Tag Archives: Developers

Ideas Expressed in Code

I remember a discussion on one of the OpenSolaris mailing lists long ago when kernel developer Bryan Cantrill said that ideas are expressed in code and that the implementation itself was the idea. I love that!

His statement was probably in response to some meandering thread where people were just talking in circles and not doing anything. I remember at the time many engineers feeling the same way about such conversations. And I know from my construction days that most contractors and craftsmen got that concept as well. So, don’t just talk. Write something. Build something. Do something. That’s what gets attention. That’s when the conversation begins.

Image: Adam Leventhal, Bryan Cantrill, and John Gage at SunNetwork China in Beijing in 2004.

“Ideas are expressed in code. The implementation is the idea.” — Bryan Cantrill

Streaming Stage: Oracle Code 2019

From 2017 to 2020 I traveled to conferences around the world and streamed hundreds of interviews with developers from Oracle and the FOSS community. There were several of us on the developer marketing team back then who had full streaming kits and we were all crazy busy all the time. Nothing I’ve done recently compares to the challenges I faced during that five year period and I grew significantly as a result. Pain is a remarkably efficient teacher.

We couldn’t stream from some countries, like China, so in those cases we just recorded and posted the videos later. And in other countries we had poor Internet connections (1 mbps in India was hardly enough), so we’d just record there too. We didn’t ship our stuff professionally, either. Instead, each of us on the video team traveled with our own kit, which included cameras, microphones, audio mixers, streaming boxes, and a variety of other stuff. We didn’t usually have lights because the kit just got too big and heavy to keep in one case and it became too difficult to drag everything through airports. We needed our cloths, too, of course. So for the larger events, we had the local events team provide lights, which itself was interesting since each local team offered vastly different lighting setups. I remember once in China the team enthusiastically showed up with two massive lights perfectly appropriate for a baseball stadium. Yeah, that didn’t work.

Each of us on the team usually worked alone in that we didn’t have any producers to schedule things and run and fix the equipment on site. And we were pretty much on our own to book our own meetings and improvise our way through every interview and manage all the video or audio issues in real time. And there were many issues to troubleshoot, I can assure you! We weren’t experts in AV production so we did the best we could and we learned live along the way. The setup took hours to get everything working because things never worked initially. Sometimes you’d have power but no Internet. Sometimes you’d have power and Internet but no stage! And it went on from there. Looking back on it all now, though, I think we did pretty well even when the sound wasn’t perfect or the video was too dark and out of sync with the voices. It was a little hacky and handmade, but honestly, that sort of feel fit well with the developer culture we were embracing. Everyone we spoke with appreciated our efforts and that really meant a lot to us. I say that because I’ve come across some people I know recently who have criticized our work to the point of laughter. That hurt deeply initially, I must admit. But then when all these years later I see those very same people working with superior equipment and significant financial and staff support without the insane pressure of streaming at events, which is a uniquely challenging experience. And I have to ask, when we were doing this work way back then, what were they doing? But ultimately for me that behavior on their part is helpful for weeding my network.

Anyway, in the images below we are at Oracle Code in San Francisco in the fall of 2019. That Oracle Code event was actually part of a developer series we did with about 20 events per year around the world. We on the team shared responsibilities for those events, obviously, based on where we lived and our own schedules. I have hundreds of such images like the ones below of us setting up the stage and doing the interviews. I’ll post some more over time as I tell more of this story. I loved doing this stage streaming work, though. It was really challenging doing things live and getting all the gear to work properly while at the same time attempting to facilitate interesting conversations on a razor thin schedule — and doing it alone! I started out really rough initially in 2017, but over time I learned the gear and got better at interviewing people live, which for me was challenging given that I couldn’t speak fluently until my mid 30s since I stuttered profoundly for most of my life. The experience of the stuttering lingers but I’m largely over it now. And then as I was really getting the hang of the steaming projects, everything blew up in 2020 with everyone’s favorite little virus. And then after that the team blew up three times so it no longer exists at all. I was bounced around to several teams in the process as well. So, I’m disappointed I can’t do this work anymore — I even miss dragging the kit through the airports and getting detained many times along the way! The airport officials with guns in India and China who separated me from my stuff for hours at midnight was a nice touch, for example. Getting yelled at was cool too! They went through everything and made quite a mess of things. Oh, the memories. Maybe some new opportunities will come up at some point. 2020 isn’t over, after all. You’ve noticed that, right? Change is the order of the day. Be hopeful. Keep working it, baby! That’s my position, anyway.

During this event in 2019 my three colleagues and I streamed more than 50 interviews over three days with developers talking about a variety of technologies touching the Oracle ecosystem including Java, Database, Cloud, Applications Development, Linux, and Open Source. We spoke with some partners, customers, and Oracle executives too. And we also hosted and streamed live the Java Duke Awards Ceremony from our stage that day (as we did the previous year). It was all day every day! I miss it.

Jim Grisanzio at Oracle Code 2019 in San Francisco.

Jim Grisanzio and Chris Thalinger at Oracle Code 2019 in San Francisco. Photo by Thomas Kletecka Photography.

Jim Grisanzio and Christian Wimmer at Oracle Code 2019 in San Francisco. Photo by Thomas Kletecka Photography.

Jim Grisanzio (left) interviews Chris Thalinger (right) and Christian Wimmer (right) at Oracle Code 2019 in San Francisco.

Spamming the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Meeting Linus Torvalds at the Open Source Summit in Tokyo in June 2018.

I’ve crossed paths with Linus Torvalds at many events throughout the years, but this was the first time I actually met him and spoke with him. I waited until after his keynote and walked up to the stage, along with dozens of Japanese developers. He stayed afterwards and spoke to everyone and signed shirts and books for about a half hour. I stood off the side of the line and just took photos and listened in on the conversations. When he was finished chatting with everyone I introduced myself and we walked out into the hallway. I mentioned that I was the OpenSolaris Community Manager at Sun. He stopped, looked up, smiled, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry!” And we both laughed. I still have bittersweet feelings about Sun and OpenSolaris. It’s a shame how it all ended. I went from working on the hottest project at Sun at the time and being Sun’s #1 blogger (see: BSC front page (hits refreshed daily) to losing those platforms virtually overnight. That wrecked my career and forced me to reset yet again.

Then I told him about the time I spammed the Linux kernel mailing list with my OpenSolaris announcement back in 2005! It was an accident, of course. You see, we had been collecting emails on our website from people who wanted to be notified about the upcoming OpenSolaris announcement. We had already released the DTrace code in January 2005 but hadn’t yet opened the entire kernel. That bit was set for June and then there would be many releases after that. So, for six months about 10K people entered their email address into our web form, and obviously some special friend keyed in the Linux kernel list for kicks. Sure, we didn’t look at or clean the list for spam, but hey, we were all very busy. That OpenSolaris launch was quite a challenge.

Here is my announcement.
Here’s my apology.
Threads from the day (search for OpenSolaris)

Embarrassing. But a lesson well learned. And a good laugh years later with Linus himself. He did ask if I was treated ok by the community after the gaffe, and I said I was. All good. Anyway, we had a good conversation about Sun, Oracle, Linux, and the FOSS community. I’ll take it.

Linus Torvalds at the Open Source Summit in Tokyo in June 2018.

Message to the OpenSolaris Pilot Program

And finally, here’s the private email I sent to the OpenSolaris Pilot Program the day before I spammed the Linux community on OpenSolaris launch day. We ran a private pilot program for a year before we opened the project and those few hundred developers became the seeds of the new OpenSolaris community.

[osol-discuss] Good Luck and Thank You

Jim Grisanzio Jim.Grisanzio at Sun.COM
Mon Jun 13 17:27:01 PDT 2005

Hello, OpenSource Pilot Community.

I just wanted to chime in before the fur really flies around here:
Good Luck, and Thank You!

You all deserve Sun's thanks for your efforts and your patience this year. It should be wild day tomorrow, for sure, so light up those blogs and start talking, guys. The engineers are leading this launch tomorrow, make no mistake about it.

Oh, and if you want to bring someone into the program, you *don't* have to call me and sign another f****** NDA. Just do it. I can't tell you how happy I am to not have to dig out another NDA. Not that I could read the damn thing but whatever. It's such a cold way to start a friendly little conversation, don't you think? Also, I've tried to honor as many of your requests (and those from internal people) as possible to get people into the program. We ended up with 145, but quite frankly, dozens and dozens of developers never made it in due to lack of time or resources. We even had a dozen Chinese engineers all briefed, translated, and NDA-signed but couldn't get export control approval in time. It drove me nuts for three months. I'm more than a bit pissed about that one.

Anyway, I hope you are happy with the results of what we are all releasing. The core team here has worked almost non-stop for weeks on this to get ready for the final push. We wanted to do more, you know that, but hey, look at where we were last year and look at the potential tomorrow brings. Also, the OpenSolaris team internally really has been genuine in their intentions, I can assure you. At times we've not been as open as we could have been -- we get that -- but I hope you believe me when I say that many people on the team fought hard on your behalf all year long. Every time you told us we were full of shit on something we took it to heart and it went up line. There were a few, ah, heated,
conversations regarding some of the issues that were discussed in the pilot. We won some and we lost some, but every time we moved a little closer to our goal of openness. As you've seen, this stuff takes time. I wish we could have exposed more of that process to you. Next time it will probably be easier to do that.

As this program has grown it's garnered attention from all across Sun and from Sun's competitors and supporters. Just recently, I've heard from executives and engineers traveling to South America and to Asia, and they report that there *absolutely* is massive community interest out there. Even Wall Street has noticed. Some people are probably a bit confused since the Solaris community was supposed to be dead by now. Well, too bad. It's too late. They lost their window of opportunity to crush us. Our next step is to stay positive and to engage the interest we know is there, make it tangible, and grow this OpenSolaris community. In a very real way, you've all been part of something special here. You've helped change this company and potentially an entire market along the way. Some people may not know this quite yet, but they'll surely find out tomorrow. You are some of the most knowledgeable people in the world about Solaris, and you've help make OpenSolaris a possibility.

Congratulations and we'll see you on the other side.

Jim

Session at Open Source India

Last week I took some vacation time from work and went down to Bangalore to present a session on FOSS communities at Open Source India. It was such a wonderful experience, wow! India is electric. If you want to meet thousands of CS students and talk about Java, go to India! I have a lot of experience mixing with students over the years doing OpenSolaris projects in India, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China. I really love it. They teach me every time!

Open Source India

At Open Source India I talked about some lessons I’ve learned from building FOSS communities over the years at Sun, Oracle, and also on my own. Most of the recent content I presented came from Java, of course, since I work at Oracle on the Java Developer Relations team. But I’ve participated in many Open Source communities (Linux, OpenSolaris, MySQL, NetBeans, JXTA, BarCamp, OpenOffice, and others) over the years, so I tried to weave in many stories and experiences from those groups. I tend to focus on telling stories about developers I’ve met over the years and who I’ve photographed and interviewed. So, my presentation is unique in that it’s based on personal experience. And I talk mostly about contributing, which is the most important process that keeps Open Source communities growing and provides the most opportunities for developers. I think things went over pretty well. After I got off the stage many people came up to chat, and we just continued our conversations from earlier in the day and the previous day. That’s the “hallway” track and it’s probably the most important part of any tech conference.

The conference drew about 5K people (see official event images) with a nice mix of professional developers and computer science students. I had so many conversations with students, which was really amazing. They are so bright, eager to learn, and enthusiastic about the future. Many of them are taking Java in school now or will be soon. I tried to stress that they shouldn’t overlook Java but instead they should take as much Java as they could. Java is vastly more advanced these days, and it’s much easier to learn than it was previously. The engineering team at Oracle has taking seriously the issue of getting new and young developers coding in Java and making the onramp easier — see Java 25 here, here, here and inside.java, dev.java, and learn.java. I also told them to build their portfolio now while they are in school by contributing to Open Source projects. This way they can build a professional network early, and they’ll have concrete contributions to show future employers during interviews. Don’t wait! I told them about the conversations I’ve had with about a hundred Java developers in recent years for my podcast Duke’s Corner, which is the most valuable project I work on at Oracle.

Below are some posts on LinkedIn about Open Source India from people I met there. It’s truly touching to read such nice comments from everyone I met based on our conversations at the conference and my presentation. And some of these posts have hundreds of interactions, so that demonstrates that the developer community is thriving in India on social media. It makes sense to engage these developers when they are in school to talk about Java and the opportunities this technology offers for their future.

LinkedIn Posts

Sohail Haldar, Anish Chatterjee, Janarthanan Muthu, Sharat Chander, Solomon Mark, Jim Grisanzio, Balaji Rajendran, Nandita Mahesh, Open Source India, S Sandhya, Aishwarya Amin, Renuka Jagtap, Sanjay Jha, Sohail Haldar, Surendra Narayan, Surendra Narayan, Shan Kuriakose, Sunil Kumar, Open Source India, Jim Grisanzio, Sharat Chander, Yugesh K

JavaFest Bangalore

Also, a few days after Open Source India, the Bangalore Java User Group ran their annual conference, JavaFest, in collaboration with eight other JUGs across India. I pitched JavaFest in my session at Open Source India and I’ve been helping promote and support the event in collaboration with our Oracle engineering team in India. Hopefully some day I’ll get to speak at JavaFest as well. See two popular posts on LinkedIn from Praveen Mohan and Jayashree S Kumar from the Oracle India Developer Center in Bangalore covering JavaFest. Praveen and Jayashree work in quality engineering, and their team also contributes extensively to the Bangalore Java User Group. Also, here’s an interview I did with Praveen previously where he talks about Java quality engineering and the local community in India. It’s nice to hear that the Oracle engineering team in Bangalore values direct interactions with the community.

I didn’t bring my good camera on this trip. But I did take some selfies with my phone. See them on Flickr.

A quick note on my presentation: The pdf has about 50 source links so be sure to click on them for more.

Jim Grisanzio, Building FOSS Communities, Open Source India. Bangalore, India. 11/2025

My next trip to India will be in April 2026 for the Great International Developer Summit (GIDS). I’m really looking forward to that trip too. I bet there will be many enthusiastic CS students there as well. But whereas the Open Source India presentation was on FOSS generally, my presentation for GIDS will be exclusively on Java. Can’t wait. Cheers

Community Development is Business Development

During my time in Open Source community development, I’ve repeatedly faced the same annoying question coming from business managers: “What’s the business value of Open Source?”

Or sometimes the question goes unstated but whenever you talk about community development operations in a meeting the room goes quiet as if what you’re saying has little value. What’s funny is that this questioning of Open Source community development as a valuable discipline comes from the very people who directly engage in similar activities when they implement their own product launches; conferences; and tours to meet customers, analysts, and journalists. In community development, we do the same thing. The only difference is that we engage developers, not customers, analysts, and the press. That’s it. It’s that simple. But it gets even crazier when you realize that the developers we meet work within the customer base! And it’s well known that developers influence tech purchasing decisions.

This constant questioning of Open Source development hits community builders who work at major software vendors whether they are in engineering or marketing roles. The skepticism used to be understandable in the early days, but is it really still a mystery here in 2025? Giving away software for free seems counterintuitive to traditional business thinking, but the evidence of economic value is overwhelming. To not see this is unacceptable.

In Open Source software, a powerful economic principle has emerged over time. It’s simple. You build the Open Source development community first, and then the business opportunities follow. You have to actively work both sides of the equation, but the process isn’t difficult to understand. This isn’t speculation. So many companies have proven that this strategy generates serious revenue while also creating opportunities for millions of developers worldwide. It’s just business development. I sometimes push back on this question and point to concrete proof that community investment translates directly into business value. But most times I just ignore it and look out for people who are more knowledgable about market development.

Anyway, here are a few examples for kicks.

Linux: From Hobby Project to Massive Business Value

Take Linux. When Linus Torvalds released his Linux code in the 1990s, he invited collaboration from developers. Then thousands of kernel engineers submitted contributions. Now Linux powers most servers, supercomputers, and Android devices. IBM recognized this process early and invested aggressively in Linux development.

But many people missed this early innovation entirely. I remember I was at LinuxWorld Expo in New York City in 2001 when IBM announced its insane billion dollar investment in Linux. From the show floor I called back to colleagues on the marketing team at Sun in Silicon Valley because I viewed this move as a threat to Solaris, and I thought we’d have to respond in some way. I was literally on the call as Linus was holding court right outside the Sun booth on the show floor. He had dozens of young developers listening to his every word.

But instead of being taken seriously, I was met with laughter and mockery. “Oh, Jim, Linux is a toy,” they told me. The conversation ended quickly. That dismissive attitude was widespread throughout Sun’s technical marketing teams at the time — even among many engineers, sadly. Sun’s Solaris was a technically superior Unix at the time, so what could possibly go wrong, right? And besides, why would large enterprises ever choose a buggy free operating system cobbled together by a bunch of volunteers hacking in their basements?

That dismissal was costly. IBM’s investment paid massive returns and Linux totally undermined Solaris and Sun. I remember working on earning calls and and having to explain quarter after quarter why Linux was growing and why Solaris was declining. It was remarkable how utterly blind my colleagues in marketing and business development were at the time. It’s obvious they forgot to read “The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail.” I did suggest that they read the book, by the way, but no one took me up on the offer. I read it multiple times.

By enabling Linux for enterprise use, and contributing to the growing Linux development movement, IBM built a thriving services business that generated billions. When IBM acquired Red Hat years later for tens of billions of dollars, they purchased a company built entirely on community-developed Open Source software. Meanwhile, Sun’s proprietary Solaris became increasingly irrelevant as Linux matured and captured the enterprise Unix market. That toy operating system that Sun’s marketers laughed at literally wrecked Sun. Oracle acquired what was left of Sun a few years later as the company crashed and burned to death. But not for Solaris. The real value at Sun was in Java and Java’s growing developer community. The lesson to me was clear: dismissing a thriving global open source community is a dumb strategic mistake. Sun did finally open Solaris but by then it was too late.

Linus Torvalds at Open Source Japan in Tokyo in 2018.

Java: The Power of a Global Developer Community

Java demonstrates the pattern as well. Engineers at Sun Microsystems created Java but the community made it dominant because the technology was open from the beginning. Millions of developers learned Java. Thousands of companies adopted it. And an entire ecosystem thrived. When Oracle acquired Sun, they recognized the value of Java’s massive global community. Java Virtual Machines now run on billions of devices globally, spanning servers, embedded systems, and IoT devices. Oracle generates substantial revenue from Java-related services and support. But it was the developer community that created the global installed base that drives this revenue. Java developers earn strong salaries, representing another dimension of community-driven value. The community created sustained employment for millions of developers worldwide.

Over the years, I have interviewed about a hundred Java developers for podcasts, and their perspective is remarkably consistent. They all tell me that the open sourcing of Java made all the difference in their careers and in Java’s success. Java was open from the start, and that openness enabled them to engage with the technology in ways that proprietary languages didn’t allow. They could examine the source code to understand how features worked. They could contribute improvements. They could build tools and frameworks on top of Java without license restrictions. They credit open source and community development as the fundamental reasons for Java’s success. Without that openness, Java would have been just another proprietary language competing for attention. With it, Java became a global platform that millions of developers built their careers around. This is not speculation from business strategists. This is the direct testimony of the developers who chose Java precisely because it was open.

How FOSS Creates Business Value and Opportunity

Development communities accelerate innovation faster than any single company could achieve internally. Major container orchestration platforms, AI tools, content management systems, operating systems, languages, frameworks and databases that were open sourced have improved rapidly through community contributions. The largest cloud providers now build profitable services around these technologies. Companies that Open Source their technologies gain access to global technical expertise while building ecosystems that drive commercial adoption.

Communities also function as talent pools where companies identify skilled developers through their Open Source contributions rather than through expensive recruiters. This collaborative approach has enabled companies to reach well over a billion dollars in revenue while also creating global opportunities for developers. For example, I’ve interviewed developers who stated quite directly and passionately that Open Source and Java saved their lives. Others have said that Java enabled them to go to college and support their parents. Some have built multi-million dollar companies around Open Source frameworks. Others earn substantial income from maintaining popular packages or community sponsorships. These success stories span continents and demonstrate that Open Source creates genuine economic opportunity regardless of geography or traditional credentials.

Finally

The evidence is pretty clear, isn’t it? Community development is business development. It’s not similar. It’s not almost the same. No. It’s identical. Companies can build profitable businesses by investing in Open Source development through code contributions, foundation support, and active participation. Major enterprise software companies, database vendors, DevOps platforms, data analytics firms, and content management providers all demonstrate the model works at any scale.

Decades of history and also current trends show this clearly. You build an Open Source development community first, and then the revenue follows. You support developers, contribute to projects, start technical user groups, and host conferences. These investments generate returns as the market matures through multiple channels including sales, talent acquisition, cost reduction, and market development. Just look at Linux and Java as the two obvious　examples. Open Source proves that collaboration creates more value than competition at the community level, and that sharing knowledge accelerates everyone’s success.

James Gosling and Bill Joy at the Sun Reunion in Silicon Vally in October 2019.

Read up on Sun’s Bill Joy: “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

Doc Searls on The New Vernacular

I remember in the early 2000s at Sun Microsystems we gathered hundreds of engineers in the auditorium on the Santa Clara campus for a day of sessions on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Back then Sun was quietly engaging FOSS community leaders at conferences and also inviting high profile developers to campus for conversations about building open communities. These meetings attempted to help teams as they grappled with opening Sun’s software projects: NetBeans, Grid Engine, Looking Glass, OpenSPARC, OpenOffice, OpenSolaris, JINI, JXTA, and Java.

There were many interesting speakers in the auditorium that day. But the Doc Searls session really resonated with me. He was a bold and dynamic personality. He explored concepts shared between software and construction, which struck me given my background in real estate development. I was new to Sun and software and had just moved to Silicon Valley from the East Coast. I was thrilled that my past experience in construction might help facilitate the radical career change I was making. I was already overwhelmed with the magnitude of change going on during that time at Sun, so it was nice to hear some solid and familiar content. I met many developers from the FOSS community in those early years at events and even at random meetings on Sun campuses. One day I walked into a meeting in Cupertino and sat down next to Richard Stallman, who then stood up and started lecturing the Java engineers for two hours about Free Software. Where am I? This is amazing, I thought to myself. Those interactions with FOSS leaders in and around Sun were extraordinary. It was an exciting time to be there.

Even though Sun had many competing factions during this time, the prevailing thought was that we didn’t want to simply open our software projects, dump the code over the firewall, and walk away. Instead, most teams aimed to update their internal development infrastructure, move source repositories across the firewall, release code under Open Source Initiative licenses, and build engineering communities by accepting contributions back. This approach, which aligned with the collaborative ethos Doc Searls expressed in his session, was an effort intended to help Sun return to its roots as a company grounded in Open Source and Open Standards. Now look, there were many internal skeptics (or antibodies, as we called them) resisting these moves, I assure you. And there were many heated battles at many levels throughout the entire company. The opening of all those projects over a period of about 6 years wasn’t easy.

Years after Doc’s talk at Sun, I stumbled across his article “The New Vernacular” and felt it nicely summarized the ideas he shared at Sun. Recently, I reread it. Here’s my reflection on his 2001 piece, looking back across twenty-four years.

The New Vernacular, Doc Searls, April 2001: A Summary

In 2001, Doc Searls argued that software was maturing into a construction industry, a vision that felt prescient then and remains relevant today for its emphasis on collaborative, community-driven development. The software industry had long borrowed the language from construction, speaking of tools, systems, architectures, builds, and frameworks. Searls suggested this wasn’t mere metaphor but pointed to a deeper shift: success would come not from dominant platform providers like Microsoft but from skilled practitioners working collaboratively in open source communities. In such a mature industry, he argued, Microsoft would hold no more importance than construction firms like Georgia Pacific or Kaufman & Broad.

The construction industry, Searls noted, had practiced what he called “open source” principles for centuries. Building materials, methods, and knowledge were openly shared and refined through peer review across generations. There was a strong history of meritocracy and mentorship, with experienced builders passing down hard-won knowledge to the next generation. This is evident in Architectural Graphic Standards, updated roughly every seven years through continuous peer review and incremental improvement. This wasn’t an abstract concept but a down-to-earth practice where the best ideas rose based on merit, not politics or corporate affiliation.

Drawing from Stewart Brand’s work in architecture and philosophy, Searls described “vernacular” construction: buildings designed not by professional architects but by builders and users who understood practical needs. This practical architecture evolved naturally, incorporating generational knowledge about maintaining and growing structures over time. These buildings stood in contrast to “magazine architecture,” which are art-focused designs that often proved impractical. Vernacular buildings embodied craft and practicality and improved as knowledge was shared and tested across projects. As Searls wrote, vernacular buildings are “everything not designed by professional architects — in other words, most of the world’s buildings.” Searls cited Richard Gabriel, a Distinguished Engineer and Chief Scientist at Sun, whose book on software patterns described building software for “habitability.” Gabriel used a New England farmhouse as his ideal, noting that “each part is well-suited to its needs, each part fits well with the others,” and inhabitants “are able to modify their environment because each part is built according to familiar patterns of design, use, and construction.”

Was Unix vernacular? In 2001, the answer was clear: absolutely. Searls cites Neal Stephenson’s observations that Unix represented a design from the hacker culture, not a company. Its command-line interface, with its consistent filesystem structure and obsessive abbreviations, reflected decades of practical, craft-driven refinement. This gave Unix a confidence and stability that commercial systems, contrived by corporate engineers, couldn’t replicate and embodied meritocratic traditions where the best solutions won through use and peer scrutiny. Searls quoted Stephenson: “UNIX, by contrast, is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture.”

The hacker culture and Unix’s development predated Moore’s Law and the modern software industry. MIT’s Building 20, a low-visibility, “no-style” facility, as Stewart Brand described, became legendary for enabling youthful creativity and experimentation. This “Low Road” culture mirrored vernacular construction, where function trumped aesthetics, in contrast to high-style architecture prioritizing aesthetics over utility. In places like Building 20, mentorship happened naturally, with veteran hackers guiding newcomers and sharing the community’s accumulated wisdom.

Drawing on Stewart Brand’s The Clock of the Long Now, Searls described civilization’s six layers, where slower layers like hacker culture set boundaries for faster ones like commerce. Brand noted that fast layers innovate, while slow ones stabilize. Hacker culture, rooted in nature and governance, gave software its open essence: freely shared, usable, and improvable by all. These qualities, vital to software’s foundation, aren’t commercial, as Searls emphasized: “These are values that do not—and cannot—come from business. They are not commercial values.”

The Internet embodied these vernacular principles, with almost natural qualities: nobody owns it, everybody can use it, anybody can improve it. Projects like Linux, Apache, and TCP/IP thrived because they followed this bottom-up, meritocratic model, where good code could come from anywhere and poor ideas were quickly discarded through community feedback. Corporate giants began to learn this lesson: Apple’s decision to open-source Darwin, adjusting its license after 70,000 hackers contributed, and IBM’s embrace of Linux, driven by internal engineering momentum and market changes, showed how companies could align with hacker culture’s principles, producing better results and attracting top talent.

Searls concluded that software companies faced a challenge: creating valuable infrastructure while generating shareholder returns. The answer lay in listening to engineers, who were building infrastructure organically, and recognizing what endured. Hacker culture’s deep understanding of software’s natural value—its ability to be shared, improved, and built upon—provided the foundation for software civilization. Companies aligning with these principles, rather than fighting them, would succeed.

Twenty-Four Years Later

Reading Doc Searls’ article now, in 2025, prompts reflection on how the software landscape has evolved. Searls was deeply embedded in the hacker culture of the early 2000s. But does that same culture persist today? The world has changed dramatically since then. Software ecosystems are more fragmented, with factions not always communicating. Development feels more atomized than it did two decades ago. International, domestic, and social politics now pervade many FOSS communities, unlike in 2000 when I joined Sun and such discussions were rare. Silicon Valley, once an American tech hub, is now a global economic powerhouse and has significant political influence in Washington. It’s totally different world.

I once viewed the FOSS community as roughly a single entity, but that no longer feels accurate. Perhaps I missed important distinctions back then. Today, I see diverse behaviors across FOSS communities. While FOSS is pervasive in 2025, corporate software giants are more powerful than ever and likely represent some of the most powerful institutions globally. We live in a world shaped by AI automation and algorithms, where opaque systems often replace the transparent human judgment and championed by early FOSS developers, challenging the freedoms hacker culture promoted.

So where does that leave developers today? Navigating this complex landscape requires revisiting the core principles Searls highlighted. The meritocracy and mentorship that defined hacker culture seem diluted in some FOSS communities. These principles are rarely articulated among young developers today, unlike two decades ago when they dominated every meetup. Some open source projects thrive, but they operate within intricate, disparate, and massive geopolitical systems with some stressing censorship and pervasive tracking of humans globally. This complexity is also evident in Bitcoin’s FOSS community, which navigates financial regulatory debates, unlike the technically focused, community-driven ethos of the early 2000s. Yet, I still hear Bitcoin developers articulating original FOSS principles—meritocracy, mentorship, collaboration, freedom—more strongly than some older, prominent developer communities. This highlights an opportunity to revive Searls’ vision

Searls’ argument about vernacular development, bottom-up collaboration, and the enduring value of open infrastructure remains insightful. With these concepts less frequently discussed today, they offer unique opportunities for developers to embrace foundational principles that will help build their skills, grow their networks, and improve their careers. The principles that made Unix and the Internet valuable —collaboration, openness, and practicality—endure, even as the landscape has transformed. The cycle continues. It’s time to learn again for this new age.

Andy Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy at the Sun Reunion in Silicon Valley in October 2019.

Exploring Six Degrees of Separation

I’ve always been fascinated by how connected we are. I’ve met some famous people in totally random situations, like Mike Love from the Beach Boys at a hotel in Washington, DC, and George Shultz, who was Reagan’s Secretary of State, in an elevator in San Francisco. Also, one day while running along The Charles River in Boston I had a conversation with a homeless man who was from Bari, Italy, where my grandparents were from. On business trips around the world, I’ve met random people on trains and planes who grew up near me in New York.

When I moved to Sun Microsystems in 2000 in Silicon Valley, that’s when I really learned about the scale of massive human networks via my work on Free and Open Source Software Communities (FOSS). That experience hooked me. So when I watched Derek Muller’s Veritasium video, “Something Strange Happens When You Trace How Connected We Are,” it really hit home. This is not just math. It’s the invisible webs linking people, ideas, diseases, and behaviors. With simulations and real-world examples, Muller unpacks the six degrees of separation concept, showing why our world sometimes feels small despite eight billion people. It’s a deep dive into network science that reshapes how I view communities, opportunities, and my own connections. As someone who’s spent decades building FOSS communities, I see parallels in how software developers form networks. Here’s my take.

The Classic Hook: Six Degrees Explained

The video opens with a striking story from 1999. A German newspaper, Die Zeit, challenges a falafel salesman and former theater director, Salah ben Ghaly, to connect to his favorite actor, Marlon Brando. Through a chain of friends, family, and acquaintances, all on a first-name basis, they do it in six steps. Ben Ghaly’s California friend works with a woman’s boyfriend, who’s linked to a sorority sister of the daughter of the producer of Don Juan DeMarco, starring Brando. Six hops. Muller’s point is clear. This is not a one-off. In a world of eight billion, any two people can likely connect in six steps or fewer. But how does this work? And what does it mean for us?

Muller frames it as a puzzle. If connections were random, say each of us with 100 friends worldwide, the math checks out. One person’s 100 friends, times their 100, and by step five, you’re at 10 billion, overshooting Earth’s population. Straightforward. But real life is not random. We cluster geographically. Most friends live closely nearby and know each other personally. Picture eight billion people in a circle, each linked to 50 neighbors on either side. Connecting opposites takes 40 million steps on average. Six steps? No, you’re nowhere. Yet the world feels small. That’s the mystery.

Network Scientists and Shortcuts

Muller introduces Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz, network scientists who tackled this in the mid-1990s with their small-world model. They start with a regular network with nodes in a circle tied to nearby neighbors, which mimics real social clusters. Then they add shortcuts, which are random links to distant nodes. In a 1,000-node simulation, rewiring just one percent of links drops separation from 50 to 10. Scale to eight billion? Only three shortcuts per 10,000 friendships bring it to six degrees. Clustering stays high, but the world shrinks jet quick.

Strogatz sums it up. The question is not why the world is small, it’s how could it be otherwise? I’ve felt this myself. A random meetup or conference chat creates a shortcut, putting me one step from a developer in Amsterdam or a startup founder in Tokyo. The video connects this to a concept in sociology called the strength of weak ties. Jobs often come from acquaintances, not close friends since weak links bridge distant networks. Muller suggests attending random events to boost these connections. I’ve landed opportunities this way, showing up to a meetup where I knew no one, only to meet someone who opened new doors. However, randomness matters. I got my job at Sun Microsystems by applying blindly to HR! I didn’t know anyone at Sun at the time. You never know what happens when you move in one direction or another.

Proving the Small World

Watts and Strogatz tested their model on real data. In 1996, with no Google, they analyzed the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans worm’s neural network, which has 282 neurons with an average of 14 connections. Arranged linearly, it would take 14 steps to connect extremes. In reality? Just 2.65 degrees. Hollywood’s 200,000 actors average under four degrees, cue that old Kevin Bacon game. U.S. power grids also exhibit small-world properties, with key substations acting as connectors. Their 1998 Nature paper became a sensation, now with 58,000 citations, outpacing landmark works on the Higgs boson or DNA. The irony? It seems that a paper on networks does indeed spread like wildfire.

Muller and Strogatz explore unexpected applications of their small-world model, which reveals its reach beyond theoretical networks. For instance, they recount a surprising call from the FBI, which sought Strogatz’s expertise to apply network science to forensic criminology. The agency was investigating “hair and fiber” networks to calculate probabilities of secondary transfers in cases where, say, a fiber from a suspect’s clothing might end up on a bus seat, then transfer to another person, which can complicate crime scene analysis. By modeling these connections as a network, investigators could better estimate the likelihood of such transfers and refine their approach to evidence. Another example touches on epidemiology, where small-world principles help trace contact networks in disease outbreaks, which helps researchers identify key individuals who might unknowingly spread pathogens. These examples highlight how our interconnected world, while powerful, can amplify both solutions and problems.

Hubs and the Dark Side of Connectivity

The video shifts to disease spread. Simulations show a regular network takes 73 steps to infect 100 nodes. Add 10 percent shortcuts? It’s 26 steps. Fully random? 25. For billions, though, less than one percent shortcuts suffice. This echoes global pandemics with air travelcreating shortcuts that push spreading viruses fast.

Albert-László Barabási enters the discussion, drawing from his groundbreaking work on the internet in 1998. At that time, the web had around 800 million pages, yet any two could be connected in just 19 clicks on average. This was puzzling because it didn’t align perfectly with Watts and Strogatz’s small-world model, which focused on ordered networks with random shortcuts. Instead, Barabási identified a different structure: scale-free networks. These connections don’t follow a normal bell curve distribution, where most nodes have roughly the same number of links, like people’s heights clustering around an average. Rather, the web exhibits a power-law distribution — a steep initial drop followed by a long tail. This means most pages have few links, but a small number of super-connected “hubs,” like Yahoo or early search engines. They link to thousands or even millions of others. These hubs make the entire network navigable in so few steps and turn vast systems into small worlds not through random shortcuts alone, but through unequal connectivity.

Barabási explains how this emerges: through two key principles — growth and preferential attachment. Networks don’t appear fully formed. They expand over time. The web started small in the early 1990s and grew to trillions of nodes one page at a time. When a new node joins, it doesn’t connect randomly. It’s biased toward popular nodes. You’re more likely to link to a well-known site like Wikipedia than an obscure blog because it’s visible and useful. This “rich get richer” effect, called preferential attachment, naturally creates large hubs. In simulations with his colleague Réka Albert, they start with a few connected nodes and add new ones that preferentially link to those with more connections. Over time, a few nodes become massively dominant, mirroring real networks.

This scale-free property isn’t unique to the web; it’s universal in complex systems, from social media follows to airline routes.

Real-world hubs are everywhere. Take Chicago’s O’Hare airport, with over 200 direct flights. It’s a massive travel hub. But when storms hit in August 2025, 280 flights were canceled, impacting six other American airports. Ecosystems rely on keystone species like Atlantic cod. Remove them, and food webs collapse. In cells, ATP hubs drive reactions. In brains, the prefrontal cortex links functions. Barabási notes that once hubs are there, they fundamentally change the system. They’re efficient but fragile, useful for drugs targeting bacteria hubs but disastrous for pandemics.

Thailand’s 1990s HIV crisis shows hub power. Broad public health campaigns failed, but when officials targeted brothels as hubs and mandated condoms that cut infections by over 50 percent in military recruits, which prevented five million cases by 2013. Smart strategyto target the inherent weakness of large hubs.

Behavior in the Net: Cooperation vs Chaos

The video also delves into how networks influence human behavior, using the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a cornerstone of game theory, to illustrate this. Imagine two players, each deciding whether to cooperate or defect in a scenario involving coins as rewards. If both cooperate, they each earn a moderate reward, say 3 coins. If both defect, they get less, maybe 1 coin each. But if one cooperates while the other defects, the defector scores big with 5 coins, and the cooperator gets nothing. From a purely rational, one-time perspective, defecting seems like the best choice — you either win big or minimize your loss. Yet, this leads to both players defecting, earning less than if they had cooperated. This paradox highlights a tension in human interactions: individual gain versus collective benefit.

The dynamics shift when the game is played repeatedly, simulating ongoing relationships like those in social or professional networks. Here, a strategy called “tit for tat” emerges as powerful and effective. In this approach, you start by cooperating and then mirror your opponent’s previous move — cooperating if they cooperated, defecting if they defected. This simple rule fosters trust and punishes betrayal, which encourages long-term cooperation. Political scientist Robert Axelrod ran famous computer tournaments in the 1980s, pitting various strategies against each other in repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma games. His findings, detailed in his book The Evolution of Cooperation, showed that “nice” strategies like tit for tat consistently outperformed selfish ones. Why? Because cooperative strategies build trust over time, especially in clustered networks where players interact repeatedly with the same neighbors. These clusters, like tight-knit communities, create environments where cooperation can thrive, as defectors are gradually outcompeted or isolated.

Watts and Strogatz simulated this on a network. In a regular setup, cooperation spreads from clusters. Add shortcuts? Defectors dominate. A critical threshold exists, more shortcuts, zero cooperation. Strogatz explains that clumps foster trust, global nets amplify toxicity. This mirrors the phenomenon of online keyboard warriors as the internet erases community pockets and fuels negativity. Social media connects but often divides and spreads harm. It seems humans compete and cooperate depending on the situation. This is a key lesson for people who build large communities for a living.

Watts’ real-world experiments puzzled him. Network structure seemed neutral at first with cooperation as likely in clustered or random setups. But digging deeper, he found that clustered networks amplify copying. If someone cooperates by chance, others follow, but defection spreads just as easily. Over many games, these balance out. Allow players to choose connections? Cooperation surges. Muller’s takeaway. Curate your network, avoid negativity. These insights resonate with my own experiences.

My Take: Power in the Weave

This video is an eye-opener. We’re constantly shaping our networks through shortcuts, hubs, and choices. One action can tip the system. Steve Jobs said those crazy enough to think they can change the world do. This video shows how. Simulations, linked in the video, let you explore disease spread and hub growth to illustrate these concepts.

In my work building FOSS communities, like through Duke’s Corner Java Podcast, I see these principles in action. Software communities are networks. Hubs like the Java Champions and Java User Groups or OpenJDK contributors connect thousands of developers. Shortcuts? A student’s pull request on GitHub links them to a global project. JCrete’s unconference gatherings and hacking sessions fosters life-changing career connections since such high value developers participate. I’ve interviewed hundreds of developers, from user group leaders to enterprise architects, and their stories echo this video. Collaboration, contribution, and shared purpose drive vibrant ecosystems, whether a local meetup or a global project spanning dozens of countries.

But there’s a flip side. Online toxicity, like flame wars in project issues, thrives in unclustered, chaotic nets. The fix is intentional community building. Encourage participation, foster leadership, ensure transparency, just as Watts’ experiments showed choice promotes cooperation. Every developer can shape the network. A single commit or meetup talk can spark a movement, connecting you to mentors, peers, and opportunities. As I’ve learned from 20 years in FOSS, contributing to communities like Java’s is not just coding. It’s building networks that fuel innovation and careers. Next random invite? Take it! Contribute to a project, join a user group, share your story. It might shrink your world or spark something big. Watch the video and rethink your connections. Communities are networks, and we all have a role in weaving them stronger.

Fukushima nuclear protests in Tokyo in 2011.

Updated Facebook Account

I updated my Facebook — by deleting everything and locking the account!

I used to have a pretty big FB account when I worked on the OpenSolaris project at Sun Microsystems years ago. And the application was mildly useful back then since I had many thousands of connections for work. It wasn’t my main communications platform during OpenSolaris, but it did at least enable me to connect to some of our development communities that used the platform around the world. But after Sun died and OpenSolaris was killed after the Oracle acquisition, I deleted that old FB account. I just had no use for it any longer. And I wasn’t going to just casually switch over to posting about personal issues or the news, which I don’t watch anyway. I have no time for that.

But then years later I (stupidly) opened a new FB account in 2017 for reasons I’ll keep private. This one, though, I really didn’t use much, and I made very little attempt to build it out. I only ended up with about 800 connections. So, it turns out that just opening the damn thing was more of an embarrassment than anything. However, in recent years I’ve found the environment on Facebook too toxic to stomach. So, a few weeks ago I deleted all of my content, including likes and comments, deleted hundreds of connections, and locked the putrid thing shut. I only need it to contact via Messenger with a few family members. I’m connected to so many people on so many social platforms it seems pointless to just pile these things on top of each other forever.S

So, that’s it. I feel a little better now — like slowly recovering from a bad bout of intractable diarrhea. This is part of my “social” purge. I’ve deleted 10 accounts in the last few years, all of which were just poison.

Mattias Karlsson: I think it’s Brilliant

Duke’s Corner Java Podcast: Mattias Karlsson: I think it’s Brilliant

Conversation with Mattias Karlsson, Java Champion and prominent developer in the Java community who was also honored with the Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition at Jfokus in February 2024.

“I was shocked and honored — very humbled!” Mattias said about being recognized for his lifetime of achievements in the Java community by Sharat Chander of Oracle’s Java Developer Relations Team.

Mattias, a Stockholm-based engineer and long-time leader of the Stockholm Java User Group, shares his journey with Java, from its early days to its current role in today’s modern tech ecosystems. He also talks about the evolution of Jfokus, a leading annual Java conference he organizes, which has grown from a small Java user group into a major gathering of over 2,000 developers from diverse backgrounds around the world. Mattias highlights Java’s enduring appeal, driven by its robust JVM, backward compatibility, and vibrant community. He also reflects on the six-month release cycle, calling it “brilliant” for its balance of stability and innovation, and shares insights on mentoring young developers and using AI to stay updated.

When talking about how students learning programming will inevitably encounter Java due to its widespread use in the industry, Mattias said, “Sooner or later they will end up with Java anyway.”

Finally, the episode underscores the unique culture of the Java community and Jfokus as a conference for its blending of culture, professionalism, and a welcoming atmosphere.

Here are some quotes from the conversation:

Java Community Lifetime Achievement Recognition

Surprise and Emotion of Receiving Recognition
Timestamp: 00:01:35–00:01:45
Context: Mattias was unexpectedly honored with the Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition at Jfokus 2024 in Stockholm, an event he organizes. The recognition came as a surprise during the opening keynote by Georges Saab and Sharat Chander. Mattias shares that the moment was deeply emotional, reflecting his long-standing contributions to the Java community, including his leadership of the Java User Group in Sweden for over 25 years. He notes the audience’s reaction and his own heartfelt response, underscoring the significance of being acknowledged by peers in a community he has dedicated much of his career to fostering.
Quote: “I didn’t know about it. I was really touched. People that were in the audience did see, you know, a little bit of tear of joy or whatever. I was really touched about it.”

Reason for Recognition
Timestamp: 00:00:48–00:01:02
Context: When asked about the Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition, Mattias attributes it to his extensive involvement in the Java community, particularly his leadership in running the Java User Group in Stockholm for decades. He reflects on his role in organizing community events, including Jfokus, which has become a cornerstone event for Java developers globally. His work has involved consulting, fostering collaboration, sharing knowledge, and building a vibrant community, which likely contributed to this prestigious acknowledgment. Mattias also mentions his surprise at being recognized, as he was unaware of the criteria or previous recipients, highlighting his humility and focus on community over personal accolades.
Quote: “Well, so I think it’s called Java Community Lifetime Achievements. So my guess is, and part of this is because I’ve been involved in the community for a very, very long time, running the Java User Group in Stockholm and so on.”

Feeling Honored and Humbled
Timestamp: 00:03:23–00:03:28
Context: Mattias expresses deep humility upon receiving the Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition, noting that he was shocked to be placed in the same category as notable figures like Bruno Souza and Venkat Subramaniam. He shares that he reached out to Sharat Chander at Oracle to understand more about the recognition, indicating his surprise and lack of prior knowledge about the honor. This moment underscores his modesty and the unexpected nature of the recognition, which he sees as a testament to his long-term dedication to the Java community through organizing events, speaking at conferences, mentoring developers, working in the field, and consulting with companies.
Quote: “So I was shocked and honored, very humbled!”

Jfokus and Community Building

Evolution of Jfokus
Timestamp: 00:32:10–00:32:31
Context: Mattias recounts the origins of Jfokus, which began as an extension of the Java User Group in Stockholm he has led for 25 years. Initially planned as a modest one-day event in 2007 with an expected 200 attendees, Jfokus exceeded expectations when over 500 people signed up, creating logistical challenges but marking the start of its growth into a major Java conference. Now a three-day event attracting around 2,000 attendees, Jfokus has become a premier platform for Java and FOSS discussions, reflecting Mattias’s vision of scaling community engagement while maintaining a focus on cutting-edge technology and developer collaboration.
Quote: “So we were running the Java User Group and then we decided so maybe we should do a one day event and just to see how that works out and then that was back in 2007 and we were expecting 200 people and we had a venue for 200 people-ish and then suddenly we have 500 plus signed up.”

Jfokus Anniversary
Timestamp: 00:31:25–00:31:35
Context: Mattias highlights the upcoming 20th anniversary of Jfokus, set for February 2026, as a milestone for the conference and the Java community in Stockholm. He notes that the call for speakers has just opened, signaling ongoing preparations for a significant celebration of the event’s history. This anniversary underscores Jfokus’s evolution from a small user group gathering to a globally recognized conference, reflecting Mattias’s long-term commitment to fostering a space where developers can learn, network, and share innovations in Java and related Open Source technologies. Here he ends the podcast conversation with a note on the longevity of Jfokus.
Quote: “I mean, we could mention that JFocus is having its 20th anniversary!”

Culture of Jfokus
Timestamp: 00:36:05–00:36:29
Context: Mattias emphasizes the unique culture of Jfokus, which he intentionally designs to feel like an extension of a user group, fostering a sense of community and belonging. He aims to create an environment where attendees feel welcome and can openly engage with one another, akin to gathering in a friend’s living room. This approach stems from his experience running the Stockholm Java User Group, where community bonding was central. The feedback he cherishes most—that Jfokus feels like “coming home”—reflects his success in blending a warm, inclusive atmosphere with high-quality technical content, making it a standout event for developers worldwide.
Quote: “So the basic idea is that we look at this as an extended user group or like an extended community event. So we really try to mix the community feeling. Everybody should feel really welcome. Everybody should be open and transparent. Talk to each other. It should be a nice mingle. I mean, the best ever feedback I got at some point was like, Mattias, it feels like we’re coming home to you. We are sitting down with you in your living room, just like friends.”

Professionalism at Jfokus
Timestamp: 00:36:31–00:36:56
Context: While prioritizing a community-driven atmosphere, Mattias also strives to ensure Jfokus operates with a high level of professionalism. He discusses the importance of making speakers and exhibitors feel supported, with seamless logistics, clear communication, and advanced presentation technology. This balance of warmth and professionalism is evident in the high-end production elements, such as quality lighting and cameras, which Jim Grisanzio notes during the podcast. Mattias’s attention to detail ensures that Jfokus delivers a polished experience, distinguishing it from purely corporate events while maintaining a community ethos.
Quote: “I want to run it like super professionally, super slick. I want all the speakers to feel that they are really welcome, get everything they need. Also with exhibiting partners, they should have a flawless session.”

Jfokus Attendee Mix
Timestamp: 00:32:55–00:33:22
Context: Mattias describes the diverse audience at Jfokus, which includes a mix of senior and junior developers, as well as professionals from various industries such as banking, contracting, and startups. The conference attracts attendees primarily from Europe but also from places like the United States and Japan, reflecting its global appeal. This diversity underscores Jfokus’s role as a broad technology conference, not limited to a single sector, and highlights Sweden’s strong tech ecosystem, with companies like Spotify and Oracle contributing to a vibrant developer community.
Quote: “It’s very mixed. The conference is not like a company thing. It’s a technology conference. We have people coming from the banking industry, from the contractors, from all of the startups in Sweden are coming. We have senior developers, we have juniors, and we have people from all over the world.”

Java Technology and Its Appeal

Java’s Ubiquity
Timestamp: 00:24:49–00:24:54
Context: Mattias shares his perspective on why Java is a natural destination for developers, given its widespread adoption across industries. He argues that regardless of where programmers start, the prevalence of Java in major corporations ensures they will absolutely encounter it eventually. This view is rooted in his experience working with companies in Sweden and reflects his belief in Java’s enduring relevance in the tech world.
Quote: “As long as people start doing programming, sooner or later they will end up with Java anyway.”

Java’s Stability and Performance
Timestamp: 00:10:46–00:11:02
Context: Mattias praises Java’s unique ability to maintain both backward and forward compatibility, allowing code written a decade ago to run efficiently on modern JVMs. He highlights how advancements like virtual threads have improved performance without requiring developers to modify their code, demonstrating Java’s ability to evolve while preserving stability. This characteristic, he notes, sets Java apart and empowers developers to focus on innovation rather than maintenance.
Quote: “It’s both backward and forward compatible in the sense that, I mean, if I did write a Java program 10 years ago, I can just fire it up on the latest version of the JVM, best case and it will probably work fine and on top of that it will be faster and more performant than it was 10 years ago.”

Six-Month Release Cycle
Timestamp: 00:16:38–00:16:41
Context: Mattias strongly supports Java’s six-month release cycle, which he calls “brilliant” for balancing innovation with stability. He recalls debates within the community about adopting this faster cadence, noting his advocacy for the change due to his experience with agile development. The regular releases provide stable updates, experimental features, and a clear roadmap, which he believes benefits developers by keeping Java fresh and predictable without breaking existing systems.
Quote: “So, I think it’s brilliant!”

JVM’s Technical Strength
Timestamp: 00:09:07–00:09:14
Context: Mattias underscores the advanced technical ability of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), particularly its garbage collection, which was a significant advantage in Java’s early days. He explains that the JVM’s sophisticated capabilities, often described as “magic tricks,” have been a cornerstone of Java’s success and enables robust performance and scalability that attract large corporations to the platform.
Quote: “I love the language, but also the platform, the JVM. So, the JVM does quite a lot of magic tricks that is technically really hard to understand how it works. If you go way back, just the fact that we had a proper garbage collection was, you know, a big thing.”

Java’s Scalability
Timestamp: 00:11:51–00:12:07
Context: Reflecting on his time at King, the company behind Candy Crush in Stockholm, Mattias highlights how Java and the JVM enabled the backend systems to scale effectively during the game’s massive success. This experience reinforces his view of Java’s reliability and scalability, which are critical for handling the demands of high-traffic applications in major companies.
Quote: “So I used to work for a company called King, which that makes a very famous game called Candy Crush. And I mean, we were running the backend servers there on the JVM and Java, and that helped us scale up when that game became successful.”

Developer Experience and Learning

Advice for Young Developers
Timestamp: 00:27:06–00:27:23
Context: Mattias advises young developers to focus on learning programming fundamentals, as Java’s widespread use ensures they will encounter it naturally and everntually. He emphasizes that mastering problem-solving and engineering principles is key, as Java’s prominence in industry—evident in companies like Spotify—makes it a likely tool for their careers. This advice aligns with his belief that Java’s ecosystem supports developers in building robust, scalable solutions.
Quote: “Every company is using Java, or most companies are. And if they don’t, they will be in the future. And I think that is a really interesting comment because it speaks to the fact that it might not matter to a student where you start as long as you learn the fundamental processes of solving problems with code and becoming an engineer, a software engineer, you’re going to have to learn multiple technologies. And once you discover Java, which you certainly will, then Java speaks for itself.”

Using AI for Learning
Timestamp: 00:26:26–00:26:51
Context: Mattias shares how he uses AI tools, such as those integrated into IDEs like Cursor, to stay updated with modern Java features, particularly functional programming techniques. He notes that AI helps him bridge the gap between his older coding style and newer Java advancements, suggesting that students and developers can leverage AI for learning new frameworks and languages efficiently. This approach reflects his adaptability and openness to evolving technologies.
Quote: “So I’m using AI as a learning tool now. It helped me write code, but it also helped me to learn functional ways of doing stuff that I have not been so good at before. I mean, even if student is not doing that, I think that you can have AI supported learning for new frameworks, new languages, newer versions of Java or any other framework or tools.”

Early Java Experience
Timestamp: 00:21:28–00:21:33
Context: Mattias recalls his early experiences with Java around 1998–1999, noting its stability as a standout feature despite initial drawbacks like slow startup times. He contrasts Java with other languages he used, such as C++ and Visual Basic, and highlights how Java’s reliability made it a compelling choice for web development and enterprise systems at the time.
Quote: “So one is that it worked. It was stable and continued to work.”

Transition to Java
Timestamp: 00:19:53–00:20:00
Context: Mattias describes his transition to Java in the late 1990s while working at Ericsson, where he began using Java Server Pages for web interfaces to legacy systems. This marked his shift from languages like C++ and Visual Basic to Java, which he adopted for its growing relevance in web development. His early work with Java’s pre-1.0 versions laid the foundation for his long-term commitment to the platform.
Quote: “But then I think around 98, 99, I was moving into Java, and I was, like many, started with the web.”

Venkat Subramaniam: I Teach Because I Learn

Duke’s Corner Java Podcast: Venkat Subramaniam: I Teach Because I Learn

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Venkat Subramaniam who was recognized with the Java Community Lifetime Achievement honors by Oracle’s Sharat Chander at Devoxx UK in May 2024. Venkat is a Java Champion, author, speaker, founder of Agile Developer, co-founder of the dev2next conference, and teacher at the University of Houston.

In this conversation, which is part of an ongoing series honoring Java pioneers, Venkat expresses profound humility about his accomplishments and credits industry giants and his passion for learning and sharing technical knowledge. He reflects on leaving his own company years ago to focus on teaching and technology, writing books like Cruising Along with Java, and speaking at over 45 conferences and 30 Java User Groups — every single year! Venkat has one of the most impressive global speaking schedules of anyone in the Java community.

Venkat praises Java User Group leaders as “unsung heroes” for their organizational efforts and highlights Java 25’s evolving features like structured concurrency, scoped values, pattern matching, and the instance main method, which helps simplify the learning process for new developers. Venkat also cites Java’s agile six-month release cycle, which helps improve the smooth evolution of Java, increases developer engagement, and makes Java more suitable for today’s rapidly expanding technology markets. Emphasizing teaching as reciprocal learning, Venkat advises students to engage mentors and senior developers to collaborate with juniors to help welcome into the community. He stresses that knowledge grows when shared. His mantra? Teaching fuels learning and he lives that ethic every day as he interacts with thousands of developers around the world.

Also, below are some quotes and the specific context of the quotes from the conversation split into sections.

Community Recognition and Humility

Unexpected Award Shock
Timestamp: 00:01:16
Context: During the conversation, Venkat recalls the moment he was awarded the Java Community Lifetime Achievement honors at Devoxx UK in May 2024, an initiative led by Sharat Chander of Oracle’s Java Developer Relations to recognize community contributions. He describes being caught off guard right before a keynote when Shar made the announcement, emphasizing the vital role of community members in the Java ecosystem. Venkat shares his nervousness and surprise, feeling unprepared for such recognition amidst esteemed industry figures.
Quote: “I was truly shocked, honestly. If you want me to truly explain the feeling, I was very nervous being there and did not see this coming. I don’t think I consider myself as worthy of being received compared to the giants I mentioned in the industry today.”

Humbled by Giants
Timestamp: 00:00:49
Context: Early in the interview, Venkat expresses profound gratitude for the award, emphasizing his humility in being recognized alongside prominent Java contributors. He references Newton’s quote to highlight that his achievements build on the foundational work of others, acknowledging the mentors and peers who have shaped his career and strengthened the Java community through their contributions.
Quote: “I look up so many giants that are in the field and I’m truly humbled for having been recognized. I want to channel in the words of Newton. He said, I see the farthest because I am standing on the shoulders of the giants. I’m very humbled and thankful for the giants that brought me up to here and I couldn’t be here without it.”

Undeserving Yet Grateful
Timestamp: 00:02:37
Context: After receiving the award, Venkat reflects on feeling unworthy compared to other Java luminaries, many of whom he believes have made more significant contributions. Venkat shares his emotional response to the unexpected honor from Shar. Venkat values diverse community efforts like coding, blogging, and event organization, which underscores his gratitude despite his self-perceived inadequacy.
Quote: “I don’t think I was expecting or even feel that I was deserving of it. So I’m very grateful. I don’t think I consider myself as worthy of being recognized compared to the giants I mentioned in the industry today. So I’m very grateful and it was an interesting moment.”

Contributions to User Groups and Conferences

Unsung Heroes of User Groups
Timestamp: 00:07:44
Context: Venkat passionately praises Java User Group (JUG) leaders as the backbone of the Java community, recognizing their tireless, often thankless efforts in organizing monthly meetings for years. He details their work in securing speakers, arranging venues, providing food, cleaning up, and more — all done voluntarily to foster learning and networking and community building. These leaders, often unknown beyond their local communities, embody true service and significantly contribute to Java’s vibrant ecosystem.
Quote: “These are to me, the unsung heroes of our field. These are the user group leaders. Most people wouldn’t know their names outside of their local community, but these are the people doing hard work every single day. Imagine the effort it takes to organize a user group meeting month after month after month, having a speaker come over, having the attendees show up, having the food for them available, having the facility to clean up after the meeting is over.”

Giving Back Through User Groups
Timestamp: 00:17:47
Context: Venkat shares how a scheduling mistake 25 years ago at a Houston Java user group gave him his first speaking opportunity, a pivotal moment that launched his community engagement. Grateful for this serendipitous break, he commits to speaking at around 30 user groups annually, as listed on his website (agiledeveloper.com). He views it as a way to repay the community that elevated his career.
Quote: “This is one of the reasons, in all honesty, 25 years later that I speak in approximately 30 or more user groups every single year. If you go to my website, agiledeveloper.com, and you look in the events section, you will see the number of user groups I talk to every single year because that’s, to me, a way to give back to the user groups because that’s what I started.”

Conferences and Broad Reach
Timestamp: 00:18:25
Context: Venkat attributes part of his recognition to his extensive speaking at approximately 45 conferences yearly, reaching diverse audiences from aspiring developers to seasoned experts. His talks cover deep technical details, career advice, and Java innovations — all of which creates creating a broad “surface area” of impact. This prolific engagement, driven by his enthusiasm, likely contributed to his award, connecting him with developers worldwide.
Quote: “I speak in roughly about, I don’t even count, but I’m going to say maybe 45 or more conferences a year. So I think that’s part of the reason for the recognition is the amount of… the surface area that I can touch. I can touch the surface area of young developers, aspiring programmers, seasoned professionals, all the way to experts with my interaction in the industry by way of conferences, user groups, university, consulting, writing books.”

Everyone Needs a Break
Timestamp: 00:14:00
Context: Venkat recalls a defining moment 25 years ago when a calendar error by a Houston Java user group organizer allowed him to speak on a non-teaching night. This led to an invitation to the No Fluff, Just Stuff conference, connecting him with industry giants like Jason Hunter and James Duncan Davidson, marking a turning point in his career through serendipity.
Quote: “Everybody needs a break. If you don’t get a break, you could have the potential, but you need that first break, right? It’s like the actors who always tell you, well, I was in acting school and I was interested in acting, but here’s where I got a first break. Well, I got my first break in the Java User Group.”

Teaching and Sharing Knowledge

Teaching as Learning
Timestamp: 00:39:16
Context: Near the end of the interview, Venkat articulates his teaching philosophy, emphasizing its reciprocal nature. As a part-time professor for 34 years, he views himself as the “first student” in his classes, learning from student questions and interactions. This approach fuels his growth and reinforces his commitment to sharing practical knowledge with students, helping them navigate their careers.
Quote: “I teach because I learn. And I always say I’m the first student in my classes. So collaborate, bring other developers because you end up learning by doing [more] so than being in isolation in solving your problems.”

Sharing Excitement
Timestamp: 00:03:16
Context: Early in the discussion, Venkat explains his shift in focus from seeking recognition to prioritizing learning and sharing knowledge. He describes how, in his late twenties, he realized that true reward lies in daily learning and helping others grow, a mindset that drives his prolific contributions to the Java community through technical talks, writing books, and teaching students and professional developers.
Quote: “If our mind is focused on learning, and then sharing what we learn, then we are not focused on where we get the recognition from. The reward is when I wake up in the morning and feel like I have learned something more than I did the day before. And then I go to bed knowing that maybe I helped somebody else along the way to learn something more than they did.”

Venkat’s Company and Solo Path
Timestamp: 00:10:06
Context: Venkat shares his transformative decision to leave his day job and, after four years, fire himself from his own company. He realized that he was a technologist at heart, not a business person. This shift allowed him to focus on learning, tinkering with technologies, and sharing insights through talks and books — all of which aligned with his true passion.
Quote: “I quit working in a day job several decades ago and I started my own company and only to realize after about four or five years running my company to realize that I’m not a business person. I’m a technologist, and I realized that what I truly enjoy is learning about stuff, tinkering with technologies, trying to come up with reasons about why things work and how they should be implemented, and then to turn around and be able to share that and coach people doing it.”

Long-Term Teaching Commitment
Timestamp: 00:13:08
Context: Venkat discusses his 34-year tenure as a part-time university professor, emphasizing that his goal isn’t academic status but instead sharing practical knowledge in the industry. By teaching evenings, he bridges his professional experiences with academia, helping students learn career approaches and professional skills, contributing to their development as future Java developers.
Quote: “I’m into my 34th year of teaching at the university. All these 34 years, part-time, I moonlight. I’ve never been [on the] tenured track or in a position to be tenured. I don’t want to be tenured. My goal is not to be a professor. My goal is to teach students about things they can learn, how to learn, how to approach their careers.”

Venkat’s Book Motivation
Timestamp: 00:11:58
Context: Venkat explains his motivation for writing books like Cruising Along with Java recently. He was initially hesitant but driven by a desire to share stories about technology nuances. Unlike writing for business promotion, he finds excitement in conveying discoveries about languages or design methods, using books and conferences as platforms to educate and inspire developers.
Quote: “The one reason to write a book is to maybe promote yourself and promote your business. But to me, a bigger reason to write a book is I’ve got a story to tell. And that’s what excites me about writing books. Almost every book I’ve written since then, I started writing the book because I have a story to tell. I discover a nuance in a language or in a library or in a method of designing, and I want to speak that.”

Knowledge Grows When Given
Timestamp: 00:38:08
Context: While offering advice, Venkat emphasizes that sharing knowledge benefits both the giver and the receiver. He describes how teaching prompts self-reflection and leads to new questions, often leading him to take notes during conversations to explore topics further. This reinforces his belief that knowledge, unlike money, grows through sharing, enriching all parties involved.
Quote: “I often say that knowledge is a wealth that grows when it’s given. You know, if I give you $10, I’m poorer by $10. But if I share with you a little bit of what I know, I never give you what I know because as I’m talking to you, I’m going to start thinking, do I understand this really well? Or you are asking a question and that immediately triggers in my mind, oh my gosh, I need to really go in and look at that a little bit more because that’s a question I haven’t thought through much.”

Java Evolution and Features

Java 25 Excitements
Timestamp: 00:20:20
Context: When asked about Java 25, set for release in September 2025, Venkat expresses enthusiasm for features like structured concurrency, scoped values, pattern matching, and the instance main method. He is particularly excited about structured concurrency’s foundation on virtual threads for solving divide-and-conquer problems, pattern matching’s evolving syntax for expressive coding, and the instance main method’s role in simplifying Java for newcomers.
Quote: “There are actually a few things that are new and maybe even evolving that I’m truly excited about. There are several features, and I don’t want to lessen any one of them by mentioning a few. But I think one of the things I’ve been keeping my eyes on very closely as it’s going through the development is the structured concurrency and scoped values. The pattern matching syntax as it’s been evolving, I think it’s very interesting to see the instance of, for the primitive types, I think that’s pretty exciting, very useful as well. The other thing that I’m keeping my eyes on pretty nicely evolving is the compact source files and instance main method.”

Structured Concurrency and Virtual Threads
Timestamp: 00:20:39
Context: Venkat elaborates on his excitement for Java 25’s structured concurrency, a feature built on virtual threads introduced in earlier releases. He explains that this feature addresses complex divide-and-conquer problems, making it a significant advancement for experienced developers writing production code. His enthusiasm stems from closely following its development, seeing it as a powerful tool to enhance Java’s concurrency capabilities for robust, scalable applications.
Quote: “Structured concurrency is in a way built on top of virtual threads, which is another exciting feature for me. But structured concurrency is solving a set of problems that are very exciting to solve, divide and conquer problems and so on. So I’ve been keeping an eye on that quite a bit.”

Incremental Changes and 6-Month Cycle
Timestamp: 00:29:02
Context: Venkat praises Java’s six-month release cycle for its agile, incremental approach, allowing developers to benefit from features like pattern matching as they evolve. He contrasts this with long waits for major releases, noting that incremental updates enable faster adoption and adaptation, aligning with agile development principles and benefiting programmers.
Quote: “You are able to come back and keep adding more capabilities to it is much better than saying you wait for eight years to get everything versus you can get them incrementally every six months. I think that’s more beneficial to developers. I feel that’s more agile in a lot of ways as well. So that’s what I mean by evolutionary is you can reap the benefits along the way rather than having to wait a long time to get them all.”

Evolving for Next Generation
Timestamp: 00:21:56
Context: Discussing Java 25’s instance main method, Venkat explains its significance in simplifying the onboarding process for new developers. He contrasts the complexity faced by early Java adopters from C and C++ backgrounds with today’s newcomers, who find Java’s initial learning curve daunting, making features like instance main crucial for accessibility.
Quote: “The instance main method is something I’m really, really super excited about. I’ve been a critique of this for years earlier, that when you start getting introduced to Java, it’s like being hit by a bus. You have to learn about so many things that you don’t need to know right now just to even start with the hello world. I think that main method feature is something I really truly respect as well.”

Pattern Matching Evolution
Timestamp: 00:27:06
Context: Venkat uses an analogy to Captain America to describe the incremental evolution of Java’s pattern matching syntax, from a simple switch statement to a robust feature. He recalls a conversation with Brian Goetz, Java Language Architect at Oracle, who outlined delivering pattern matching in “three installments,” a process that has extended but exemplifies Java’s thoughtful, iterative development.
Quote: “This purely little switch statement, look at how it turned into this powerful pattern matching syntax. So I relate the pattern matching syntax to Captain America’s evolution. I wrote the book recently called Cruising Along with Java. And as you can see that I get excited, I talk about, I’m a person of analogies. So when I started talking about pattern matching in the book, I gave the example of Steve Rogers, who was this puny little guy who didn’t have much strength, failed being in an army. And then they treat him with the serum. And then he turns into this powerful Captain America.”

Advice for Developers

Advice for Students
Timestamp: 00:33:50
Context: Offering advice to students, Venkat stresses the importance of reaching out to mentors and engaging in face-to-face conversations, urging students to keep cameras on during virtual meetings for richer interactions. He shares how he provides Zoom links to students, encouraging them to ask beyond technical questions to learn about careers and conferences, accelerating their growth.
Quote: “If you’re a student, the first thing I would say is reach out to people. Reach out to people and have conversations with them. I can’t tell you how many times I tell my students, here’s my Zoom link. I tell them, here’s a link. You click on it. I pop in like a genie and I’m going to talk to you. Make use of that, I tell my students all the time. The other thing I actually sincerely say that is keep your cameras on. The conversation is very different when you’re able to see the other person.”

Advice for Senior Developers
Timestamp: 00:37:18
Context: Addressing senior developers, Venkat encourages collaboration with junior developers, especially in the context of using AI tools. He sees this as a mutual learning opportunity, where seniors impart critical thinking and fundamentals, while juniors introduce new tools and techniques, fostering a collaborative environment that benefits both parties in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Quote: “This is an opportunity for you, the senior developer, to engage the junior developers into more collaborative development. And by doing so, I always say it’s got to be a benefit for everybody, otherwise we’re not going to do it. So the young developers begin to learn that proper thinking and critical thinking is important. They’re going to be able to learn that from you, the senior developer. But as a senior developer, you also quickly begin to learn that there are tools and techniques you’re not aware of, but these young developers are able to drag them in because they’re so quick in looking at different things.”

AI as a Tool
Timestamp: 00:36:35
Context: Discussing the role of AI in development, Venkat cautions that while AI is a powerful tool, it cannot replace strong fundamentals. He uses an analogy of misusing a lawnmower to highlight the need for careful application, urging senior developers to guide juniors in balancing AI’s capabilities with critical thinking and foundational knowledge.
Quote: “AI is a powerful tool, but we gotta be careful using it. When you have young developers on your team who feel like they can do anything they want because they have these tools, what they don’t understand is that’s not a substitute for having good fundamentals. This is an opportunity for you, the senior developer, to engage the junior developers into more collaborative development.”