http://www.infoq.com/news/2006/11/open-source-java

It has finally happened. Sun today announced that Java SE, Java ME, and Glassfish are being open sourced under the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2) with Sun today releasing an early build of the Java SE 7 HotSpot JVM, the javac compiler, and JavaHelp in the new OpenJDK project at Java.NET which will be the project site for future JDK development, releases, bug fixes, etc.  The fully buildable Java SE 7 JDK classlibraries will be available in Q1 2007.

GPL seems like a good choice if you’re going after bundling on Linux.  I can’t help but think that Apache would have been a better alignment though – I think Sun still seems very focused on the desktop and beating out Microsoft.  This seems to be positioning Java to compete more heads on with Mono which Novell has been pushing and which seems to be gaining traction in the GNOME crowd.

Seems like partnering with the ASF would have been the best way to build a strong community around Java though…

YourMinis is a Flash-based customizable homepage product that will compete for users with a number of similar products that use Ajax – Netvibes, Pageflakes, Google, Live.com and more. This was launched by a startup called Goowy, which created a flash-based productivity suite (email, calendar, IM, etc.) last year – see here for our Goowy coverage.

Actually, personalized portals might be the perfect use case for Flash UI.  Google-ability of personalized content isn’t as large a concern in most instances (especially if your data is confidential, so protected with a username/password). Back/forward navigation isn’t well supported in a lot of scenarios anyway too with the possible interdependencies of state. The same requirements that have made AJAX such a portal buzzword seem like they would contribute in this case. hmm…

Rutgers Defense Comes up Big Listened to Rutgers take down Louisville in a come from behind win last night. Have to say, for a Rutgers Alum who remembers going to games and watching students stream out at the end of the 1st Quarter when we were already trailing by 20 pts. this is pretty incredible. For all the comments people have made about budget cuts and gripes about continued funding of football, it’s clear that Greg Schiano has done an impressive job building a winning program, while also pulling Rutgers Football to near the top of Div 1-A scholastically too. It’s nice to see that even with tight financial times, we can still support people’s accomplishments. Go RU!

George Lindholm wrote:

I’m starting some work on the UBC Webmail channel as part of our 2.0.3 to 2.5.x upgrade project.

George — I’ve responded inline to get notes on the list, there’s a blog version of this online at: which has pictures which is probably much simpler to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

Rutgers has a significantly enhanced a local fork of UBC_Webmail whose enhancements we’ve always been interested in working back into head for a while (never have enough time or people though). Our philosophy has been to try to deliver a fast, intuitive mail client which is optimized for casual email usage. Continue Reading »