doesn’t make any sense to make the “new Java” closed.

I suspect that the top team at Sun also understands that making the JavaFX technology and tools free and open is a great way to compete with Adobe and Microsoft for developer mind share… especially when they’re coming from so far back in terms of RIA development.

After this blog post, it seems that people at Sun are now at least aware of the problem. They have a short while to get this right before they launch JavaFX in a couple of months.

Posted 13 May 2008 at 5:02 pm ¶
simon wrote:

There’s been some significant clarifications on this from Sun. Seems that all things JavaFX will be free and open source…

I’ve updated the content of the blog to reflect that. For more information on JavaFX, I recommend reading Jonathan Schwartz’s blog @:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/rocking_the_free_world

Posted 14 May 2008 at 9:41 pm ¶

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