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Java goes GPL

Sun has finally confirmed the rumors. Java will be released under GPL v2 with the Classpath exception as detailed here. I'm not all that crazy about the GPL choice but I understand the rationale. It most likely is in Java's best interest as the GPL will prevent malicious forks. I would've preferred the CDDL or a BSD/ASL license due to my own anti-GPL leanings. Even the LGPL might've been a better choice. Either way, though, this is a great move for the Java community over all. I think there will still be some hand wringing about the viral nature of the GPL and such but now that Java is truly (or at least will be very soon) perhaps the the FSF and Richard Stallman can shut it about the Java Trap. And perhaps we can finally start addressing speed concerns in the collections classes, for example. But as pointed out on the TSS thread, the TCK really needs to be opened up so that contributors can test their changes before submission. Perhaps that's in the works as well. I haven't seen anything on that point. It's a good day for Java, though.

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The JasperReports book lives!

Thanks to all those who replied.  The survey convinced the publisher that there was indeed sufficient interest, so we'll keep plugging away on the book.  We're having to do a little restructuring due to some logistic issues on the back end, but we hope to have the book finished by December, to print by January, and on shelves by JavaOne.  Of course, those are "just deadlines" and things like this tend to slip, but we're going to give it our best shot.  Thanks again to all who replied.  Check back here and on Manning's site as the day approaches for updates.

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gosling no longer needs 1.6

In one of the most heart wrenching svn commits I've ever made, I removed the 1.6 dependency from gosling. ;) As I outline here, most of this started out as an excuse to play with 1.6. But that dependency, will limit gosling's adoption for the next few years so I decided to remove it. I'm not doing any 1.6 based projects either so the likelihood of using my own tool was pretty limited. And that's a shame, because that API makes it very, very clean. The ant approach is not very clean or fun to read through but that's what I'm using at the moment. Once the open sourcing of 1.6 is done, I'll look into backporting that API if the licensing permits that. It's just too convenient.

So now that that's out of the way, I can focus on things like building a formal binary distribution and rounding out the available task list. I'll start entering tickets into the tracker for those curious enough to follow along. I'd really like to get to the dependency resolution but I think some of these basic tasks should take precedence.

If you've held off from trying gosling because of the 1.6 requirement, now you don't have to. I'd love to hear what you think.