Trying out the Mozilla composite editor.   Pretty cool - wish it edited in place, but seems to matchup pretty well with the MS DHTML editor.  Now I don't have to switch browsers to post in Radio.

Microsoft provided tools that developers have ended up being forced to use to build desktop software, he said.

"And, for lots of desktop developers [Windows] was the only market that actually mattered," Gosling said. "That is, I think, deeply tragic."

The above conceit is an appropriate one, as long as it remains consigned to Sun's public marketing. James, being a smart fellow, understands the distinction between a Java desktop application and a usable desktop application. But there's no admitting that on stage.

It amuses me to read articles citing Microsoft's destruction of Java. No doubt they have it in for Sun (and often support dubious technologies), but the early MS JVM was the singular reason I could deliver professional Java applications (1997-98) given Sun's original, adolescent runtime and libraries.

Since the appearance of .Net, I've been mourning the loss of Java. It's brilliant for server use, I quite like the language -- and the present broad, industrial-strength API set is an unprecedented joy in the history of code. But if it can't move beyond servers, it will fade to competition. And Sun has been responsible for its failure on both browser and desktop, via petty and (ultimately) self-destructive behavior. Further, Sun has assured the bifurcation of a unifying technology, and rejected technical advances, important enough to real projects, to excite (Mono, dotGNU) the open source crowd.

There is one possibility. IBM wrests away control of Java, open sources their JVM (let the porting begin!) and makes a real push for the efficiencies and rounded APIs required of desktop use. In the same way latest Mozilla might have a fighting chance by virtue of solid implementation of standards, huge platform diversity and malleable component use for other development.

It'll never happen. [jeremiahcode]

I agree, Sun will open source Java over the company's dead body. I recall reading on CNet that the Sun strategy is basically to use Java as a way to get into enterprises, and then try to sell Solaris as the platform that Java runs best on - though that claim may be dubious, it probably works well enough. So there's a distinct advantage to retaining control of Java, because without that control, the Solaris argument falls apart. The infuriating thing about everyone involved (MS, IBM, Sun, and the rest) is the cynical way they manipulate the term "Open Source" - they're all for open sourcing other people's intellectual property.

I thought that the ZDNet article made the very interesting point that .NET might never have come to be if Java had been open sourced. I've always thought that MS created the CLR, CLI, and C# simply because Sun had made it impossible to continue doing Java. Whether or not Sun's legal arguments had any merit, that was their net effect.