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Comment by nwjsmith | Hacker News Reader

I'm itching to take a look at Apple's "foundation for a new graphical client"

"To set expectations, the first drop will be effectively a "SoyLatte"-level implementation, but is packaged as a Universal Mac OS X .jdk bundle that can be dropped directly into /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be adding pieces and parts of our Java SE 6 implementation to the public project, and will cut over from using an X11-based AWT to a Cocoa NSEvent-based one with a new OpenGL-backed graphics layer.

There are several parts of our Java SE 6 implementation (like the AWT widgets) that are not contributable, in much the same way that several parts of Oracle's implementation are not. However, the vast majority of our Swing Aqua Look and Feel implementation is, as well as the eAWT/eIO API. We intend to host the legacy AWT widget set using lightweight peers, but that work is still in progress."

Mike Swingler (Apple Java Engineer) on the java-dev list

http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev/2010/Nov/msg00104.h...

I wonder why they don't just release their existing AWT/Swing adaptations?

Either they are afraid of people using the Mac OS style on Windows, or that by open sourcing the style, they loose their copyright to it, or the code is such as mess that they'd rather not release it into the open.

How many years-old projects with deep hooks into a proprietary OS, written with no intention of ever being open sourced, would or could be opened on any reasonable timeframe? Any precedents spring to mind?

WebObjects...? And still not open. But perhaps not the precedent you were looking for...

I don't think WebObjects has a lot of internal system hooks, does it?

The old backend was written with quartz, and hopelessly integrated into the OSX internals. It's part of the reason why Apple had to ship their own java.

The new backend will only depend on OpenGL, which is much better for anyone who isn't looking to lock you into their format. Which, oddly enough, appears to be Apple's goal with it's handling of java.

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