Luis García Castro

Data Driven Architect & Engineer

twitter.com/luiyo

github.com/LuisGC

linkedin.com/in/LuisGC

Proud member of the Free Software Foundation Europe

Proud member of the Open Street Map Foundation

Presentation made with the awesome Open Source tool Reveal.js

Designed by James Gosling @ Sun Microsystems in 1995

GNU GPL License (since 2007)

Last stable version: Java SE 14 (published in 17/03/2020)

• Java 7 took 4,5 years, Java 8 took 3 years, Java 9 took 3,5 years... Since then there is a 6-month release cycle

Standardized: de facto standard

• Language is defined in the Java Language Specification
• The JCP defines and improves the standard

Relevant aspects:

• Java is open, but is the process?
• The JCP is transparent and more or less plural ...but Oracle abused of the JCP in the past

Designed by Dennis Ritchie @ Bell Labs in 1972

GNU GPL License (since 2007)

Last stable version: C18 (published in June 2018)

Standardized: since 1989 (ANSI C89, ISO C90, ISO C99, ISO C11, ISO C18)

• the WG14 defines and improves the standard

Relevant aspects:

• The WG14 membership is strictly managed by the Standards Authority, although the mailing list and meeting notes are public
• C2X is in progress with no public release date

Designed by a Microsoft team lead by Anders Hejlsberg in 2000

Extremely different Licenses

• Microsoft replaced in 2016 the proprietary .Net Framework with .NET Core (MIT License)
• There is an almost complete open implementation by Xamarin: The Mono Project (MIT License)

Last stable version: v8.0 (published in 23/09/2019)

Standardized: since 2000 (ECMA-334, ISO/IEC 23270:2018)

• Microsoft still defines the standard and improves the language
• The .NET Foundation supports open source in .NET in several ways

Relevant aspects:

• Mono is a common choice for game engines: Unity, Godot,...

Designed by Guido van Rossum in 1991

Python Software Foundation License since 2001 (GPL compatible)

Last stable version: v3.8.5 (20/07/2020)

• The Python Software Foundation fosters the development and improves the language

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• Python is driven by its community, and everything is discussed in the main mailing list and the Work Groups
• Python 2 has been recently discontinued (first planned for 2015). The last Python 2.7 release was Python 2.7.18 (20/04/2020)

Designed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995

PHP License (not GPL compatible)

Last stable version: v7.4.10 (published in 03/09/2020)

• Almost anyone can submit an RFC, but only past code contributors and selected representatives will participate in the decision

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• The PHP Group membership is unclear
• The release process was improved recently through a RFC

Designed by Brendan Eich @ Netscape in 1995

Rhino has MPL license, V8 has BSD license

Last stable version: ECMAScript 2020 (published in June 2020)

Standardized: since 1997 (ECMA 262)

• The TC39 Group defines and improves the standard

Relevant aspects:

• Only Ecma members (company level only with costly fees unless non-profit) can belong to a Technical Committee, so TC39 is coped by multinationals
• Don't panic, but "JavaScript" is still a trademark of Oracle

Designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto in 1995

Ruby License and GPLv2

Last stable version: v2.7.1 (published in 31/03/2020)

Standardized: since 2011 (JIS X 3017)

• Last change in the standard was in 2012 (ISO/IEC 30170)

Relevant aspects:

• Commit rights are obtained by merits, but Matz's approval is always required
• Ruby Core contributors mostly live in Japan

Designed by Larry Wall @ Unisys in 1987

GNU GPL License

Last stable version: v5.32.0 (published in 20/06/2020)

• Perl 5 is actively maintained and developed by volunteers.

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• Perl 6, announced in 2015, was renamed to Raku in Oct 2019
• "In Perl 6, we decided it would be better to fix the language than fix the user" --Larry Wall about Perl6
• The Perl community rocks: Lingua::Romana::Perligata module, Perl Poetry, ...

Designed by James Strachan in 2003

Apache License v2.0 (since 2015)

Last stable version: v3.0.5 (published in 19/07/2020)

• It's supported by the Apache Software Foundation and the Groovy community

Standardized: No

• JCP's JSR 241 is dormant since 2012

Relevant aspects:

• After being owned by several companies (SpringSource, VMWare, Pivotal) it was adopted by the Apache Software Foundation in 2015

Designed by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson @ Google in 2009

BSD-style license

Last stable version: v1.15 (published in 11/08/2020)

• Griesemer, Pike and Thompson spent 2 years full time designing the basics
• Now the Go community defines and improves the language

Standardized: De facto standard via Go Language Specification

Relevant aspects:

• Community driven, but with major support (and some control) by Google

Designed by Graydon Hoare @ Mozilla in 2010

Apache License v2.0

Last stable version: v1.46.0 (published in 27/08/2020)

• Rust has a community-driven development process under the steering of a 'core team' with the main comitters (mostly from Mozilla)

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• Rust has been the most-loved programming language in last five Stack Overflow annual surveys (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020)

Designed by Rich Hickey in 2007

Eclipse Public License

Last stable version: v1.10.1 (published in 06/06/2019)

• Clojure is developed by a core team from Cognitect (where Hickey is CTO)
• The process is not fully closed, but it's extremely conservative

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• Clojure is owned by Rich Hickey, and it totally depends on Cognitect resources
• There is an underlying dissatisfaction with the contribution process (example from Nov 2018), but most of the community is grateful anyway

Designed by Martin Odersky in 2004

Apache License 2.0

Last stable version: v2.13.3 (published in 25/06/2020)

• The Scala language is a cooperative project of the Scala Center at EPFL, Lightbend, and the Scala community

Standardized: De facto standard via Scala Language Specification (SLS)

Relevant aspects:

• The Scala Center focuses on education, Lightbend also in commercial support and services
• Dotty vs Cats/Circe vs scalaz vs Zio

Designed by JetBrains in 2011

Apache License 2.0

Last stable version: v1.4.10 (published in 10/09/2020)

• Sponsored and developed mainly by JetBrains, with contributions by Google
• Kotlin 1.0 was released in 2016

Standardized: No

Relevant aspects:

• Jetbrains provides plugin support for IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio and Eclipse
• Google announced first-class support for Kotlin on Android in 2017
• On May 2017 Google announced that Kotlin is the preferred language for Android app developers
• On October 2019 Google announced that nearly 60% of the top 1000 Android apps on the Play Store use Kotlin