I was talking to some friends the other day, and I were rambling about how I though Java was a platform with more alternatives, and more innovation thatn what is currently happening on .NET. Maybe they’ll have a innovative community there some day too, maybe I’m just ignorant and havn’t picked up on it yet. I doubt it, but at present time I don’t think it can match the Java world. So as I were rambling on, one of the people in the crowd decided to nail me, and asked me if the Java language was open source. I just stared at her and didn’t quite understand where she was coming from, then I slowly came around.
Java doesn’t give you freedom because it’s not open source.
At least SHE meant so. I disagree strongly.
The freedom of beeing a Java developer doesn’t depend on wether Java itself is open sourced. The freedom depends on the open source community, the exchange of ideas, the number of available products, available sources of knowledge. That’s where my choices comes from, not from beeing able to reinvent the language.
The debate of open sourcing Java itselfs pops up every once in a while. This article has got it right. The ubiquity and strong community is the important issues with Java. I actually don’t see what opensourcing Java would bring to the table. Maybe Sun will become evil one day and screw it all up. I don’t think so.
I really enjoy beeing a Java developer. I really enjoy all the choices, ideas and products that are exchanged through open source. I really don’t care wether I can change the Java language itself. I want to build good systems with Java, not spend my time changing the language.