Friday, 3 August 2007
The Apache lack of Ultimatum
« Let the AIR out | Main | Jamie Zawinski's jwz.org expires »Another month has gone by since I posted about the Apache-JCP situation. Sun has added "Field Of Use" (FOU) restrictions to the licensing terms of the TCK for Apache Harmony. The situation has implications well outside of Harmony which is rendered somewhat less important by Sun's partial open sourcing of the JDK (portions are covered by a proprietary license. Running and passing the TCK (also known as CTK and various other names) is required in order to have the right to distribute implementations of JCP specifications with regards to patent licenses. Moreover passage is required in order to call your implementation "EJB3" or "Java Servlet" container, for instance. This has brought up the question as to whether a standard developed under NDA, with a proprietary/closed TCK is really an "open standard". The FOU restrictions that Sun is requiring would mean Apache's software would need to be distributed under a different license that would not meet the definition of open source. Since I wrote last, Apache has not decided to do anything of substance other than vote negatively protesting that Sun is in violation of the JSPA and should therefore not be able to lead specs in their Java Community Process (JCP) standardization committee. This move has been seen as ineffective and possibly embarrassing by a number of members inside and outside of Apache especially since Apache is alone in its negative vote.
A boycott, or no show, of the JCP seems a more dignified approach. I'm an ASF supporter and agree with you on the underlying issue, but voting no on the merits of a JSR because of your issues with the JCP in general seems childish to me also.
Matt Giacomini, TSS commenter
Some at Apache have called for Apache to sue Sun, which for various reasons. I made an alternate proposal that if Apache is unwilling to withdraw from the JCP, it should create a new project for not-quite-open-source at Apache such as http://sharedsource.apache.org. However, this admittedly somewhat of a modest proposal was not taken seriously. While Sam Ruby continued to express a need for action, Geir Magnusson, speaking for the de facto if not de jure power base at Apache, expressed more of his infinite patience and outright ignored Sam Ruby's call for an "exit strategy".
I think that our participation in the JCP is beneficial, assuming we get this problem w/ Sun squared away. Our years of engagement have shown that, IMO.
Our FOU problem is a big test for the JCP - will it be able to govern itself to the degree that it can?
Sun is busy on OpenJDK. Those that are waiting on Sun to provide us what the contract that they signed said that they would are also "blue in the face". This month, the conflict will enter into its second year. We are in a war without an exit strategy. As unpopular as it might be, we need to establish a timetable for withdrawal.
So I'd expect to see more "childish" "sandbox" votes on JSRs at least until the next Apache board is elected. However, the board elections have not, in the past, been an very effective measure for change. Moreover the Java side of Apache is fairly large by comparison to the open source side and individuals wishing to protect their positions on the JCP committees are unlikely to change the makeup of the board unless their Apache-JCP membership becomes a career problem for them. So...I'd expect many more months if not years of the same. In the future, I'd also caution you to investigate the exact legal propriety of the Apache project that you may use as Apache will not be labeling the project's entangling legal encumbrances (I actually was serious, preferring a properly labeled closed-source project at Apache to the current unlabeled stuff) nor negotiating them. For instance, if you run Harmony today you likely run awry, among others, of Kodak's patent on dynamic linking with objects that Sun licensed the other year. Yet there are no warnings that Apache has not obtained the licensing from Sun to distribute Harmony or that it is currently more likely shared source and not open source.
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I didn't think that the open letter strategy would work, and I didn't think this one will.
Eventually, in a a meritocracy, someone should take responsibility for the merit of strategical decisions that got the ASF into the uncomfortable position it finds itself in now.