Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on November 15, 2004 09:26 AM
Amen. Let's suppose that Java does become *the* language to use, supplanting even C and C++. So what happens when (not if, when) Sun decides, "OK, now that we've got dominance in these markets, let's close down Java even more than it is now and charge people boatloads?"
This is what Richard Stallman and others have been warning against for years. Were Sun to make Java into a truly Free language, then, if they did decide to make their specific implementation non-free, then that's fine. The language being truly Free, we would then be free to implement it ourselves. It is for this reason, among others, that C and C++ are so popular, and Pascal before it; while there were many non-Free implementations of these languages, the languages themselves are Free.
Free Software is not about price. It's about freedom--freedom to do what you want with it and not restricting those same freedoms from others.
Oh, BTW, the author is factually incorrect; Java is *not* freely redistributable. Read the license.
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Re:Not really paying attention again, author?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on November 15, 2004 09:26 AMThis is what Richard Stallman and others have been warning against for years. Were Sun to make Java into a truly Free language, then, if they did decide to make their specific implementation non-free, then that's fine. The language being truly Free, we would then be free to implement it ourselves. It is for this reason, among others, that C and C++ are so popular, and Pascal before it; while there were many non-Free implementations of these languages, the languages themselves are Free.
Free Software is not about price. It's about freedom--freedom to do what you want with it and not restricting those same freedoms from others.
Oh, BTW, the author is factually incorrect; Java is *not* freely redistributable. Read the license.
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