Moderator (MDR): MDR-Nancy
Guest-Speaker (SPK): SPK-Curtis Sasaki, SPK-madany
MDR-Nancy: Welcome to the JavaOS forum. Members of the JavaOS
engineering team and Curtis Sasaki, JavaOS product marketing manager, will be
with us today.
Hi Peter Madany and Curtis. Thanks for joining us. We also have Jagany and
Thomas from the JavaOS team.
SPK-madany: Hello.
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: Hello from JavaSoft, everyone.
hobbsa:
What will be the size of the JavaOS? Also, will JavaOS be able to use
serialization so that it could be run over the network, or will it require a
local storage device?
SPK-madany: JavaOS—including 1MB of fonts, HotJava, the
entire OS, window system, network system, and drivers, and all the 1.0 Java
class libraries—is less than 4MB.
MikeP:
JavaOS Window and Graphics systems are written in Java—I am having a
difficulty in understanding that—does that imply that the platform
specific code (kernel/JVM) offer some kind of support/API for
creating/manipulating windows/text?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: JavaOS includes its own windowing and
graphics system since JavaOS does not need any other OS to run. When the Java
applications run on other operating systems, the AWT calls get mapped to the
native platforms window and graphic subsystems.
JohnEng:
The NC's from Sun do not have a local disk—does that hurt performance
because there is no caching? Does JavaOS make use of a local disk if there is
one?
SPK-madany: JavaOS currently does not use local disks, even if
they are present. One great advantage about not having a hard disk is that it
is simpler to administer the system. The network performance of JavaOS is quite
good, so with a local web caching server, not having a local disk is not much
of an issue.
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: When JavaOS runs on hardware that supports
100MB/sec ethernet, the caching probably won't have an impact.
aurora: When there is more than one independent Java
application running on JavaOS simultaneously, what is the kernel scheduling
mechanism to ensure that all applications get a fair share of CPU? Also, since
a local disk is not used (for swapping out processes), do all applications have
to fit completely in memory simultaneously?
SPK-madany: JavaOS runs a single Java application at a time,
but of course it can run many applets at once. JavaOS uses the Java thread
priorities to schedule threads for each applet. When a thread blocks, a
different thread at that priority will run (using round-robin scheduling).
Currently all threads and objects must fit into memory at the same time.
BillBryant:
JavaOS explicitly requires that all things that run on it be written in Java.
For the market in which NC/JavaOS is trying to find a niche, there are already
a lot of existing applications. Is JavaSoft/Sun taking proactive measures to
ensure that these applications are ported to Java? Can you give examples?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: Currently there are over 200K developers
of Java. At last week's announcement of JavaStation by Sun, there were a wealth
of applications demonstrated—from Corel's Office Suite, terminal
emulators, custom applications, database connectivity, etc. We're excited about
the level of development and breadth of solutions being written in Java. Lotus
also had press releases this week discussing their new Java solutions.
hobbsa:
Will JavaOS be able to execute Java applications from a network disk directly
or will it be required to go through a web server/HTML Page?
SPK-madany: HTTP is the preferred protocol for loading applets
into JavaOS.
MikeP:
Are there any plans to include an Application Development Environment in JavaOS?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: Our goal is to support the Java API such
that the same applets that run in browsers and in OSs that support the VM also
run on JavaOS. We would also like to take advantage of all the existing and new
tools developed for Java.
TomChavez:
I'm really excited about JavaOS. It looks like Sun will be the first to ship a
device using it. Can you tell who else is developing hardware to use it?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: We are excited to have over 16 licensees
for JavaOS. Unfortunately, we are not at liberty to announce our partners'
plans. However, we believe you will see JavaOS in products such as NCs, and
also in products targeted for the home market. The licensees of JavaOS develop
products across markets, so we are looking forward to seeing many types of
products from our partners.
BillBryant:
Do you foresee JavaOS being the de-facto "OS" on NCs from other companies
like Oracle/IBM? If not, are they planning to run their own OS on them? Could
that lead to a fragmented marketplace?
SPK-madany: Both IBM and Oracle have licensed JavaOS. If
various companies run their own OS, as long as they conform to the NC reference
profile, the market should not be fragmented. Sun, Apple, IBM, and Oracle
worked together to jointly define the NC reference profile to enable open
standards A common denominator for applications on all NCs will be that they
are written in Java.
ca25432:
Will JavaOS be able to plug and play new hardware? If I upgrade my video card,
will it know? Also, how will printing work?
SPK-madany: We are currently defining a JavaOS Driver
Interface specification. In the future we will support loading drivers over the
network. Currently we support networking printing to PostScript printers. In
the future we will support local printing.
JohnEng:
I want to follow up on an earlier answer you gave—If JavaOS can run only
one application at a time (and the default application is HotJava), then that
means I cannot run any other application besides applets. Would that not be a
hindrance, especially so given that applets have so many security
restrictions... (But then perhaps that is not the common case?)
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: As the Java platform continues to extend,
additional security mechanisms will also allow more applet access.
SPK-madany: HotJava already supports various levels of
security for applets.
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: The JDK 1.1 (which we have information on
our Website) supports signed applets and other security frameworks. Check out
the website for the details.
MDR-Nancy: I have a question. What's the main advantage of an
NC over a PC?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: The key advantages of JavaOS are:
- Dramatically reduces the cost of ownership,
- Simplifies learning and training,
- Based on open standards.
Cost of ownership is defined as including hardware, system administration,
cost of upgrading, cost of data backup, etc. Many of the initial targeted users
don't need all of the features of today's 4-8MB applications. There are key
applications they need to solve a business problem, they don't want to spend
the time getting the system configured or keeping it running.
Venkat:
When do you foresee NCs being widely deployed? Are any being deployed currently?
SPK-madany: NCs will probably be widely deployed next year. I
don't know if any are shipping now, but some will be shipped next month.
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: There are companies who are using NCs in
trials today. We will probably see corporations go for much wider deployment
upon successful conclusion of their trials. Also, as the number of key
applications are released a broader adoption will probably take place.
hobbsa:
You mentioned earlier that the JavaOS would include the 1.0 Java API. When can
we expect to see the 1.1 API?
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: We are developing JavaOS to track the JDK
1.1 APIs. Like any software release cycle, we will go through a rigorous
quality cycle prior to release.
MDR-Nancy: This concludes our forum. Thank you all for
attending, especially Curtis Sasaki, Peter Madany, Jagany and Tom.
SPK-Curtis Sasaki: Thanks for asking all the questions. We
look forward to getting your feedback after you get a chance to use JavaOS.
SPK-madany: thanks, bye.
