Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/22/motorola_to_open_source_java/
Motorola looks to accelerate moves to open source Java
Steps offer promise of unified J2ME environment
Posted in Mobile, 22nd May 2006 09:38 GMT
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As Sun's new CEO, former software chief Jonathan Schwartz, settles into his new role, it can be expected that the company's key software asset, Java, will take centre stage.
Already, Schwartz has promised to put more of Java into the open source process, something that could solidify the software platform's position as the dominant download and development system for mobile platforms. However, the mobile programmer community remains ambivalent about whether open source will boost J2ME innovations or increase its greatest weakness, fragmentation between different implementations.
Whatever the merits of openness, the handset vendors are determined to promote it, even ahead of the Sun agenda, and Motorola is promising open source Java tools and functionality this year as part of its new Motodev initiative.
Nokia, up till now the greatest supporter of mobile Java - partly as an element of its battle with Microsoft and Windows Mobile - is also stepping up its moves toencourage developers and has also announced new Java technology that enhances the ability to support service oriented architectures, and integration with legacy applications, on handsets.
But creating a uniform platform remains the major challenge for J2ME, and its greatest critical success factor.
One of the signal failures of Scott McNealy's leadership of Sun Microsystems must surely be the failure to leverage the key asset of Java technology to create a strong commercial model. While IBM and a host of smaller players have cashed in on Java, Sun has suffered from its ambivalence about how open to make the software platform, and the weakness of many of its products in the marketplace.
In the mobile market, where Java J2ME has built an almost unassailable position as the key software environment for high end handsets, Sun has been even more strongly sidelined by vendors and operators, from Nokia to Vodafone, that have driven the process.
The accession to the Sun CEO role last month of Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's most senior software executive, promised a more creative strategy on Java, and the new chief has not disappointed so far, making the strongest promises so far to put most of Java into the open source process (though no firm timescales have emerged). Seizing the opportunity, the handset giants are stepping up their own efforts to push the J2ME agenda forward.
Motorola
Motorola is leaping ahead of Sun in embracing open source Java, claiming this will speed development time for new applications and drive innovation.
The main weakness of J2ME has been its fragmentation, since slightly different approaches have been adopted by each handset architecture, and Motorola believes an open source approach will help counter this by uniting the developer community.
Motorola Mobile Devices senior director and chief architect Mark Van den Brinksaid: "We can make the platform more unified and reduce fragmentation in the market...Motorola hopes to accelerate that exchange and contribute to the open mobile development effort by providing a catalyst for greater mobile adoption."
The company has kicked off its effort by launching opensource. motorola.com, a new resource aimed at sharing source code and original open source projects, as well as ideas and information with open source developers globally.
The site features source code, including kernel and drivers, for Motorola's Linux-based devices. Java test frameworks and sample test cases also are featured and the phone giant plans to add code, documents and specifications for Motorola-led Java Specification Requests (JSRs), such as MIDP 3.0 (Mobile Information Device Profile).
This is part of the newly launched Motodev program, designed to catch up with Nokia’s recent efforts to encourage developers to its platforms and create a programmer community with the same potential scope as Microsoft’s in Windows/.Net.
Nokia
Meanwhile, Nokia announced the availability of new Java technology for handsets, introduced in the Java Community Process, the semi-open structure that introduces new functions to the Java platforms.
The latest introduction allows developers to use service oriented architectures, which should ease integration with other mobile and non-mobile applications, using web services, and support plug and play components that can be easily installed and managed on the handset, as required.
The push for open source Java has not been uniform in the mobile community, however, with some developers believing it will increase rather than mitigate the fragmentation problem. Sun has been under increasing pressure for at least three years from other vendors, led by IBM, to open source Java and such a move will certainly accelerate growth in the market and score significant points against the king of unpopular licensing, Microsoft.
But this is a complex issue and one that is too easily clouded by the self-interest of the large vendors involved. IBM and others resent that they have contributed to Java technology over the years without reward; Sun has claimed Java is the company's software franchise, and you don't give away the franchise. After all, Java lies in a long Sun tradition of creating superior technology and then seeking to license it into being a de facto standard.
And open source is not a cure-all – especially not in a mobile world used to dealing with the tightly closed environments of the operators. The success of an open Java would depend on the structure and discipline of the governing body and on ensuring that the software did not become even more susceptible than it already is to inconsistencies and fragmentation.
In the smartphone market, this latter would sound a death knell. The operators have little interest in software technologies, provided developers can provide them with applications that fulfil three key criteria – swift time to market, simple portability over the whole portfolio of phones, efficiency of download. None of these are possible with a fragmented platform.
The current half-hearted openness satisfies nobody. Many companies take part in the Java Community Process that governs development of Java, submitting proposals and code to improve the platform, but smaller developers feel excluded from this process and the final decisions still rest with Sun.
Open source moves
Sun has made some hesitant moves towards openness, notably in 2001 when it set up Project JXTA, a set of Java-based, open source peer-to-peer protocols that allow cellphones, PDAs and other connected devices to communicate.
But although there are 16,000 developers in the JXTA community, it remains just a subset of Java and similar moves have not been made in other areas of the platform.
There are independent open source initiatives working in Java, such as Apache's Jakarta Project, which maintains open source, Java-based solutions such as the web applications framework Struts; and the JBoss Java application server.
In 2002, open source bodies such as Apache Foundation were permitted to implement a JSR without being constrained by the reference implementation and, for the first time, to submit APIs to the JCP for possible inclusion in future releases. But amendments that go through the JCP, called JSRs, do not have to have an open source implementation – often because they incorporate their sponsors'patents.
But moves towards greater openness have been hesitant at best and control rests firmly with Sun, which hovers in a halfway house between being just the sponsor of the technology and being a competitor with other makers of real Java-based products.
However, it is a myth that all developers and software houses favour open source J2ME. In the fast moving mobile world, the main fear is of anything that slows down or confuses Java and so makes it less appealing to the operators. Surveys of phone-based games creators show most would prefer Java to remain closed, feeling that Sun's control results in a higher quality, more consistent platform.
If the real issue for the vendors is control, the real issue for developers is uniformity, without which they will struggle to achieve mass market in the mobile world. The JCP has not been wholly effective at creating a single platform, and this will be more important – along with attractive pricing – in making Java dominant on all types of phones, than open source in its own right.
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