Introduction
The history of Java is inextricably linked with the company that created it - Sun Microsystems. At the head of this campany was Scott McNealy, he, as the co-founder and future CEO of this company, did a lot to present his brainchild (company) to the whole world.
Scott McNealy, co-founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems from 1984 to 2006
And although this company had already achieved some success before releasing Java, it was still in the shadow of giants like Microsoft, Yahoo or Netscape and few knew about it.
What exactly did this company do before the first version of Java was released? It sold easily accessible workstations, servers, and equipment for them. In the era of the early Internet, this was not enough to make a name for itself. It needed a technology that would change everything. The Java programming language became all this.
As a part of “Sun Microsystems”
How it started. The Green Group, television and Netscape
It all started when Patrick Naughton got an itch and wanted to quit the NeWS window manager development and leave the company. Considering it unpromising, he said:
Patrick Naughton
And then one day, he told Scott McNealy that he was going to quit and start working on a new project called Next with Steve Jobs, with whom he got along well. McNealy calmly explained why the project would fail and offered to write him a detailed letter about what was wrong with the company and what could be done about it.
This letter was sent to all senior management, including James Gosling (Patrick's immediate supervisor and the head of the NeWS project). James liked the letter and decided to talk to Patrick about it and also invited the same "negligent" employee, Mike Sheridan.
James Gosling, the de facto father of the Java language
Mike Sheridan
Afterwards, all three of them went to the newly formed SunLab, headed by Wayne Rosing, to convince him to sponsor the project and help them set up all the workflows for the start. They succeeded and the project was named - "The Green Project". It was June 1991
The essence of this project was to create a portable device with some operating system that could interact with other devices.
And in order to implement their idea into reality, they divided the project into tasks. One of these tasks was the development of a platform-independent programming language. James Gosling took on the writing of this language and, having no idea what to call the language, called it Oak.
After two years of hard work, in March 1993, the "Green Group" demonstrated its first working prototype called Star7. For this purpose, a subsidiary, commercial company FirstPerson Incorporated was created. Created for the sole purpose of monetizing the hardware and software created by The Green Group.
Star7 prototype with some Java programs. Sorry for the shitty quality, that's all I found.
The FirstPerson research team decided to market their product on television. They offered a convenient controller for controlling their television and a programmable device for enthusiasts. Thus, giving users unprecedented freedom in consuming content. Gosling said the following:
The point is that this conglomerate needed a Full Service Network (FSN) and the corresponding hardware and software. In fact, FirstPerson had all the cards in hand to get the coveted contract. But they did not get it. Gosling said:
This can be explained by the fact that television companies wanted to retain control over what users watch and how. SGI offered this, control. But we all know what happened to television, it simply give up to the Internet, as a freer and most importantly free form of content distribution.
In 1994, FirstPerson was dissolved, and all newly recruited employees were fired. They were unable to sell their product, which left the "Green Group" with useless hardware and one, unknown programming language.
In this project, the Oak language was just a by-product. And Norton expressed the idea of publishing this language on the Internet. Rosing was against it. And because of this, they often quarreled, which eventually forced Rosing to quit in July 1994. Norton did not take long to wait and, due to his character and constant strikes with the Sun management, quit in October of the same year (1994).
From the original team, only Gosling remained, who continued to work on the language at least because he did not want to lose 4 years of his work and because he wanted his work to see the light of day. And he will see it, but under a different name - Java.
Why Java? Why not the Oak? It was all about legal formalities and trademarks. Oak was already taken and it was necessary to come up with a new name for the language.
As Gosling himself described in an interview for the book "Hign Noon. The inside story of Sun Microsystems" - it was a food fight. Several simple food options were offered and everyone was assigned a score from 0 to 10, where 10 is the most desirable. For example, "Silk" had 10 points, but Gosling didn't like it because it was associated with spiders. He himself liked the option "Lyric". A list of such names was compiled and given to lawyers so that they would choose one that would not be registered as a trademark. In the end, they chose the name Java, which had only 4 points.
Release of Java and the contract with Netscape
And so in May 1995, the alpha version of Java (JDK 1.0a) was released, and six months later, in January 1996, the first public version of Java was released. During these 7 months, an unknown programming language turned into a well-known and long-awaited hit (so far only in certain business circles, but still).
How did this happen? Maybe Sun conducted a major marketing campaign? No, it happened in May 1995 at a conference on technology, entertainment and design in Monterey. Actually, the conference was held to present a new browser called WebRunner (which would later be renamed HotJava). The main feature of this browser was animation and dynamic (moving on the screen) content.
Welcome page in WebRunner browser
As Gosling said, it (the browser) was not ready, it crashed, freeze ... in short, it was still in alpha development. But the conference was already scheduled and there was nothing to do, he had to set up, install and finish everything. For as long as 30 hours straight.
At first, no one showed much interest in another clone of the Mosaic browser. But as soon as Gosling moved the cursor to the molecule, it began to rotate. And as Gosling recalled:
And then more, they brought their audience to hysterical delight, showing an animation of the sorting algorithm. The product was sold, only not the browser, but the Java language.
After such a success, it was necessary to tell the whole world about it, or, for starters, a small local newspaper - The Mercury News. Lisa Poulson, along with Kim Polese, did just that, with the article scheduled to be published on Saturday.
Another Lisa, Lisa Friendly, was responsible for creating the Java language site. Here's what she had to say about it:
The newspaper published the article on the front page the day after the agreements were reached.
Lisa Friendly suddenly had a lot of work that needed to be done VERY quickly. That same day, the site was ready and the alpha version of Java (1.0a) could be downloaded from it.
This is what it looked like back then, the site
The Mercury News triggered an avalanche of subsequent publications and articles. It was followed by an article in Forbes ASAP (August 28, 1995), and after that by an article in the New York Times, September 24, 1995. There were many people who wanted to download and try out the new technology. In fact, there were so many of them that they had to build up additional server capacity. And this for a company that specializes in this.
This attracted the attention of the management of a project called Netscape. Only the most popular browser of that time. After negotiations between Eric Schmidt and George Paolini from Sun Microsystems, Marc Andreessen from Netscape, an agreement was reached on September 18, 1995, to integrate Java into their browser.
This is how the public history of the Java language began. The first (non-alpha) version of Java was published in January 1996. It brought not only dynamism and life to the Internet but also new ways of creating and moving content on the Internet.
The Java and the Sun Microsystems before the dotcom bubble
After the publication of the first version of Java, many new opportunities opened up for Sun Microsystems. But with great power, as we know, comes great responsibility. To whom was Sun Microsystems responsible?
First of all, to investors and their profits. Before the publication of Java, they were responsible only to them. But after the release of the first version, they also began to bear responsibility for their product, its quality and availability. Soon, two very important departments would appear in the company: JavaSoft (January 9, 1996) and the Java Community Process Program (December 8, 1998).
The first department, JavaSoft, was created to continue developing the language and creating applications in Java. A critically important department, because before the appearance of Java, Sun Microsystems almost did not develop programs.
The second department was engaged in standardizing the language itself. Moreover, Sun itself had complete control over what to implement and realize, but anyone could leave comments and suggestions. For comparison. Microsoft did not accept any comments or suggestions for the development of their programs and technologies, total control.
And now let's look at what Sun Microservices/JavaSoft was able to achieve over the next 4 years of Java development:
The image is not my, here the source -> https://web.archive.org/web/20090227013832/http://java.sun.com/features/2000/06/time-line.html
In an interview with Computerworld magazine on June 26, 2000 (page 86), reporter Carol Sliwa asked:
Here's what James Gosling had to say:
And indeed, the speed and the breadth with which Java spread were enviable, and were envied. Especially Microsoft, the arch-enemies of Sun Microsystems, as Scott McNealy himself said.
Sun Microsystems vs. Microsoft Lawsuit
What was the gist of the case? Sun Microsystems accused Microsoft of allegedly modifying Java in such a way that it was not cross-platform and did not work outside of Windows.
Stop-stop-stop. And how did Sun Microsystems allow Java to be used on Windows? Since they are such bitter enemies, why did Sun work with them at all? It's all about the market and demand. Windows then, as now, is an absolute monopoly on the OS market for personal computers.
| Windows 95 | 57.4 |
| Windows 98 | 17.2 |
| Windows NT | 11 |
| Mac OS | 5 |
| DOS | 3.8 |
| Linux | 2.1 |
| Windows 3.11 | 1.1 |
| Unix | 0.8 |
| OS/2 | 0.5 |
| Others | 1 |
| Operating system | % from PC market |
|---|
Source: International Data Corporation for the period 1999
Sun had to make a deal because it was too big a market to ignore. And in March 1996, a license agreement was signed to create an implementation of Java on Windows.
They could not live in harmony and peace with each other. And although lawyers and businessmen from Sun Microsystems tried to settle the conflict out of court, they had been trying to do this for six months, but nothing worked. As a result, in October 1997, Sun Microsystems filed a lawsuit.
Microsoft's position was that Scott McNealy had a biased attitude towards them and had always considered them their enemies. Plus, Microsoft claimed that Sun Microsystems no longer liked the signed license agreement because it did not say anything about prohibitions on modifications and improving the performance of Java for Windows. They also claimed that Java on Windows works slowly, and there are no corresponding patches or improvements.
The court ultimately sided with Sun Microsystems and in November 1998, it was decided that Microsoft must rewrite the current version of Windows and the Internet Explorer browser to comply with pure Java specifications. They were given 90 days.
Of course, Microsoft objected, citing how Java worked on their system, it worked poorly. They had another option for how to deal with Java, to develop a so-called "clean room" implementation of Java, that is, to create their own version of the programming language that would not rely on any of Sun's technologies.
The friction between these two will continue until February 19, 1999. Soon, HP will announce the creation of its own implementation of Java called Chai. They argued that for embedded systems, the Java language is too cumbersome and unwieldy, so they will implement it in a "clean room".
In general, nothing will change, Sun (and its Solaris OS) will continue to lose ground in the server part, and Windows NT will grow. Although Linux will soon destroy them both. And the subsequent dot-com bubble will seriously undermine the positions of Sun and its brainchild Java.
The Java lang. after bursed bubble and Sun Microsystems vs. Estman Kodak Lawsuit
Finally, on March 10, 2000, the bubble burst and everyone went down. At its peak, 1 share of Sun Microsystems cost $250, and after the bubble burst, its shares fell to $10 per share. This hit the company very hard. Many were laid off, entire departments were closed. But how did this affect Java and JavaSoft?
To some extent, the company itself is to blame for the fact that the bubble inflated so much. Of course, I'm exaggerating a lot, because if the people who bought .com domains en masse had put real effort into creating "real" businesses, then perhaps there would not have been a bubble.
And so, with the advent of technologies such as Java, JavaScript and the first browsers, Netscape for example, it became very easy to get into the "Internet" and people of varying degrees of marginality and greed went there. Which ultimately led to this bubble.
For many Java developers, this was a disaster, because the businesses they developed applications for went bankrupt. And they:
- Either looked for a new job in a market with an oversaturation of Java developers
- Or started their own businesses
- Or completely changed their profession
For large companies, or just companies with real business, it was necessary to reduce the staff of Java developers and close their projects.
But there was also a positive side to this crisis. Now, hype alone was not enough to make an Internet business profitable. The crisis of 2000 showed that you need to have a serious foundation and a viable business model to make money on the Internet.
Java on the Mars and more
For the next 3 years after the bubble, the company operated at a loss. They were still being sued. For example, on February 12, 2002, Eastman Kodak sued Sun Microsystems.[Link] They were suing because of patent infringement by the Java language. In general terms, Java communicated with other programs through an API without coordinating anything with the owners of these programs.
The following patents were infringed:
Here, for example, is a comment from Ken Arnold, one of the leading developers of Java:
Sun Microsystems ultimately lost. As if they didn't have enough problems already. And I want to clarify the situation in the company, up until the 2nd quarter of 2004, the company was operating at a loss. Only in mid-2004 did the rise begin.
Nevertheless, the company pulled through and even flew to Mars.
On January 4, 2004, many in NASA celebrated the successful landing of the Spirit rover on Mars. But for Java developers in general, and Sun Microsystems in particular, this was a great reason to celebrate, because the software on which the rover worked was written in Java. And this in turn became a great advertisement for the language.
And in order to avoid mistakes when moving the rover, a separate program was written (Maestro Science Activity Planner for Mars), which allowed controlling the virtual rover in the generated Martian terrain using available maps and data. And it was, by the way, publicly available.
You can access this program from the official NASA website -> https://software.nasa.gov/software/NPO-45871-1. Which, alas, I could not do. I will not dwell on this in more detail, because there is a separate article for this, go read it.
Not only Mars is one. In cooperation with NASA, many programs were written for the exploration of space and other planets, for example:
- JavaFX Deep Space Trajectory Explorer. Link to the program -> https://ai-solutions.com.
- NASA WorldWind. Link to the program -> https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/.
- JMARS and JMoon. Link to the program -> https://jmars.mars.asu.edu/download.
- Small Body Mapping Tool (SBMT). Link to the program -> http://sbmt.jhuapl.edu/.
About Java, Android and Minecraft
The next big thing for Java was the release of Google's Android. It was big because Android uses Java as its software foundation.
Android 1.0
The release of Android on September 23, 2008, did not become a life preserver, as it might have seemed. JavaScript and PHP have long and completely dominated the web. On Windows, C# and .Net platforms successfully compete with Java, it would seem that Java will die soon.
But Android provided a new mobile market, in which Java still feels like a fish in water. But Sun Microsystems had absolutely no influence on this market. It was all about the implementation of the language used by Google. And it used the "Clean Room" implementation - that is, all the basic and necessary libraries were written by Google developers themselves.
In the future, Google will have some problems related to Java - these are legal problems. In this regard, Google will develop its own language for Android development - Kotlin.
Minecraft
Another significant and visible event that I can't help but mention was the release of Minecraft. The game broke all records for popularity and was written in Java. This, of course, gave impetus to the development of Java as a programming language for game development.
Despite the fact that Java grabbed such a large and important market for mobile development, Sun Microsystems began to have serious problems, because of the economic crisis of 2008.
As a part of the “Oracle” company
Acquisition and consequences
Everything seemed great. And the company managed to overcome the previous crisis of the dot-com bubble. Here, even a major investor arrived. In January 2007, Sun reported GAAP net income of $126 million on revenue of $3.337 billion for the second fiscal quarter. Shortly after this news, it was announced that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) would invest $700 million in the company.
But the economic crisis of 2008 hit very hard. Considering that the company was still engaged in server equipment and its configuration, and it had to be somewhere, with the fall in real estate prices, server rental prices also fell significantly, and with them the company's earnings.
In the first quarter of 2008, losses amounted to $1.68 billion. The company lost 80% of its value in the year from November 2007 to November 2008. As a result, the company's value at that time was estimated at $3 billion. This was followed by massive layoffs and reductions, about 5000-6000 people.
What does this have to do with Java? Well, on April 20, 2009, it was announced that Sun Microsystems would be purchased by another company, Oracle, for $7.4 billion. The deal was completed on January 27, 2010.
As a result of this deal, Oracle acquired very important, even now, intellectual property. Here are just the most significant:
- Java programming language
- MySQL relational database [Link]
- Solaris operating system
- OpenOffice office suite
This deal caused a lot of indignation on the part of Sun Microsystems employees. In general, everyone was unhappy with the strict management style and what they were doing with the acquired property.
For example, a petition was created to save MySQL from Oracle. There were many dissatisfied people on the part of Solaris OS developers. Not only did it become paid, but almost all former employees were fired. The employees of the OpenOffice development department were also unhappy with the new management and they went to competitors - LibreOffice.
Google vs. Oracle Lawsuit
First, a little background. After Google bought Android, they wanted to add Java SE to their Android devices. Moreover, Google wanted to achieve full compatibility with the standards of those times, they did not want to rewrite the standard library from scratch (remember the "clean room").
But negotiations with Sun Microsystems, then in 2005 they still ruled the ball, did not lead to anything. And the Android development team had to rewrite the standard library.
William Alsup is the judge in the Google Inc. v. Oracle Inc case.
On August 13, 2010, Oracle sued Google for using Java libraries in violation of their license. Judge William Alsup, who was assigned to hear the case, divided the trial into three phases:
- Whether the API is licensed and the patents
- Fair use of intellectual property
- Damage
The first phase was won by Oracle. The court found that their APIs were licensed, but rejected the patent rights. The first phase lasted from 2010 to 2015
The second phase was won by Google. It was recognized that Google did not violate the "fair use" rules of the Java API. The second phase lasted from 2016 to 2021.
This trial had far-reaching consequences, not only for Java developers, but for developers in general. Two trends in the software development environment can be traced here.
Oracle and its supporters advocated strict compliance with licenses and that any API should be licensed. If Oracle had won, developers would have had many more reasons to make incompatible programs and applications.
Google supporters, on the contrary, advocated for the free use of APIs for personal and commercial purposes. On the one hand, this only contributes to the development of compatible or almost compatible programs. But on the other hand, it greatly affects the anonymity and security of the users themselves.
Google won, as far as we know. You can read about the full course of the trial here. Or read the results of this process. And we will see what else happened to Java in the recent past.
Others important changes to Java programming language
In 2019, Oracle JDK now uses the OTN license.
In 2018, Oracle decided to stop distributing Oracle JDK for free and start charging companies for commercial licenses. ONT is the Oracle Technology Network license agreement for Oracle Java SE. This means that you cannot use Oracle JDK for any data processing or any commercial, production, or internal business purposes other than developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating your application. Organizations that wanted to continue using the free version of the JDK were asked to adopt OpenJDK.
Further, in 2021, Oracle switched (or rather added) to the NFTC license.
Oracle's No-Fee Terms and Conditions license allows free use for all users, even commercial and production use. Since most other JDK distributions (such as Amazon Corretto from Amazon, Azul Zulu from Azul Systems, Eclipse Temurin from Adoptium, IBM Semeru from IBM) build their packages on top of OpenJDK, it can be said that Java is completely free to use.
I am a programmer, but not an expert in the Java language. But it is clearly going somewhere wrong or there, but not where all its users want, that is, programmers and business owners. All these changes and games with licenses, come out sideways for Oracle. Of course, it is a commercial company, and if they do not make money, they will go bankrupt. They need to monetize Java, otherwise they will have the fate of Sun Microsystems.
Decline of Java, from https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
But on the other hand, they repel many people, with such moves and performances. At one time, I decided not to connect my fate with Java, because somehow everything was dark and unclear for me. And how are things with people / businesses that depend on this technology? I'm afraid to imagine.
Conclusion
Java has an amazing history, as an example take the fact that Java is the "stepfather" of two programming languages - C# from Microsoft and Kotlin from Google. I'm not even talking about the history of the emergence of this language.
It was enjoyable for me to read and learn all the twists and turns of the language, the people who created it, and who tried to destroy it. I hope you liked it too.
The fact that Java has changed the industry and the approach to programming is a fact. For better or worse, I don't know. But I know one thing: this is not the end, and Java will definitely surprise us all in the future.
Java versions, key differences and comparison
At the moment, the latest LTS version of Java is 21. Here, I would like to describe all existing versions of Java, what is special about each of them and compare versions by popularity. But this has already been done for me, so I see no point in repeating others` work.
You can find all the necessary information on each individual version on the Java Almanac website.
Trends in the popularity of LTS versions of Java 7, 8, 11 and 17. Taken from https://newrelic.com/resources/report/2023-state-of-the-java-ecosystem
Who is who
- Scott McNealy - co-founder of the Sun Microsystems company and CEO from 1984 to 2006 year
- Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy - co-founders of Sun Microsystems
- Patrick Naughton - programmer at Sun Microsystems, initiator of publishing the Java programming language on the internet, developer of the Java language, and member of "The Green Group" initiative
- Steve Jobs - CEO of the Apple company
- James Gosling - NeWS Project Lead, Patrick Naughton's Boss, The Green Project Lead, Java Developer
- Mike Sheridan - programmer at Sun Microsystems, developer of the Java language, member of "The Green Project"
- Wayne Rosing - Head of SunLab Department
- Lisa Poulson and Kim Polese - responsible for publication and public relations
- Liza Friendly - responsible for creating a website for Java
- Marc Andreessen - founder and CEO of Netscape Corp.
- Eric Schmidt - program manager at Sun Microsystems
- George Paolini - Vice President of Technology and Marketing at Sun Microsystems
- Carol Sliwa - reporter for ComputerWorld magazine
- Bill Gates - co-founder and CEO of Microsoft from 1975 to 2008
- Ken Arnold - Java writer and editor, Java language developer
