Remus

“
Last year at OScon, I gave a presentation entitled What Book Sales Tell Us About the State of the Tech Industry. One of the conclusions I drew was that Java was in decline,
as its share of total programming language book sales had dropped by
five percentage points in the twelve months ending June 2004. Well, we
just re-ran those numbers, and saw a startling reversal.” [Tim]

I think the increase has
nothing to do with Open Source and everything to do with the Desktop.
Java was always friendly with the Open Source culture, I think it was
just a lucky moment at the beginnings when the Apache organization got
involved with it, today it’s just natural to consider making
your Java project public and Open Source and Apache and BSD licensing
are just as natural to any Java developer as the language itself,
nothing has changed in this aspect this year, things go on just as they
did in the past years.

The big problem with Java was that it was cornered server side, no
wander with the big troubles Swing had (performance and platform
inconsistencies), but then IBM bought OTI and their SWT project,
started building Eclipse and making it public. Java started to have an
honorable path to Desktop side.

So what happened this year? SWT
and RCP got mature enough to be actually usable (Azureus, a SWT based
Java bit torrent client is the number 1 downloaded application on
SourceForge to prove that). Sun probably realized that they might loose
any chance to keep Swing in the picture so they really started making
it work. Java 1.5 is a huge step (maybe the biggest since 1.1) forward
for Java, huge performance increases and a solid vision about GUI apps.
Right now Java is a serious platform for GUI applications and with two
great toolkits competing against each other with two great user bases
trying to prove that their toolkit and platform (RCP and NetBeans) is
best for development and the end user.

Yes I think 2005 is the year in
which Java got a new start, it’s desktop side, it’s
a fact and it’s unstoppable (the language itself is popular,
tons of libraries covering every aspect, most of them with BSD or
Apache licenses, great enterprise and server side support, still on the
cutting edge of the emerging technologies and for sure right there,
multiplatform when multiplatform really starts to matter).

Nokia announced today that it is using
best-of-breed open source software as the basis of a new mobile browser:

“A key component of this development has
been Nokia’s cooperation with Apple, as the Series 60 browser will use the same
open source components, WebCore and JavaScriptCore, that Apple uses in its
popular Safari Internet browser. Based on KHTML and KJS from KDE’s
“Konqueror” open source project, this software has enabled Safari to
achieve industry-leading features and performance. Nokia intends to continue
its collaboration with Apple and actively participate in the open source
community to further develop and enhance these components, contributing Nokia’s
expertise in mobility.
…

Nokia is excited to enrich Series 60 with
optimized mobile Web browsing. Open source software is an ideal basis for
development since it enables Nokia to leverage and contribute to speedy
software innovation and development. As a result, the entire Series 60 value
chain, from manufacturers and operators to end-users, will benefit from the
flexible architecture, full Web compliance and a truly enjoyable user
experience,” said Pertti Korhonen, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia.”

Open Source was here to stay, I think
nobody had any doubts about that, mainly because it’s an movement which can not
be stopped, how do you stop 200.000 people from doing what they think matters,
you can’t. What is new is that corporations are more and more involved in it.
Just think about it, IBM and Eclipse, Sun and Java, Apple Safari and KHTML and
Konqueror, AOL and Mozilla and the enumeration can go on and on.

I think what happens is that Open Source is
now part of some business strategies, the targets are different but the results
are the same. IBM invested in Eclipse and was a wise move, for them Eclipse is
the foundation for a new set of products, more eyes see more problems, but more
important having the same foundation the switch from Eclipse to their tools is
natural and effortless.

Not to mention that for an independent
developer or a small company Eclipse might be enough, but for a medium or big
company it is not, they need exactly what IBM has to offer. But for IBM the
story doesn’t end here, they try to position themselves where the money is and
will be in the next period, they will be the platform, not they but RCP (the
foundation of Eclipse and IBM’s Workplace). Having RCP out there and
Open Source, IBM will have the plugins, applications, functionality and plenty
of developers with deep know how of the platform, a port from RCP to Workplace  is just as natural and effortless.

Apple was also smart when they choose KTHML
over Mozilla. KHTML was written from scratch in a clean, nice, object oriented
way, it is just natural if you want to adapt something to chose the most
maintainable thing, and the Mozilla’s core while might have seemed the best
choice was anything but maintainable with it’s inherited bloat. Apple wanted a
browser and a platform they control at the lowest cost available, and they
choose the most suited for their purpose. Different story with AOL, they just
wanted an edge in their negotiations with Microsoft and probably a backup
solution and certainly they’ we got that.

So, good for them but what is in it for us,
the end users. Well I would say plenty; Konqueror is a better browser because
of Safari and now is the second browser that passed the Acid Test 2. Nokia will
have to give back something and even if will not be code, growing the user base
of a standard compliance browser is enough for me. My company switched from
Xemacs to Eclipse and it went in a transparent and natural way and I’m glad we
did because it is a terrific development environment. SWT and RCP is the
foundation for our products for at least 2 years now, and I’m glad we did that
too, our clients are glad since they are no longer locked into an Microsoft
platform, they can switch to almost anything else that matters when they choose
and if they choose.

There is money in Open Source, important is
to know where to look, we would definitely have to focus not on code sold but
on value sold.

For us the end users, great moments are ahead, I can barely wait for Trolltech to release QT4 as Open Source for Windows too, just way to see a lot of great applications already available for KDE being available for Windows too.