SWAINE'S CAFE

Black. No Sugar. Extra Caffeine.

August 2007

What are we to make of the fact that Sun has changed its stockticker from SUNW, which originally stood for Stanford University Network Workstation, to JAVA, which stands for, um, Java?

Apple not long ago changed the company name from Apple Computer to Apple, Inc., fueling speculation among the more excitable of the punditing class that the company was getting out of computers. It meant nothing of the sort, of course; what it signified was that Apple is now about more than just computers.

Sun isn't changing its company name, just its stock ticker, but the reasons given by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz for the change are interesting: "SUNW represents the past, and... we've decided to look ahead [because the] number of people who know Java swamps the number of people who know Sun." (And by the way, Jonathan, I wish you'd quit putting things in your blog that crash Safari. I'm sure it's Apple's fault, but it's really annoying.)

Filthy Rich Clients arrived in the mail the other day. Chet Haase and Romain Guy show you how to create graphically rich Java apps that ooze cool.

Cool is good. Beautiful is good. Oozing I have less of a jones for. But the Foreword by James Gosling draws a lesson from successful applications that I think is widespread and wrong.

A huge increase in the emphasis on aesthetics is what Gosling sees: Wow! (he says) Aesthetics are in.

People say that kind of thing about Apple's hardware and applications, call them beautiful or eye candy, and it always bothers me. Because what I see in Apple's best creations and in the best application interfaces from any developer, is not aesthetics but good design. It's not the same thing.

Design is deep. Pretty is superficial. And filthy rich -- well, it's an attention-getting phrase. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. As for its symbolism, well, as I say, it's an attention-getting phrase.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 11:32 AM  Permalink |

Sun made a profit in fiscal year 2007, which is something it did not do in FY 2006. If Sun is getting healthier as a company, is it because of Jonathan Schwartz's willingness to take risks?

There are, I suspect, more risks than we might think in being that rarity, a blogging CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Then there's open source Java, a long-delayed delivery that at times seemed to be causing Sun as much pain as Kane, the John Hurt character, experienced in Alien. But undeniably a move fraught with risk.

Last week, Sun's decision to work more closely with IBM was characterized as a risky move, risking a loss in hardware sales to boost Solaris adoption.

And a year ago, Sun was called daring for some of the decisions Schwartz was making, decisions that arguably have led to the past year's profitabilty.

You could supply other examples of the boldness of Sun in the Schwartz era. Although one good year (or is it really one good quarter?) doesn't prove anything, is it starting to look like the gambles are paying off?

Posted by Mike Swaine at 11:39 AM  Permalink |

If you disconnect yourself from news sources over the weekend, something that's increasingly hard to do, you are often met on a Monday morning by some surprising news item. Of course, what's big news to you might not even be on your neighbor's radar....

A lot of Americans awoke on the morning of August 13 to learn to their shock that Bush's Brain, Karl Rove, was resigning from the White House. Others may have felt that the big news item was that the Perseids were putting on a great pre-dawn show.

But for some of us the big bombshell was the ruling in a Federal court that SCO does not own UNIX. Novell does. This would seem to take all the meat out of SCO's lawsuit against IBM, thwart any attempts to extort money from the Linux community, and probably end whatever secret relationship Microsoft may have had with SCO. The judge even said that SCO had improperly collected money from Sun and Microsoft that it had to pay to Novell. SCO, no surprise, is talking appeal.

On Slashdot a debate erupted about what this ruling might mean for Sun. Those who know something of Sun's long and complex relationship with UNIX seemed to think the answer was: nothing.

Of more interest here is the matter of what the ruling means to Open Source -- and particularly for Open Source Java. Early opinions suggest: nothing but good.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 10:24 AM  Permalink |

Onno Kluyt has stepped down as chair of the JCP. His successor, Patrick Curran, will have his work cut out for him.

In April, Apache, one of the key members of JCP, escalated an internal JCP debate over Sun policy to the open letter stage, raising the threat level to Orange. Sun has been unresponsive to Apache's missive, but has not yet explicitly invoked executive privilege.

The issue is 'field of use' restrictions and JCKs and the less-than-harmonious situation regarding Apache's Harmony project. Now the meme that 'JCP is broken' that has been repeated for years is gaining strength again. Expressed support for Apache's position among JCP members seems to be, um, weak, and actual support weaker.

But transitions are a time for optimism. So: good luck your new job, Patrick.

Posted by Mike Swaine at 10:25 AM  Permalink |