Sun refuses to be 'Eclipse'd

BANGALORE: Collaborate is the key word for Jeff Jackson, Vice President, Java

and Developer Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems this year. As Sun 'opens' up

more and more of its initiatives this year including Java with Project Harmony

and with OpenSolaris planned next month, he is convinced that the company's

growth will be driven by increased sharing among people from all over the world.

In an interview with Sathya Mithra Ashok and Priya Padmanabhan, Jackson talks on

the future of Java and Sun's hand in it.

Excerpts.

There was talk about a year back on Sun joining the

Eclipse initiative, but nothing came out of it. Is Sun still contemplating the

idea?

No, we will not be doing that now. With the Java Community Process (JCP) we

believe that people who work on these have a choice. NetBeans is the number two

choice for a whole lot of Java developers and that's because we offer a value

proposition. It is not about religion — it is about what kind of a problem

exists and what will make a right choice to solve that problem. Now people can

choose between NetBeans and Eclipse and choice spurs competition. It will

produce good solutions in both tools. And that's the way it will stay.

With all these initiatives to make more products from Sun

opensource, do you think the company is answering the fear of many that

Opensource means nobody to turn to?

I think so, yes. Each opensource culture is different and for some it just

doesn't work. As far as Sun is concerned, we want to keep the essence of

opensource but also ensure that it sticks to certain standards. Of course, we

will be criticized for that too. But we ensure that at the end of the day there

is somebody to come back to. For that of course we have to ensure that it keeps

moving forward and we prefer to follow a moderated approach. Some people have

complaints about that, but then nobody has done something like Java either.

How

do you see India fitting into your overall Java collaboration effort?

India has a huge Java expertise and they can build themselves an edge if they

can only come out, share and collaborate. Everybody these days have to get into

the game or take a backseat. And everyone of the countries will contribute in

different ways. Brazil, for example, is all out for Java but it will contribute

in a way different from other countries.

The only common factor is that for all engineers it's the problem solving

idea of the effort. Its like a puzzle that they got to solve. And that is the

center of everything. There are other attributes like career and money, which

are given different priorities by various people, but they are secondary to the

problem solving allure. That's what is globally common.

How

do you see Java changing over the next ten years?

Java started out in days when nobody was thinking about servers. J2SE now has

the widest range of developers. It has helped all of us move forward an immense

amount and has started in many ways an evolutionary process. Now we are starting

to put Java in devices like cell phones and cards. Gaming is also becoming an

interesting area. And as each of these new steps are taken they spawn their own

sub-segments which leads to more implementations and growth within Java.

The important thing is to continue fostering

innovation. I like surprises. Growth will be focused but I am sure a lot of

things will come up as we go along. In the near future, I see more real time

stuff coming out from Java and more business orientation. Java will make those

processes a success, just like it made Web Services a success.