Simon on IT Conversations

July 6, 2007 2:10 am General

Simon’s bang on, as usual, in his interview on IT Conversations. On talking about Jonathan’s recent invitation for dinner –

I actually think that approach is a really good approach. If I look back to the status of the Java platform with Debian 2 years ago there was a great deal of mistrust, and there was all sorts of antagonism taking place. Much of it was based on the fact that people weren’t talking to each other. The seeds of the OpenJDK being GPL were laid in the fact that we had conversations between the different players. So, one of the things that I did right at the start of that process was fly to Amsterdam and go have breakfast with one of the leaders with the free Java community, and ask him ‘Why he hated us?’, and try and sort through what the problem was. He explained what the problems were and I could say that there were some good faith failures that Sun had there.

Identifying one of the things that Sun is really getting right these days. There’s a lot of dialogue going on, and a lot of listening. It’s all very encouraging generally.

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