Catching up...
Wed was a few hours at the Sun Technology Thingy, to see Bruno Souza and Onno Kluyt (Director of the PMO, the management/admin organization for the JCP) have a debate about Open Source Java. It was a great discussion, but not much of a debate - I think that both agree that Open Source Java (in terms of J2SE) is possible, and it's up to us, the open source community, to just do it. Onno presented the usual points surrounding OSS Java, and for things like compatibility, Bruno agrees (we all agree...)
After, we had a quick flight to Brasilia, and then the afternoon hanging around. Brasilia is an interesting city - it was created in the early 60's in the middle of nowhere. The government at the time just decided to move the capital there to be more central and accessible to the western and northern states. I really liked it. Such a representation of hope in the future, and belief in change for the better.
I see the same thing in the spirit of the people at this conference - how they can best use open source software for the people of Brazil, both in government and private enterprise.
Dinner was another Brazilian steakhouse. Wonderful. It also gave me a chance to explore Brazilian wine. Onno was a willing partner in crime on this one, so we started with an "assemblage", which was Cab, Merlot and Tannat. Pretty good. I then thought we should try a Brazilian Cab. I ordered one, and the guy brought back the most expensive bottle of Brazilian cab on the menu because he was out of the one I ordered. I didn't like that, so I sent him back for another bottle of the assemblage. However, while he was gone, I figured that we were in Brazil, it doesn't happen often, and it was only about $40, and we should see what their cab was like while here. So when he returned w/ the assemblage, I with much shame and sheepishness asked Bruno to offer my apologies, and ask for the cab back. I'm not sure quite what Bruno said ("Yes, I'm sorry for bringing this idiot here...") but the wine came, and it was good. It also acted as a lubricant - we got some good conversations going between Fabio (from IBM), Dalibor (of kaffe fame) and Onno. I just kept pouring :)
We are going to have at least one implementation of J2SE in open source. This is good for Sun (they don't know it, I suspect), as it's good for Java as it's good for the java community. As long as we can keep the compatibility promise, I think we'll do fine.
