Business Tech

BMC Software said Thursday that it is acquiring privately held Phurnace Software, which makes automation software to deploy Java applications in the enterprise.

BMC, which is a company worth monitoring in 2010, plans to take Phurnace's technology and embed it into its BMC BladeLogic automation portfolio. BMC's software is widely used to automate processes and application deployment in data centers.

Phurnace's technology will make it easy to model and deploy Java Enterprise Edition applications from the likes of Oracle's BEA, Red Hat's JBoss, and IBM's Websphere.

Read more of "BMC picks up Phurnace Software, adds Java enterprise automation to lineup" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Google, the company that made "don't be evil" its corporate motto, is shunning use of an open-source license variation that precludes use of software for evil purposes.

The matter illustrates the tensions between the sometimes free-wheeling ways of open-source programming world and the buttoned-down corporate realms where open-source software is no longer unusual. This particular issue bubbled up at Google Code, a site that hosts open-source projects from Google and others.

When he wrote JSMin, Douglas Crockford added this line to the open-source MIT License.

(Credit: Douglas Crockford)

Google only permits software governed by a limited list of widely used open-source licenses to be hosted at Google Code; one that's permitted is the MIT License. Douglas Crockford picked a variation of the MIT license for his JSMin program to shrink JavaScript programs so that Web browsers can download them faster, and Ryan Grove carried that license over for his variation called JSMin-PHP rewritten in the PHP language.

JSMin-PHP had been hosted at Google Code until earlier in December, when it came to the attention of Chris DiBona, Google's open-source honcho, that the software's license had an extra requirement added to the regular MIT License:

"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."

"As Google (and some others) interpret it, this additional requirement constitutes a vague use restriction and thus makes the license non-free. Chris [DiBona] explained that if I were to remove that line from the license and 'return to a proper open source license that we support,' then jsmin-php could stay on Google Code. Otherwise, he said, 'we can't host you,'" Grove said on his blog. "Of course, I can't change the license, because it's not my license. It's Douglas's license...All derivative works and copies of jsmin.c either include this license or are in violation of it."

Consequently, Grove moved JSMin-PHP to the GitHub collaborative programming site. "If you currently have a project on Google Code that is derived from or includes jsmin.c, you might want to consider migrating to a new host with less restrictive policies," Grove added.

How did this all come about? According to a July speech by Crockford, who works for Yahoo and describes himself as a heretic, the license was an artifact of the George Bush administration's war on "evildoers." He uses the licenses for all the projects he's created, he said.

"This was late in 2002, we'd just started the war on terror, and we were going after the evildoers with the president and the vice president, and I felt like I need to do my part," he joked. "So I added one more line to my license, which was that 'the software shall be used for good, not evil.'"

"About once a year I'll get a letter from a crank who says, 'I should have a right to use it for evil! I'm not going to use it until you change your license.' Or they'll write to me and say: 'How do I know if it's evil or not? I don't think it's evil, but someone else might think it's evil, so I'm not going to use it,'" Crockford said. His conclusion: "My license works, I'm stopping the evildoers."

He's willing to grant an exception, though, he said.

"Also about once a year, I get a letter from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company--I don't want to embarrass the company by saying their name, so I'll just say their initials: IBM--saying that they want to use something I wrote," he said. "They want to use something that I wrote in something that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. So could I give them a special license for that? Of course. So I wrote back... 'I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil.'"

These days, though, lawyers are a real force in the programming world, and I can see how the line, however jokingly it might have been added, might cause corporate indigestion. Perhaps Crockford has no intention of enforcing the license, but perhaps some contributor to a project farther down the path of derivative works might have a more humorless interpretation.

After all, there have been efforts to add political elements into open-source and free-software licensing--for example, one variation of the GNU General Public License that prohibited military use of the software. And deeply held philosophical and ethical beliefs are certainly no stranger to the open-source and free-software realm.

Even if a company, project, or individual does conclude the license isn't onerous, that extra line adds a lot of busywork to the collective and never-ending task of evaluating software. I'm all for humor, principled positions, and honest debate, but I prefer it to take place where it won't hobble some other software project's prospects.

I know I sound stuffy (or perhaps "risk-averse" and "disconnected from the community," as Aaron Boodman would have it), but I hate to see good work fall by the wayside for what seems to me a reason that's secondary at best.

Updated 1:38 p.m. PST to clarify the nature of JSMin-PHP.

The latest Opera browser preview version may not be entirely stable, but it's definitely got its jetpack strapped on. Opera 10.5 pre-alpha, for Windows and Mac, is the first browser that's not powered by Webkit to approach JavaScript rendering speeds previously reached only by Chrome and Safari.

Opera 10.5 pre-alpha introduces Windows 7 support and a slight redesign, along with a rocketing new JavaScript engine.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

In empirical testing done on an HP desktop running an Intel Core 2 Q6600 at 2.66GHz with 4GB of RAM and Windows 7 32-bit, the pre-alpha scored 435.6 milliseconds in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. By contrast, Google Chrome 4.0.266.0, the most recent development build, notched 510.4 ms. The current stable build of Opera was more than 7.5 times slower, at 3284.4 ms.

Opera attributes this dramatic improvement to the new Carakan JavaScript engine, which they have designed from scratch to replace the Futhark engine in the stable build. Opera 10.5 also includes improvements to the Presto layout engine, and a new graphics library called Vega.

Other improvements noticeable in the pre-alpha include changing the URL address bar to include the same style of predictive smart search that Firefox and Chrome have, and the search and address bars now both remember searches, support deleting specific items, and have redesigned layouts.

The main browser interface has been redone, too. The tabs are now on top, the menu bar has been minimized behind a drop-down on the left nav, and the browser has better integration with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. On Windows 7 there's Aero Peek and Jump List support to access Speed Dial and tabs from the Taskbar. For Macs, there's a unified toolbar, native buttons and scrollbars, multitouch gestures, and Growl support. Dialog boxes are now non-modal, which you means you can now switch tabs without a pop-up commanding your browser's focus, for example. This will affect verification and authentication pop-ups, and JavaScript alerts.

There are some known problems, including a lack of printer support in the Mac version and noticeably high memory usage. Users can expect these to get addressed before the stable build of Opera 10.50 is released. The Opera 10.50 official announcement and changes can be read here, while the current stable version of Opera 10.10 is for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Just as Microsoft advanced the state of the art for programming on Windows, Google is trying to do the same with Web-based software. Its latest move: the release of Google Web Toolkit 2.0.

GWT translates software written in the Java programming language into the JavaScript code that browsers can run natively. The technology is designed to produce fast-executing JavaScript and ease the pains of incompatibilities among different browsers.

Google Web Toolkit, released Tuesday night at a Google Campfire One developer event, fits in with the company's general push to make the Web a more powerful foundation for applications, not just static Web sites. The financial reasoning the company offers boils down to this: more use of the Web means more searching on Google and more search advertising revenue.

GWT is an open-source tool. Among the newer Web sites Google built with it are Wave, Orkut, and the AdWords interface.

"We've been working with those teams in applied R&D in the last year to evolve to meet their needs," said GWT product manager Andrew Bowers. Specifically, he mentioned three new features in the refurbished GWT:

• Speed Tracer, a Chrome browser extension that graphs a Web application's sluggishness over time.

The tool is designed to help Web developers find problems in the complex interactions of JavaScript, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that's assuming new duties in describing a Web page, and the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that handle formatting chores. "As more functionality moves from standard JavaScript into HTML and CSS, a lot of things are moving to native functionality, it gets harder to find performance problems," Bowers said.

• "Code-splitting" technology to break Web applications up into urgent sections that must be downloaded immediately and the other parts that can be sent at a more leisurely pace.

Bowers likened the incremental application download feature to streaming video, where people can start watching the video before the full movie has been downloaded. The feature was developed with the Google Wave team, he added.

• Coming from work with the AdWords team is UiBinder, which lets programmers separate an application's user-interface code from the program logic that actually does the thinking. The result: user interface designers can be given free reign without the logic programmers worrying about everything breaking, Bowers said.

Google also has used GWT to develop Google Health and iPhone Web applications such as Google Latitude and Gmail.

But GWT isn't universal at Google. Google Docs and Gmail, for example, rely on JavaScript but don't use GWT. Some of those projects grew from code bases that predate GWT, Bowers said.

But Google is working pretty hard on another JavaScript programming tool called Closure, which has its own compiler to produce fast JavaScript. It's another open-source project, and not just a historical artifact.

Different strokes for different folks, said Bruce Johnson, GWT's technical lead of the different tools.

"Probably Closure is going to be more targeted at someone who wants to write JavaScript to begin with," Johnson said. "GWT is for Java developers or people who see additional benefits to programming that way."

With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft showed Wednesday it's trying to retake the browser initiative.

IE remains the Net's dominant browser. But perversely, it became something of a technology underdog after Microsoft vanquished Netscape in the browser wars of the 1990s and scaled back its browser effort.

That left an opportunity for rivals to blossom--most notably Firefox, which now is used by a quarter of Web surfers, but also Apple's Safari, which now runs on Windows as well as Mac OS X, and Google's Chrome, which aims to make the Web faster and a better foundation for applications.

Microsoft has been pouring resources back into the IE effort, though, and at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, some fruits of that labor were on display. In particular, Windows unit president Steven Sinofsky showed off IE 9's new hardware-accelerated text and graphics.

The acceleration feature takes advantage of hitherto untapped computing power in a way that's more useful than other browser-boosting technology--Google's Native Client to directly employ PC's processor and Mozilla's WebGL for accelerated 3D graphics, for example--according to Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer.

"This is a direct improvement to everybody's usage of the Web on a daily basis," Hachamovitch said in an interview after Sinofsky's speech. "Web developers are doing what they did before, only now they can tap directly into a PC's graphics hardware to make their text work better and graphics work better."

With a project called Closure Tools, Google plans on Thursday to start helping developers who aspire to match the company's proficiency in creating Web sites and Web applications.

Google is a strong proponent of using JavaScript to write Web-based programs, part of its Web-centric ethos. Indeed, the company has pushed the language to its limits with services such as Gmail and Google Docs, and it developed its Chrome browser in part to enable JavaScript programs to run faster.

But writing, debugging, and optimizing heavy-duty JavaScript can be difficult--in part because a given JavaScript program sometimes works differently on different browsers. Google's open-source Closure Tools project is an attempt to help with some of these challenges.

The first in the suite of tools is the Closure Compiler, a software package designed to boil down a JavaScript program so it's smaller and runs faster. For example, a function named DisplayAddress() could be replaced with just a().

Along with the compiler come some extra tools that run in the Firefox browser. One, Closure Inspector, is an extension for Firefox's Firebug add-on designed to help programmers understand and debug the rewritten JavaScript--linking a() back to DisplayAddress(), for example. Another add-on for the Google Page Speed extension lets programmers see how much the compiler helped.

Google also plans to make the compiler available as a Web application hosted on its Google App Engine service.

The second element is called the Closure Library, a collection of prebuilt JavaScript code that lets programmers handle relatively sophisticated technology--arrays and string manipulation, for example.

Last are Closure Templates, more prewritten code to ease creation of JavaScript and HTML user interfaces.

In an earlier era, programming tools were expensive packages bought by a select few, but open-source software, new marketing strategies, and new business methods have made that approach the exception rather than the rule these days. Now programming tools are often a means to another end--encouraging programmers to produce the software that will make Windows or the Palm Pre useful and therefore popular, for example.

In Google's case, the objective is often to make the Web more popular because it sees more activity on the Web as corresponding directly with more activity on its revenue-generating search site. Among the high-profile projects to this end are Chrome, Chrome OS, and Android, all subsidized by Google's powerful search-advertising business.

One interesting contrast to Closure is another Google project called Google Web Toolkit. It's designed to accomplish some of the same goals as Closure, including paving over browser incompatibilities and producing high-performance JavaScript. But with GWT, coders write programs in Java that gets translated into JavaScript.

So one last question: why the name?

Google's reply: "Being a functional language, the concept of a function closure is fundamental to the JavaScript language."

(Credit: Google)

Google released an Internet Explorer plug-in Tuesday designed to let Microsoft's browser use the features and performance of Google's own Chrome browser.

The software, called Google Chrome Frame, lets IE 6, 7, or 8 use Chrome to render Web pages and execute their JavaScript programs, Google said. To use it, people must install the open-source plug-in, currently in the developer preview stage, and Web developers must insert a line of code onto their Web sites that engages Chrome Frame when a person visits the site.

"For users, installing Google Chrome Frame will allow them to seamlessly enjoy modern Web apps at blazing speeds, through the familiar interface of the version of IE that they are currently using," said Google programmer Alex Russell and product manager Mike Smith in a blog post.

But the plug-in might needle its rival more than revolutionize Web browsing. For one thing, it takes a long time to get a lot of Web developers to update their sites. For another, how many people dissatisfied with IE's performance haven't already installed a higher-powered browser?

Google argues that the feature will appeal to some folks, though, including people in corporate settings who might not have a choice of browser and people who prefer IE's interface, said spokesman Eitan Bencuya. And people are familiar with plug-ins as a way to expand what browsers can do.

"It's a much lower barrier to entry than switching browsers," Bencuya said.

He added that Google has built support for the feature into one of its own Web sites, the Google Wave project that's a hybrid of e-mail, instant messaging, and wiki collaboration.

Final approval of Oracle's $7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems has just hit a snag, courtesy of European regulators.

The European Commission announced Thursday that it has launched an in-depth investigation into the proposed merger between Oracle and Sun. The agency said its preliminary probe raised concerns that the deal could threaten competition in the database market in the European Economic Area (EEA), an association composed of 30 different European countries.

That initial investigation showed that Oracle's proprietary databases and Sun's open-source MySQL compete directly in many areas of the market, so the Commission wants to address a number of issues, including Oracle's incentive to further develop MySQL as an open-source database.

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement: "The Commission has to examine very carefully the effects on competition in Europe when the world's leading proprietary database company proposes to take over the world's leading open source database company. In particular, the Commission has an obligation to ensure that customers would not face reduced choice or higher prices as a result of this takeover."

Pointing out the importance of databases to corporate IT systems, the Commission said that in light of the current economy, companies need cost-effective solutions. "And systems based on open-source software are increasingly emerging as viable alternatives to proprietary solutions," said Kroes. "The Commission has to ensure that such alternatives would continue to be available."

The Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, now has 90 working days, until January 19, 2010, to make a final decision on the merger.

Oracle had little comment except to say in a statement that the Commission had decided to "seek out more information regarding the merger by launching a Phase Two inquiry," which indicates a more in-depth follow-up to the initial probe.

The merger has already been approved by Sun stockholders and by the U.S. Justice Department.

The European Commission could delay its decision on the Sun-Oracle deal beyond Thursday's deadline to further investigate antitrust issues, reported Reuters, citing sources familiar with the situation.

Apprehensive about Oracle gaining control of Sun's widely used MySQL database, the Commission's antitrust regulators are currently debating whether to OK the deal by Thursday, the report said. If the Commission launches a full review, it could take as long as four months before a decision is reached, according to Commission rules.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently cleared the merger. But the Justice Department's concerns centered more on licensing issues with Sun's Java software than MySQL.

The companies announced in April a deal in which Oracle would acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash, putting the value of the transaction at about $7.4 billion.

The competition has already taken advantage of the uncertainty over the Sun-Oracle deal. Key players like IBM and Hewlett-Packard have offered discounts and other incentives to lure Sun customers. They've also floated the idea that Oracle may have a tough time trying to manage a hardware manufacturer like Sun.

Sun's worldwide server sales have already been hurt, with the company capturing only 10 percent of the overall server market on sales of just $981 million for the second quarter, a drop of more than 37 percent from the year-ago quarter.