From: Todd Benson <caduceass@...>
Date: 2008-03-27T02:48:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Sun's Overview of Ruby and JRuby

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Veloso <starlover@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> A very good article
>  (http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/scripting/jruby_nb6/)
>  on Ruby is up on Sun's main Java site. It makes it clear that Sun is
>  working hard to support Ruby and trying to open up the language so
>  that it can enter new enterprises.
>
>  They are up front about their motives and admit in the article: "Sun's
>  strategy is tied to the assumption that deployment will follow
>  adoption, and it derives from the belief that businesses will not
>  deploy important applications or solutions without support. As Sun CEO
>  Jonathan Schwartz puts it, 'Mindshare gets market share.'"
>
>  The article also says:
>
>  "'We are actively interested in supporting non-Java technologies such
>  as PHP, Perl, Python, and Rails on our system and OS platforms,'" says
>  Tim Bray, director of web technologies and Distinguished Engineer at
>  Sun. 'While Rails is an excellent framework, Sun is making it faster.
>  Java technology offers first-rate deployment of Rails on GlassFish
>  while NetBeans 6.0 offers the best Rails and Ruby programmer tools
>  available.'"
>
>  This strikes me as a case where Sun's enlightened self interest is
>  serving the open source community.
>
>  I wonder: Does anyone think I am being naive about this?

Sounds simply like intellectual real estate to me.  "Hey, look at all
these bright things that these bright people do with our product!"
Your share value goes up.

Todd