Free But Costly - The Open Source Trap

May 12th, 2005 Dr. Stallman in his article Free but shackled - Java Trap expresses his concern that Java developers may be unknowingly falling into an expensive trap. In his own words: If you develop a Java program on Sun's Java platform, you are liable to use Sun-only features without even noticing.

October 11th, 2005 In the VSLive Conference in Orlando, BJ Holtgrewe, Senior Production Manager for Visual Studio made some outrageous claims like: Holtgrewe's chat was also peppered with competitive messages, noting that U.S. DevTracker found that 53 percent of software development is being done on .NET these days, leaving Java scrambling for the remainder of the pie.

April 1st, 2006 In a significant (read earth shattering for Java community worldwide) move Sun has announced their decision to open source Java technologies. The JCP will be disbanded in favor of open source bazaar model.

May 9th, 2005 Which JVM do you want to use today?

June 29th, 2006 Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, said the Sun is "months" away from releasing its trademark Java programming language under an open-source license. He said Sun is ruminating over two major issues: how to keep Java compatible and ensure no particular company uses market forces as muscle for its own implementation, a move that would threaten Java's "write once, run anywhere" mantra.

March 6th, 2006 Here are the top ten Java lies I have heard over the years. Feel free to add yours in the comments.

October 23rd, 2008 Google Android finally delivers what was promised at the very beginning. While everyone was speculating if Android is going to be an open source platform, they have come out with Android Open Source Project, which will give public at large the opportunity to make contributions.

September 28th, 2007 You can download all the previously unavailable telecommunication protocols here. For example, have you ever wondered about the FAX protocol? You can now get it for free here.

July 17th, 2006 Today's bot / malware writers are leveraging open source tools and development models to improve their bots according to McAfee. Unlike viruses of the past, bots tend to be written by a group of authors, who often collaborate by using the same tools and techniques as open source developers, said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager with McAfee's Avert Labs.

July 2nd, 2005 Sun Microsystems is looking at providing its Java Enterprise System (J2EE) customers with a database management solution that will either take advantage of existing open-source database management technologies or developed in-house. I think they should leverage from some high quality open source database management solutions rather than re-inventing the wheel.

October 25th, 2008 Getting VC funding today is very hard, getting investment for your open source product is 10 times harder in today's climate. The biggest showstopper for an open source product is a viable business plan.

September 21st, 2008 CodeWeaver's released a port of Google's Chrome browser (review) for Linux. CrossOver Chromium is a Mac and Linux port of the open source Chromium web browser.

February 1st, 2005 Introduction After 4 hours of struggling with the abomination named Mambo documentation (I wouldn't grace it with a link) I have to conclude that it is a pure-bred torture device. Please read their documentation to get a taste of horror if you are seriously masochistic.

April 18th, 2008 I am serious. While MySQL is a great open source database, I have full respect to Sun's plan to provide high-end features for paying customers only.

December 28th, 2005 SwingLabs is an Open Source laboratory for exploring new ways to make Swing applications easier to write, with improved performance and greater visual appeal. It is an umbrella project for various Open Source initiatives sponsored by Sun Microsystems and is part of the java.net community.