Hi guys, here is text of what I'll put up somewhere. Thought I'd get some feedback here first. It's meant to piss IBM supporters off -- don't take it personally. I make some unsubstantiated claims but wtf everybody else is :-) Cheers, Sid --------------------------------------------------------------------- In an open letter to Sun, http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-openlet IBM offers to work with Sun on an open-source implementation of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Here is how the letter came about. o IBM had/have been bleating for a while that Sun should open-source the Sun JVM. o Some open source enthusiasts had/have been doing the same - i.e. bleating*. o Analysts and journalists just repeat what the different factions say. Some seem to conflate the language, the virtual machine and the runtime libraries. It was after an insistent journalist (enraptured by IBM's self-professed commitment to an "open-source Java") repeated the call (at a public event) that someone from Sun asked: why does IBM not open-source its own version of the JVM? i.e. why are the buggers haranguing Sun? IBM jumped at this with the open letter mentioned above. In short: they will gladly work with Sun on a common open-source implementation of a JVM if both Sun and IBM offered resources including source code (to their respective JVMs). Excuse me IBM, who asked you to open-source Sun's JVM? I'd like you to open-source /yours/ please. IBM have been veritably shouting their desire for an open source JVM but they are not willing to open source their own implementation. They will if Sun does the same (that's what it boils down to). This smacks of hypocrisy at least and hidden agendas. Why bring Sun into it? Why not BEA or Oracle or ... the open source community? The strength of the present arrangement is that the specs are there for all to see, vendors implement their own JVMs (and they have) and the consumer chooses one or more implementations based on what he requires and his estimation of the competing JVMs. This leads to a thriving industry with high quality JVMs. It gives me choice and I like that. Great. So what's the problem? Simple: IBM's JVM just can't compete with Sun's. Both of them are free for us to download and use. Try them yourself. Yep, IBM can't even give its JVM away. Whose JVM do you have running on your machine? Now Sun's JVM is a beautiful thing! And it is Sun's JVM that will take hardware customers from IBM to Sun. For the same money, Sun's JVM running on Solaris and Sun hardware will outperform the corresponding offering from IBM -- I reckon. And IBM knows it too. My conclusion: IBM are telling fibs, really obvious ones too. Hey whattup IBM? Cat got ya source? ------------------------------------------------------------------- * we have lots of sheep in New Zealand.