Wow, weird mix of knowledge and lack of knowledge here. Let's see: Mac OS X is built on FreeBSD with a Mach-variant mircokernal. The JVM for Mac OS X is excellent; their Web Start greatly accelerates the JVM particularly in respect to GUI speed. Sun is trying to incorporate some of the tech into Java. Apple has a lot of Java talent--within the Cocoa framework, Java is an equal peer to obj-C even if it is not promoted as heavily (every class within the Cocoa framework has both an obj-C and Java alternative). Apple is amongst the few who have actually redeveloped a major enterprise app completely within Java (WebObjects; Borland has done some similar work). Sun hasn't redeveloped OOo with Java because they have left the dev work to the OS community.
I actually think (although I don't know) that there is some truth to this, but Siress screwed up--it pisses off both the OOo porting community and Apple because it blows their cover with MS, but Apple is definitely working to provide a compelling alt to Office--either with AppleWorks or OpenOffice... I think it's actually possible that Apple is doing the Java port if at all... Why? Because they do have the experience, they have the best JVM and associated tools to run Java GUIs on the desktop, the entire philosophy of Apple is opposed to X windows.
Yes, this could help Sun with OOo (or SO) to promote Java--the resistence in the community is primarily from the OS community who thinks its lame if its not in X windows, in addition to the substantial reworking to get graphic capabilities via Java.
But if done, not only does it promote Java, but it unshackles OOo from X which is definitely or at least ultimately necessary for Apple to give it its blessing, and a major boon to the other OS OSes even if they don't know it. And this is the way Apple would go because they could tie OOo into Aqua (Mozilla already did it, there's an early attempt for OOo), but they will also want to provide an alt for Darwin because ultimately Apple needs to demonstrate some dedication to OS and/or demonstrate Darwin as a Nix to choose (for some reason or the other) over Linux or Solaris or whatever. If Apple were to port OOo to Darwin via Java/Swing and OOo to OS X with Aqua (letting Sun build a SO.X) that would be a big boon to both... Unfortunately, Apple will require that they have a fair bit of control and that it happen in secrecy (if there's any truth at all).
Who knows? Is Siress a complete idiot in that he has no idea what's going on and is making stuff up? Or is he a complete idiot because he spilled the beans on a big secret that affects Apple, the OS community, Microsoft, and Sun, and maybe others? Either way, he's an idiot, but it makes an interesting situation.
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