Sun and Real Time Java Group to meet to discuss standards

December 22, 1998 — In an effort to patch up differences with vendors on the issue of standards, Sun Microsystems is set to get together in January with a group of disaffected vendors that have formed their own real-time Java standards body.

Sun will attend the Real Time Java Working Group’s meeting in San Diego January 12-15, and answer questions about its new Community Source licensing plan for Java, according to members of the working group, which include Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

For users, the issue is whether Java and related technology — the Java virtual machine, and the Java Developers Kit — will adhere to a common set of standards and live up to its promise of providing an applications development and deployment platform that works across different operating systems.

But whether the January meeting between Sun and the working group will lead to a meeting of minds about the Java standards-development process is a big question.

The Community Source licensing model was announced in early December at Java Business Expo in response to criticism about Sun’s control over the development process for Java specifications. Members of the working group, for example, had been trying to get Sun to open up the process by which specifications for APIs are created.

But companies have questions about details of the plan, which they hope the January meeting will resolve, according to working group members.

“We’ll be listening open-mindedly to what Sun has to say,” said James Bell, general manager of HP’s Embedded Software Operation. Bell was careful to say he spoke for only HP’s embedded group, which has its own Chai line of tools for embedded systems and is distinct even from HP’s real-time group.

“If Sun has new things to say I think that would be helpful. The proposal that they published on the Web concerning their standards is a step in the right direction but it’s far, far inadequate,” Bell said.

Sun could not immediately be reached for comment.

No one wants Java to splinter into non-compatible versions, members of the working group said. Sun had a teleconference with the working group last week, and is set to have another one Wednesday, to pave the way for the meeting in January.

“No one wants the Balkanization of Java to happen,” said Bruce Khavar, president of Cyberonix, a member of the working group based in Berkeley, CA.

In fact, even right after the formation of the splinter group in early November, there was always good will on the part of most group members to work with Sun and ensure that applications would run smoothly across different Java virtual machines from various vendors, according to several working group members.

“The fact is most people in the community think it would really be stupid to have different standards in the same area,” said Ron Kole of AverStar, in Burlington, MA, another working group member.

Java creator James Gosling will attend the January meeting to discuss the technical aspects of the development of the Java language going forward, noted Cyberonix’s Khavar. But it’s the business side, and aspects of creating different Java virtual machines, that might prove more problematic, he said.

“There are still a lot of questions about licensing, when you pay Sun royalties, intellectual property rights, and so forth, that people still don’t have a comfort level with,” Khavar said.

Sun said the new Community Source licensing model allows companies to modify and share Java source code without charge or intervention from Sun — and pay Sun only when they sell products based on the modified code. Sun is also allowing third parties to work on committees charged with developing Java API specifications for certain areas such as real-time applications.

But Sun is going to have a lot of explaining to do. Although the working group does not want to see Java-related technology split up among various vendors factions, if Sun’s new proposal does not satisfy members of the group they will continue to pursue establishing Java standards outside of Sun’s new scheme. The working group one month ago tried to get the National Committee for Information Technology Standardization (NCITS) to examine its effort in hope of gaining the body’s support, and NCITS has responded by saying it would examine the general issue of embedded real-time standards.

“Currently the vast majority of the companies in the real-time working group prefer to continue going the way they’re heading, which is the proposal they made to NCITS … to move forward under a proven vendor-neutral standards organization,” HP’s Bell said.