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the Software View: Java says, "Open Sesame!".

Welcome back, gentle readers. Your intrepid reporter and faithful correspondent has been surveying the entire expanse of the software industry. All in an effort to bring the latest news to you.

For those of you with Internet and World Wide Web access and a Netscape Navigator web browser, please point your browser to:
http://www.softwareview.com/
Scroll down the page and you will spy a link entitled, "Current views web log (fresh news daily! Click reload, clear the browser cache)" The daily news page is also known as a "web log". It is en vogue and the fashion of these days to call it that. Click on the link, click "reload" on your browser or clear your browser cache to ensure that you always receive the freshest, hottest daily news concerning Java, Linux, XML, and the software industry! The link never changes, but I will be updating the HTML file page behind it every day. Please, do take a gander at it every day.

Also, some important news, gentle readers. the Software View is now an Associate Internet World Wide Web site of Amazon.com. I would like to extend my sincere, heartfelt gratitude and thanks for your patronage. I am offering links to books, et cetera that you can purchase from my web site. I would greatly appreciate it if you would purchase software industry books from my web site. Help support my newsletter and web site by purchasing items from Amazon.com from my web site. Here is the URL (Uniform Resource Locator):
Click here

Now, dear readers, on with this week's episode of the Software View!

Did Microsoft commit accounting fraud? Microsoft's former chief of internal audits, Charlie Pancerzewski, accuses the company of cooking its books. Most shocking of all was what happened to Pancerzewski when he reported the suspicious bookkeeping to his supervisors in the spring of 1995. Soon afterward, Pancerzewski - who for nearly five years had received stellar performance evaluations - received his first-ever unsatisfactory one, and was eventually forced to resign. Two months ago, Microsoft quietly settled a lawsuit containing these allegations, filed in 1997 by Pancerzewski under the Whistleblowers Protection Act. The auditor claimed he was wrongfully terminated after telling his supervisors that Microsoft might be breaking securities and tax laws. US District Judge Carolyn Dimmick found credible evidence that Microsoft may have violated SEC rules. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft and Pancerzewski settled out of court. Terms of the agreement were sealed, but one source who claims familiarity with the case says that Microsoft paid Pancerzewski $4 million United States dollars.
Click here

The e-mail security of Microsoft's Hotmail is a joke! Microsoft Hotmail accounts are easily accessed by hackers. Hotmail is still extremely vulnerable to hackers who try to gain access to other people's email accounts. All it takes is a URL and the user whose email they want to read to be logged in. Sneaking the right URL out of Hotmail's database is easy and can be done at any time with only the user name of the account-to-be-hacked. The problem is that Microsoft Hotmail uses neither HTTP authentication nor cookies to ensure an account is accessed only from the computer that originally logged in to the account. Here is the URL:
Click here

Here is a fantastic resource for Java software design engineers. Here is the URL:
the JavaVision newsfeed

A reader of mine, Joe Gilbreth, sent me an e-mail with two points: lower hardware costs will result in lower software costs and that some software companies actually tolerate and even encourage software piracy, in order to expand their user base. Joe, I believe that you are absolutely correct. One company that is definitely not following the encourage software piracy model is Microsoft. I believe that their increasingly vehement and mindless enforcement of software licenses, aided by the Business Software Alliance, will only spur more companies to adopt Linux and move to open-source software. Think about it. Would you be willing to risk the economic livelihood of your enterprise on the outside chance that some employee might have accidently copied commercial software?

Another reader of mine is Bill James, a 1972 West Point graduate. He has started a software company called JIT Corp. in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their product is called WebClerk and its purpose is to annihilate the need to fax documents as we know them today. Please peruse their web site at:
Click here

Another of my readers is Tom Giboney, another 1972 West Point graduate. He runs a dynamic business networking concern in Texas called CyberCommerce. The URL is:
Click here

Now this new software looks interesting!
Click here

Here is a funny link! Click this URL:
http://www.retards.com/

Now, dear readers, on with this week's episode of the Software View!

"Sun was way too scared of Microsoft, and as a result they created a contract that didn't help them. Java is in the die-back stage -- it's going into niche markets."

No less a software industry luminary than Linux creator Linus Torvalds spoke the above quote at the Oracle Open World conference on November 11th of the year 1998. Torvalds is the very personification of the open-source software movement. And his quote bespeaks a damning and profound question: Did Sun Microsystems' control of Java prevent the software technology platform from achieving even more success than it already has? Sun is also consistently and notoriously late in releasing timely upgrades to Java.

Open-source is basically software developed by widespread collaborating programmers, using freely distributed source code and the communications facilities of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is software developed and distributed in an open manner. The Internet is awash in open-source software. There are thousands of open-source projects, each incorporating the work of many developers. Here are some of the most important:

Linux, OpenBSD, the Free Software Foundation's GNU programming tools, Perl, tcl, Python, the Apache web server, the Mosaic Internet web browser, the Samba file and print technology, Sendmail, Mozilla, the B News package for Usenet, Fetchmail, GIMP, patch, CVS, qmail, and BIND.

Open-source software is easily customizable, is more reliable, robust, stable, less expensive and less buggy because source code is available for massive independent peer review. More programmers create software quicker and with lower overhead cost. New software is developed in a tight feedback loop with customer demand, without distortions caused by marketing clout or top-down purchasing decisions. Sharing source code facilitates creativity. And worthy projects need not be orphaned when a programmer moves on. With the source code available, others can step in and take over. Customers are finally granted true choice and competition, and are freed from oppressive software licenses. The ability of open-source to collect and harness the collective IQ of millions of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing. Open-source searches for optimal solutions and lowers the barriers to entry. Unencumbered by commercial concerns, the open-source community focuses on writing the best code possible. Open-source draws from the highest IQ's on the Internet, who compete in a friendly way to have their ideas incorporated into the product. In the open-source world, respect is the only form of currency.

Riding the wave of open-source, companies like Transvirtual Technologies, with its Kaffe virtual machine, and grass-roots organizations like the Hungry programmers, with their Japhar virtual machine, are throwing the open-source gauntlet down at Sun's feet. How will Sun respond?

A related aspect of the open-source movement is free. Well, first of all, the Java Development Kit is freely downloadable. The Java Runtime Environment is freely available to be incorporated into any software product. Sun also supplies to universities, colleges, and primary/secondary schools at no charge, unlimited site licenses for many of Sun's popular software products written in or using the Java software technology platform.

Sun has opened up the source code to its Jini spontaneous networking technology. Sun has also opened up the Java standardization process to non-licensees. Non-Java licensees can help define new Java API's across the spectrum of Java classes. Businesses can use and modify, without charge, the Java source code for commercial software development. Anyone is allowed to make enhancements to the Java source code without turning those enhancements over to Sun; thus, intellectual property rights are maintained. Businesses can modify and freely share compatible source code with other businesses. Sun also gives licensees the right to package Java platform class libraries with virtual machines from other licensees. Sun has also stopped collecting up-front licensing fees from companies that want to use Java. Sun is also allowing companies to make modifications to four base Java class libraries: io, net, lang, and util. Sun has also announced the free licensing and public availability of source code for the award-winning Java WorkShop development environment. The above technologies, PersonalJava, and EmbeddedJava are all covered under an agreement called the SCSL (Sun Community Software License). It is also rumored that Sun is planning on making the source code to its Solaris computer operating environment freely available as open-source.

Sun also announced widespread support for the open-source Linux operating system on its UltraSPARC hardware line. Bill Joy, Sun's Chief Scientist, has said, "Most of the bright people don't work for you - no matter who you are. You need a strategy that allows for innovation occurring elsewhere." Sun has followed the Linux model, made a play for ubiquity, and unleashed innovation within the Java community. By opening up the Java source code, Sun has enabled the next great garbage collection algorithm to possibly emerge from some teenager in Ireland, Japan, or elsewhere around the world.

If anyone questions Sun's commitment to Linux, let me provide the following information. Sun has given a special early access source code license of the Java 2 software technology platform to the Blackdown Java-Linux porting team. Sun has provided two software engineers, who have joined the porting effort and answer technical questions. Sun has provided a JIT (just-in-time compiler) binary to Blackdown that works on Intel's x86 microprocessor instruction set. Sun has provided a JCK (Java Compatibility testing Kit) to test the Java-Linux JDK (Java Development Kit) and to ensure that it passes all of Sun's Java compatibility tests. Sun, via their two software engineers, will be able to incorporate patches and changes back into the source code tree. Sun has also provided SPARC workstations to help the port along.

When I was a young man growing up in the United States, I used to try to catch butterflies in the open meadows with a net. I would fail miserably. By moving Java to an open-source model, Sun can finally now use another 'Net to catch those butterflies in the sky.

Sincerely,
Mark Kuharich

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