Java on the BSD Desktop?

[n j]

> I guess if everyone here on this list gives his/her two cents to this
> topic we're having a nice java advocacy flame war. ;-)

The main characteristic of a flame war is to disparage other people's
arguments while maintaining that your arguments are the best, no?
That's why I'm not going to try and talk anyone out of their poison
:-), be it C, Python, Perl or C#/Mono.

Rather, I would like to continue a constructive discussion by speaking
from a personal experience. I apologize in advance if this is OT even
though it is FreeBSD-related and this list does see a lot of
shell/perl/... questions, so I don't see why a Java question should be
illegitimate.

First off, in my company we had a Java app (simple app, working with
database and e-mails) written for Windows. And then, there came
company decision to make Linux the default desktop solution. Java app
worked like a charm with no changes whatsoever.

Second, I'm running a custom-written Java server app on a FreeBSD
server for over half a year in production plus many months before that
in development. It works rock solid on Diablo JDK. Of course, we also
have a GUI desktop app that connects to this server that works on both
Windows and Ubuntu.

I completely agree that Sun's licence is a hassle. Fortunately, in a
year or two, we're going to have an open source Java platform meaning
there will be no hassle with manual download while installing JRE/JDK.
Combined with the great API, object-oriented nature of the language,
free IDE for serious development (Eclipse and specifically Netbeans
with a very capable Swing GUI visual editor) - this combination
strikes me as something only Microsoft can compete with.

Another .02,
-- 
Nino