IndicThreads >> Is open source work essentially free work that a developer does so as to learn something new or is there some way in which you can actually make money by contributing to open source projects?

Henri Yandell >> There are definitely ways to make money. I'm pretty lax on doing that; I mainly do open-source for the community involvement and so I can have a personal library of code that I can use at each company I'm employed at. That said, I've been remunerated a bit for reviewing a handful of draft books for the last few years by various publishing companies, and open-source involvement is how I got into that.

"I mainly do open-source for the community involvement..."

Others write books or speak at conferences, which while not highly profitable endeavours, pay back in terms of industry respect and in job interviews.

"Chances of an open-source contact
providing me with something I need
in the future are much higher than somebody local..."

Of course, there's the commercial-open-source avenue, companies like JBoss Inc and MySql AB who are the central supporting experts for their particular project. I've not been involved in this style of company yet, so very little of this discussion relates to how those groups work.

Lastly, there's the classic "it's not what you know, but who you know" adage. I know a handful of Java developers where I live, a few from my time back in the UK, and many, many more via the open-source community. Chances of an open-source contact providing me with something I need in the future are much higher than somebody local.

IndicThreads >> What are your thoughts on open sourcing Java and on suggestions that Java should reside at Apache?

Henri Yandell >> (Before answering, I need to underline that I'm a spectator on the sidelines for much of this, so it's all just opinion and not speaking for Apache.)

I think open-sourcing Java is a popular band-wagon that lacks good direction. What would an open-source Java get us? What do we actually mean by the term? Do we want a spec that is freely implementable (which it already is)? Do we want Sun to give the Java trademark to the community? Do we just want an open implementation?

"I think open-sourcing Java is a popular band-wagon that lacks good direction..."

What we really want are for Sun and the JCP to ease some of the barriers to an open-source implementation of Java. We want to be able to look at the source code, submit fixes, compile our own fixed version or port it to the Psion netBook when the vendor abandons us.

The good news here is that we already have an example of this. Kaffe is most of the way there and recently applied for a TCK Scholarship. Fosdem 2005 (Belgium) had a meeting in which Kaffe, GNU Classpath, GCJ and Apache people met up and learnt about each other. There was an earlier get together in the US on much the same topic. Apache Gump's continuous integration project currently builds projects under Java 1.4, Java 1.5/5.0, and under Kaffe, which helps to bring the community awareness together, and hopefully the Apache JCP seat can help with things like the TCK scholarship.

As to whether an open-source Java should reside at Apache, that speaks to everything that is wrong about the "make Java open-source" mantra. Find a community to support an open-sourced version of Java first. While there may be interested parties at Apache, I'm pretty sure there's not a community of people who get excited at the JVM hiding in the wings. You're looking for a group of C programmers who want to spend their time working on Java which seems like a rare blood-type to me.

IndicThreads >> What are your thoughts on the three new J2SE licenses? Do you think they will lead to a significant change in the way Java evolves?"Â

Obviously the jury will be out on the licences until we see them in action in 2006 with Mustang, but I think they are a step in the right direction. I don't think they're likely to help much with Kaffe's TCK, but hopefully the spirit of trying to open things up will help Kaffe reach a point where it may be called Java officially and we'll have a community supported JVM.

"The new J2SE licenses are a step in the right direction..."

What really interests me is whether we'll be able to share the patches we make to Java under the Java Internal Use Licence (JIUL). If the source patches are distributable (and not the Java source or a binary produced from it), then we could build a community, much like the Fink project on OS X, who would supply a patch to the latest Sun JVM.

Download Sun's JVM. Download JIUL-Share. Recompile Sun's JVM with JIUL-Share applied. Use internally.

It's a nice daydream isn't it.