[ Thanks to Rachel
Greenham for this link. ]
“Sun and Inprise have today released a new version of a 1.2.2
JDK for Linux, arguably trampling all over the good work done by
the Blackdown Team….”
“Firstly, it’s good to see that Sun are taking the need and
demand for Java on Linux seriously at last. Linux is now hitting
the big time in the commercial internet server market, and so, for
that matter is Java; the combination is compellingly attractive,
and the existence of good Java support for Linux is becoming
important for the corporate acceptance of both….”
“But it threatens to leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The
volunteer Blackdown team have worked long and hard before Linux hit
the prime time to bring the Java port to its current state. It
would be nice for them to get some proper recognition for their
efforts. Sun and Inprise in their announcement give the clear
impression that their JDK is a new product, a collaboration between
themselves, but even a cursory look through the READMEs in the
distribution show the names and work of the Blackdown team. What
has clearly happened is that Sun and Inprise together have taken
the Blackdown team’s work up to a fairly recent stage, and
developed it further themselves. Now they release, with much
fanfare, their new JDK with no mention or credit given to the
Blackdown team.”