The sun will rise

Here in New Zealand the sun rises a little sooner than it does in the rest of the world. So we were lucky enough to learn a few hours before the official announcement that Sun was going to release Java under the GPL v2.

And so we have pondered and discussed this move a little longer than others in the world. We have looked into the entrails, thrown and examined the lie of the bones.

I myself have gazed deeply into a crystal ball, and based on the astral projections I saw within I can reveal the following future: The Mono crew, those fine purveyors of .net to the free software masses, will soon wake up, smell the coffee (ah, that fine Java aroma) and realise that they can replace their virtual machine with the Java one.

This will free them up to concentrate on getting the .net v2 framework up and running on whatever platform the JVM supports just that little bit sooner, with just that little less effort. Thus .net and Java applications will be able to run cheek by jowl on the same virtual machine, able to use each others classes.

Microsoft will spit tacks, but they have just signed an agreement with Novell (the backers of Mono) that hinders their ability to do anything about this [Sun <-> Eric Schmidt <-> Novell. I have to wonder if one of the signatories to this agreement knew a little more than they let on?]

Soon JRuby will soon be running Rails on the JVM. And so in my divination I see Rails, C#, Windows Forms, and more, all bundled on my Linux box and running seamlessly together. A future in which Java developers can create code that is widely reused,  a future in which a growing number of libraries of free components can be used seamlessly together. Dare I say a future that will change and challenge SOA?

Now if I could just find someone to cross my palm with silver!

What ever future holds I don't think that there has been a better time to be a Java developer. I am certain that this move will change the development landscape, and I believe that Sun are to be congratulated on their courage in taking this step.

9:47:51 AM