Posted on 10/23/2010 6:56:52 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Steve Jobs has apparently weighed into the debate over Apple's decision to deprecate Java on the Mac, and his terse explanation was promptly deprecated by Java founder James Gosling.
According to MacRumors.com, a concerned Java developer emailed the Apple cult leader on Thursday to ask about Apple's plans for the platform, and as he's been known to do from time to time, Jobs responded.
"Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms," Jobs allegedly wrote. "They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it."
James Gosling's answer came via a blog post. "It simply isn't true," he said. But whatever the truth of Jobs' response, he didn't actually say what the company's plans are. It's still unclear whether Apple will actually kill Java for Mac though this seems very likely and he didn't say whether the company intends to help a third party build a replacement.
On Wednesday, as Apple unveiled a future version of Mac OS X and an imminent Mac App Store, the company also snuck out a brief announcement that Java had been "deprecated" on Mac OS X and that it may kill the platform altogether. "As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated," read the release notes from Apple's latest update to Java for Mac.
"This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through the standard support cycles of those products."
After deprecating Java, the company also announced that applications using deprecated technologies such as Java will not be allowed in the upcoming Mac App Store.
If Steve Jobs is killing Java on the Mac as seems likely he's also turning his back on the untold number of Java developers who do their work on Apple laptops and desktops, which it's worth pointing out includes Android developers. Java development kits such as Eclipse and IntelliJ and NetBeans won't themselves run without Java. "I cannot overstate what catastrophe this is," says one coder on Apple's Java developer mailing list. "If the future of Java on Mac is in doubt, then I have no other choice than going the Linux way...all the work I've done trying to get all developers converting to Mac is undone."
Simon Phipps the former head of open source at Sun and a current board member with the Open Source Initiative (OSI) agrees. "This has to be a big negative for all the many developers who prefer to use a Mac than Windows to develop their Java code," reads a blog post from Phipps. "Looks like the future for Ubuntu as a developer desktop just got several degrees brighter does Steve Jobs ignore the Ballmer Imperative at his peril?"
Next page: The word from the Jobsian mountain top
I hope you are right. I have the same struggles that others have with Java, but right now it is a nice paycheck. I have to replace my desktop box at home, and was planning on going mac. Then I saw this thread...making me reconsider my decision. But, as others pointed out, I can go with the mac and can go virtual if I need to...
Here we go again... Apple did not “save Apple’s bacon”, contrary to what some like to post. MS bought stock in Apple, which was soon “cashed out”.
Apple did hammer some of the smaller independent Apple dealers, though what was interesting about that whole thing - some stayed in business, with a few even surviving to this day.
Adobe, on the other hand, owes its existence to Apple, as the primary market for their software was the Macintosh.
Apple still represents a sizable portion of Adobe’s customer base (though less-so than in previous years). I firmly believe the Adobe/Apple “pissing contest” has been festering far longer than it has been in the public eye. I do know that Adobe was rather miffed when Apple released iPhoto as part of their “free” suite of software included on new machines (though it really didn’t directly compete with any of Adobe’s products). Then the release of Aperture, Adobe saw that as another “shot across the bow”, though it really is not in the same league with PS.
Then - the biggest was Apple decision to jettison the Motorola line of processors (the PowerPC lineage) - moving to the Intel family. This created some code issues and a lot of work for Adobe, if they were going to write native code. Adobe chose to drag their feet - causing Apple users of the later version of PS to get pretty upset (I know several of them). There was no begging by Apple to continue CS -
Flash, for all its “glitter”, sucks. Period. Neat idea, very poor and buggy implementation - Jobs was 100% correct in his blasting of it, especially in regards to iPhone/iOS.
I must agree. Java became too much of a drag.
Apostle Claver tells the world how the real party of racism is the Democrats
Try and keep up Doc.
Try and keep up Doc.
A lot of, if not all of the very early uproar about iPad came from Flash developers whose ox was being gored by Apple giving up on Flash due to Adobe’s inability to accomodate the multi-touch interface. So, they were ditched in favor of HTML5.
Another ox is being gored. Is Apple obligated to support Java at all? No, they’re not. I trust Steve Jobs’ vision for the platform far more than I trust developers squealling out of monetary self-interest.
What are you talking about?
I think I’ve ever liked at most a couple Java client apps. All the rest sucked, badly.
Excuse me, it WAS part of the settlement of a lawsuit and it is part of three interlocking agreements that are available on the internet that were signed on the same day to settle that lawsuit. I've posted this so many times, with the links to the agreements that I am not going to post the links again. These agreements were sealed and filed with the court as part of the settlement agreement. They were unsealed after the completion of the five years. They are available for anyone who wants to read them now. . . and they lay out the agreement between the two companies about what went down.
The payment of the 150 million dollars to purchase the RESTRICTED, NON-VOTING, preferred Apple stock was integral to the settlement and stated so in the other two agreements... which would NOT be executed until the payment was made. If it had been a "bail-out" in an investment type, anyone making that kind of concession, would have been given a seat on the board of directors of the company being bailed out. Microsoft got nothing of the kind, because they were paying a penalty to get themselves out of hot water... a lawsuit they were losing!
Everything about the settlement was essentially very one sided... with the concessions going from Microsoft to Apple... In addition to the purchase of the preferred stock, Microsoft agreed to license to Apple, without payment, certain software patents in perpetuity for the life of the patents. At the same time Microsoft agreed to license FROM Apple for an undisclosed yearly amount of money, the specific software patents that were the subject of the lawsuit, and additional other undisclosed patents for a period of five years. . . with further licensing to be re-negotiated at the end of that period. Microsoft also agreed to cancel the announced discontinuation of Office for Mac and agree to continue full development and support for the five years the agreements were in force.
For its part of these interlocking agreements, Apple would deliver the preferred shares (in other words, accept a check in exchange for a piece of paper that did not even dilute outstanding stock), license the disputed software patents to Microsoft for additional undisclosed millions in income, and include Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac as an included, but not exclusive, browser with Apple MacOS along with Netscape Navigator... and agree to dismiss all patent infringement lawsuits and appeals currently being pursued against Microsoft by Apple... including the one involving the use of Apple's Quicktime code that had been found unmodified in Windows Media Player and the appeal about the look and feel of the Mac in Windows that was still slowly wending its way through the courts... which cleared the decks of distractions that Apple simply did not need at that time while Steve Jobs was clearing away the mess that incompetent CEOs had made in the ten years he had been gone.
At the time of the so-called "bail-out" by Microsoft, Apple had a little over 1.4 billion dollars in cash and liquid assets and had already posted a profitable quarter... they had already turned the corner. The $150 million was a drop in the bucket that Apple would be using to do some more marketing of their new iMac to the Education sector...
I thought that the post was referring to the earlier lawsuit that Apple filed against MS as part of the look and feel issues of Windows 3.0 (when MS went from tiles to icons). That lawsuit had been settled earlier.
I had not known that the purchase had been made in the framework of something much larger, but it was presented in both the tech and financial media as Microsoft giving Apple a hand, and the Apple/MS press releases at the time did nothing to dispel that. The fact that it was in the form of a stock purchase (non-voting, etc. is irrelevant to that) as opposed to an outright cash settlement still seems odd if it was compensation to Apple as part of a lawsuit.Of course, if MS held onto those shares, they would be doing better now.
Yes, Apple had money in the bank, but thanks to the ineptitude of Spindler/Amelio (especially Amelio) they had been burning through quickly.
When Michael Dell made his infamous statement about Apple packing it in, he was neither sneered at, nor laughed at. He was rightly argued with. At very least the possibility of Apple being bought outright by IBM was a very real possibility and would have changed the character of the company forever. You rightly note that Office:Mac might have been discontinued. That would have been calamitous for Apple in the business realm. Given how many non-MS-Apps now connect to MS Office in one way or another, it would have threatened other non-MS support for Apple as well.
Both Apple and Microsoft were under non-disclosure agreements for the term of the agreements which included non disparagement clauses. The purchase of non-controlling shares was window dressing as Microsoft was not admitting any wrong doing in the settlement even though they were obviously the "blinking" party in the lawsuit and the one ceding the most to the plaintiff. A cash transfer would have required an explanation and breeched the disclosure prohibitions the stock deal acheived the same purpose without exposing the deal. Microsoft, heavily under investigation by the Feds for some of the very same predatory patent practices in the lawsuit did not want the publicity of an admission of culpability and could not afford the loss at trial. This settlement, handled quietly, was a way out without an expensive public trial they KNEW they were going to lose.
As part of the play acting "window dressing," in a move that shocked attendees, Bill Gates even appeared on the stage with Steve Jobs at the Macworld Conference a few months later in a tech form of glasnost to announce Microsoft's five year commitment to Microsoft Office for Mac and Apple's inclusion of MS Internet Explorer as a browser in the MacOS distribution. The two CEOs made crocodile smiles at each other and made promises of a new era of cooperation... But MS never made Mac Word files fully compatible with Windows Word files and dropped development of IE for Mac after a half hearted attempt at an OSX Internet Explorer and discontinued it as soon as the agreement expired. Apple had Safari ready for intro when the agreement sunsetted in 2002. MS sold the Apple stock as soon as the three year restriction on it's sale was lifted. . . for a profit.
Playing on Apple's sticking to the non-disclosure, MS sent out the myth through their rumor mill that they had "saved" Apple. Some journalist who had followed the lawsuit connected the dots, and said what happened but had to wait for the documents to be unsealed for the proof. The myth sounded logical.
Steve Jobs knew the future of the Mac needed Office but he didn't blink. Instead he revealed to Microsoft the ammunition that Apple had for the trial: Apple's Quicktime patented and copyrighted code found verbatim inside Windows Media Player, unmodified including comments containing the Apple software engineer's mother's name, his name, Apple's copyright claim, and other damning text left hidden in the code, so blatant, that Microsoft was caught red-handed stealing the intellectual property of Apple.
A jury could have awarded Apple billions. . . but that may actually have been a long term loss because Microsoft could have retaliated by following through with the cancellation of Office for Mac. . . killing the future of the Mac and with it Apple.
Steve wanted to concentrate on restructuring Apple and it's product line for the future without distractions from the past.
Microsoft desperately needed this lawsuit to go away. It was under serious investigation for anti-competitive practices and predatory marketing just like this. It could not afford a highly public trial. There was a good possibility it would be broken up under the anti-trust laws. Instead of going for the easy billions and going to trial, Jobs offered a settlement acceptable to both companies that saved face for Microsoft and got both what they needed.
Microsoft folded... And settled.
It was a brilliant solution
Didn't read the link i suppose, else I don't understand your question.
It’s all very nice, but has nothing at all to do with any of my previous posts.
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