Re: Where we stand in regard to the future platform / desktop technology

[Glynn Foster <Glynn Foster Sun COM>]

Hey,

> Since there are definitely Sun people here, and given
> Sun's involvement in GNOME, a clear statement from Sun
> regarding the free implementation of Java APIs that
> Sun will not sue them will be greatly welcomed by the
> community. (Making the Sun JDK free software will be
> even better but we understand that may be too much to
> ask for now)

Just so that there's an understanding about why there's been a lack of a
Sun response on the issue - most of the people contributing to GNOME
from a Sun point of view are desktop hackers. I'm a desktop hacker who
doesn't contribute a huge amount of code to GNOME, haven't programmed in
Java since he joined Sun and doesn't have a clear idea of the technical
merits of the technologies to make a qualified and mature response. I
personally think it will be hard getting that type of statement from
someone in Sun - there are lots of people with hugely diverse opinions
and ideas within Sun.

> It is in Sun's interest to make it easy to write GNOME
> software in Java, even if not using the standard Java
> GUI APIs but GNOME-specific bindings.

FWIW, that work is being done at the moment. I can't mention any
specifics [1], but I'd sure like to encourage those working on that
project who might be on this alias to speak up ;)

Glynn


[1] Simply because I don't know them - it's hard enough to keep on top
    of GNOME work to keep up to date with everything that's happening
    in all the various Sun engineering groups.