I Want You!...an OpenJDK Story

First look at the official slide above, then look at the OpenJDK project (especially JDK7), and tell me what tha hell's going on!

I really irritated with this effort at Sun. I think they should immediately anounce their strategy on JDK, because we, the millions of Java developer, have right to know!

To me, opensource JDK have disadvantages over its advantages. Because we're talking about billions $ worth of investment on software sytems designed to run on JDK. In my opinion, opensourcing JDK will have a deep impact on maintenance of these system. For instance, we're developing an ERP system and even now, we have compatibility problems among different JREs. I hear you saying it's normal, then check this out: we submitted a symptom and there was the great answer replied by Sun: There may be a bug! May be a bug? pfff...Think about the future cases.

Ok, Sun have right to opensource a software, or delegate its development responsibilities to 3rd parties. But, there should be a mechanism that controls these efforts on JDK. I don't think this is JSR. There should some other pro-active mechanism that will guide us all.

On the other hand, JDK7 have huge code opensourced to 3rd parties. I mean you can even develop your own VM and RTE. However, as a software company having a product line, is this my responsibility to perform maintenance on VM and RTE? Otherwise, there is a huge problem of security. It's irrelevant that your system's security audit's OK, since the all runtime exposed to 3rd parties, and as usual case, there are whole bunch of bugs and holes in it.

So, those problems need urgent attention.

Beside, one of my students asked me once

isn't saying platform independent mean it's VM dependent?

I couldn't answer this question that time. But now I'm answering:

Yes my friend, you're right to the ground!