A group led by Clay Shirky and Tim O’Reilly has issued a challenge to the manufacturers of Intel-compatible personal computers. It’s a direct result of two events — Microsoft’s supposed liberalization of its licensing practices, allowing PC makers more flexibility in what they can put on their desktops; and Microsoft’s announcement this week that it’s removing Java support from the next version of Windows it ships.
The challenge will be simple. Backers, of whom I’m one, will request that the PC makers bundle the latest Java Runtime Environment (JRE) with their computers.
This is a move with little or no cost for the OEMs but tremendous potential benefits for their customers. Microsoft is trying to reduce diversity in computing. Java is one way to maintain the little that’s left, and maybe grow it.
I haven’t seen the final draft of the challenge the participants are issuing to the PC makers, but the one I did see notes that thousands of Java programmers have already written software that runs in multiple environments. Much of this is server software, but given the degree to which PCs are starting to act like servers this is a distinction that matters less every day. The draft says:
It is essential that a Java Virtual Machine continue to be an integral part of the basic installation of all personal computers.
In the end, Microsoft may have done PC users a favor. PCs today are bundled with Microsoft’s polluted version of Java. If the PC makers can agree to accept the latest JRE, which Sun and Java supporters — IBM among them — have been upgrading, we might see a time when we have a consistent Java environment on new PCs.
This will be a test of the manufacturers. If they’re truly out from under the thumb of Microsoft, they’ll do this. If they are not, they won’t.
UPDATES:
Dave Winer doesn’t buy it. He writes, in an e-mail:
I totally disagree with Dan’s conclusion.
What if I said the best thing that could happen to all of us is a complete
backoff of all the bundling beyond what’s specified in the W3C definition of
the Web. Take Flash out. Take Java out. Take all the weird plug-ins out.
Just a pure Web, without any marketing schemes and industry warfare. (And
while you’re at it spin the browser out of Microsoft.)Is that worth thinking about?
As a person who creates software for the Internet, I think it is.
And as a person who writes for the Internet, I like it.
It got too complicated. Let’s simplify.
Goodbye Java in the browser.
Clay Shirky responds:
It is worth thinking about, of course, but where I think I disagree is doing it in half steps. I’d be happy to see a clean W3C browser, if you also took the step of spinning the browser of MSFT. A clean browser without taking the steps you outlined in your earlier piece about browser competition seems to give MSFT more leverage, since they can load all the installers in the OS, while the Adobe’s and Macromedias of the world can’t.
Allowing every user to decide to install PDF support individually, in
other words, might make sense, but only if no one data format has any
advantage over any other.
Dave responds to that:
What’s really interesting is that the technology has advanced to make this kind of stuff really easy.
Microsoft does updating over the network now. UserLand has been doing it for
three years. Red Hat has been quietly rebuilding their software distribution
network around XML-RPC. The art here has quietly been advancing. We can make
it easy for you to jump from one world to another, without forcing the kind
of integration that happened in the last few years. We can build better user
experiences with the new power we have.Macromedia should do a browser around Flash, defining a Web that is totally
high production value. I’ve been saying that to them since Flash came out.
Yes they want to be in the browser, but I want them out. It’s jarring to hit
the Flash web through the HTML web. Flash defines a commercial Web, no doubt
some people are interested in it. It’s like having a circus clown at a
symphony sometimes. I’m busy thinking and some freakin ad starts yelling at
me. Hellp.Likewise there should be a PDF web, and I want to do an outline web. The key
is being able to transition. No mysteries there. My email client knows how
to open a URL on the web. There’s no reason the Web can’t open a Flash
movie, an outline, or a Java applet — without having the runtime
pre-installed, and that includes the HTML browser.It’s a fluid time now. Remember a couple of weeks ago how unthinkable it
would have been that MS would let people see the source of .NET. I think
it’s so fluid that we could really change things for the better.
Brett Glass asks: “Why not ask manufacturers to bundle Opera? It comes with the latest JRE.”