[CentOS] bug submission justified for distribution of obsolete java software?

Thu Jan 12 14:26:22 UTC 2012
Ross Walker <rswwalker at gmail.com>

On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:13 AM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 11:32 PM, Ross Walker <rswwalker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>> Corporate greed will always trump idealistic pursuits.
> 
> I'm still pondering how Sun's demise fits into this picture....
> 
>> As soon as a product has enough momentum there will be patent fights, copyright fights, licensing and revocation of openness. Soon platforms that contribute the most $$ will get preference and features over others and there goes the cross-platform dream.
>> 
>> Throw your weight behind nothing, use the best technology at the time for the solution. The only true cross-platform language is C.
> 
> You can't be very agile working in C, though.  Something called C with
> roughly similar syntax may work on a lot of platforms but that doesn't
> mean that you can actually compile and run the same code.   Where with
> java you don't even have to recompile.   Look at how jenkins is able
> to run in master/slave mode with slaves running on an assortment of
> platforms at once.   What would  you have to do to match something
> like jasper reports or the pentaho tools ability to connect to
> databases and do page layouts in C in a way that would work on such a
> wide assortment of systems?

Of course C isn't very flexible by itself and often needs a library (or OS) to make it truly useful.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying everything should be written in C.

What I was trying to say is that as a language C is both cross-plaform and open and it's the "openness" that prevents "lock in" as much as it being cross-platform.

Now if Oracle would fully open Java, then I would add that to my list of cross-platform languages, but until then it's a language I feel would "lock me in".

-Ross