On 28-Dec-06, at 10:51 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote:
In another message in this thread you mentioned the story that Java was started only because Sun couldn't get a reasonable license from Parcplace. I have heard this a few times before but don't believe it -
I was there. It seems to be true, at least so far as the 'negotiations happened and SUN didn't want to pay that much'. There were also talks about using VW as the standard tool-building tool for admin type tools.
Interesting - thanks for the information! My observation was based on the fact that January 1991 was not only when the Self team moved from Stanford to Sun but also when the first real meeting of the Stealth/Green/Oak/Java group took place (in Aspen).
Do you remember when these negotiations took place? Perhaps this was for some other Sun project?
When I became V.P. of Development at ParcPlace-Digitalk in 1996, Bill Lyons (then CEO) told me the same story about Sun and VW. According to Bill, at some point in the early '90's when Adele was still CEO, Sun approached ParcPlace for a license to use VW (probably ObjectWorks at the time) in some set top box project they were working on. Sun wanted to use a commercially viable OO language with a proven track record. At the time ParcPlace was licensing Smalltalk for >$100 a copy. Given the volume that Sun was quoting, PP gave Sun a firm quote on the order of $100/copy. Sun was willing to pay at most $9-10/copy for the Smalltalk licenses. Sun was not willing to go higher and PP was unwilling to go lower, so nothing ever happened and Sun went its own way with its own internally developed language (Oak...Java). The initial development of Oak might well have predated the discussions between Sun and PP, but it was PP's unwillingness to go lower on the price of Smalltalk that gave Oak its green light within Sun (according to Bill anyway). Bill went on to lament that had PP played its cards right, Smalltalk would have been the language used by Sun and the language that would have ruled the Internet. Obviously, you can take that with a grain of salt. I don't know if Bill's story to me was true (he certainly seemed to think it was), but it might be confirmable by Adele. If it is true, it is merely another sad story of what might have been and how close Smalltalk might have come to universal acceptance.
-Eric Clayberg Sr. Vice President of Product Development Instantiations, Inc. mailto:clayberg@instantiations.com http://www.instantiations.com