I just read this short opinion piece: "Linux and Java--a tale of two revolutions" by Prashant L. Rao. His entire premise is that Java has failed and Linux is a success and it's all due to the Open Source process. I hate it when zealots proclaim that their way is better because of this, with no proof to back it up.

I don't even think that Linux has succeeded yet. It has a lot of press coverage, and it's used in a measurable portion of servers. But does it even have 5% of the server market? And I'll be unfair by not counting the multitude of amateurs who install it for personal use. Linux is the fastest growing server OS, but it's got such a small share that anything will make it jump. A high delta doesn't make it the superior OS.

Java, because Sun recently decided not to submit it to ECMA and because IBM is not pursuing J2EE certification, is painted as a loser. Like I care whether it becomes a formal language. The fact is that there are more Java programmers now than there are Linux programmers, and that's where the battle is for Java. And because Java has "failed" this is another fact to support the superiority of Open Source over the more conventional and proprietary approach.

Sun just released a statement saying they will charge a 3% royalty fee for J2EE certification. And at first I thought that it was a bad idea. Now I'm not even too sure how Sun will actually handle that. It can't be just software sales, since that is such a small part of the total package for an enterprise application, which is what J2EE covers. Our software sells for 1/3 list once the haggling is done. Consulting and support fees is where the real revenue comes from.

I don't know what Sun's Java strategy is, and maybe they don't know either. I would think that they'd want as many programmers as possible to use it. Trying to get licensing fees may be detrimental to that goal. To me, the goal is to get all the Windows programmers -- heck, all the programmers -- to use a standard Java. If Sun makes sure that Java runs well on Solaris and it is truly platform independent, then all the code that people write for Windows or the Mac OS or other Unixes will run unmodified on Solaris, ideally.

Make application availability not be dependent on the platform and you'll open up the race to all platforms based on their OS and Java performance. Sun can win that easily. They have a great OS in Solaris and they own Java. It's not that simple of course. Windows wins because it's cheaper to buy the OS and the hardware, but it also wins because it has so much software being written for it. Sun can even up the software gap with Java, they can even up the hardware gap since they already have a Solaris version for Wintel machines, if that Solaris version were cheaper then they'd be in great shape to beat Microsoft.

I don't particularly like Open Source. I don't want 100 random people writing the software I use. Especially the kind of people that I went to school with. There's a lot more to writing software than making something cool that only experienced people can use. Usability and ease of use are just as important to me.

Oh well. Random musings on a subject I'm not really fervent about. I'll still use Apple machines and an Apple written OS, no matter what it happens to be. I'll pay a lot more for that little logo because I know that Apple makes good products; not always successful, but well designed, easy to use, and rather elegant.