Slashdot Mirror

GMGruman writes "Google's experimental technology to run native x86 binaries in the browser shows lots of potential, writes Neil McAllister. He's previously said it was a crazy idea, but a new version of Native Client (NaCl) caused McAllister to take a fresh look, which has led him to conclude the technology is crazy like a fox. McAllister explains what NaCl is useful for, how to use it, and why it's not a Java or a Flash or a JavaScript replacement, but something else."

GMGruman writes "It's a persistent myth: reboot your Unix box when something goes wrong or to clean it out. Paul Venezia explains why you should almost never reboot a Unix server, unlike say Windows."

GMGruman writes "It's a persistent myth: reboot your Unix box when something goes wrong or to clean it out. Paul Venezia explains why you should almost never reboot a Unix server, unlike say Windows."

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently not one to mince words, Last.fm founder Richard Jones lambasted Apple for their recently announced App Store subscription rules. 'Apple just ****ed over online music subs for the iPhone,' Jones wrote in IRC earlier this week. Taking things further, Jones angrily theorized that by effectively preventing subscription services like Rhapsody and Spotify from thriving on iTunes, Apple is paving the way for its own music subscription service where it will, surprise surprise, face little to no competition." Jones argues that music service subscriptions don't operate at margins "anywhere near 30%," and that the dramatic loss in revenue will be tough to survive. Another article suggests that Apple's fee structure will highlight the publishing industry's broken business model. Some analysts expect it to raise antitrust concerns, though the wave of Android tablets hitting the market may stifle that sentiment.

GMGruman writes "Oracle's imposition of fees for some OpenOffice capabilities caused some of the venerable open source office suite's creators to head out on their own and create LibreOffice as a truly free OSS tool. InfoWorld's Neil McAllister reviews the two OSS productivity tools side by side to figure out where they differ, and whether you can jettison Oracle's OpenOffice safely for the fully free LibreOffice."

Bruce Schneier's blog links to a nifty article listing the seven types of malicious hackers. The list is: Cyber criminals; Spammers and adware spreaders; Advanced persistent threat (APT) agents; Corporate spies; Hactivists; Cyber warriors; and Rogue hackers.

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia offers a field guide to understanding your resident Unix veteran, laying out the nine traits common to this grizzled, hardcore set. From not using sudo, to wielding regular expressions like weapons, to generally assuming the problem resides with whomever is asking the question, each trait is key to 'spotting these rare, beautiful creatures in the wild,' Venezia writes. 'If some of these traits seem anti-social or difficult to understand from a lay perspective, that's because they are. Where others may see intractable, overly difficult methods, we see enlightenment, borne from years of learning, experience, and overall, logic.'"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan reports on the most common feuds in tech: turf wars in the IT department. 'IT pros do battle every day — with cyber attackers, stubborn hardware, buggy software, clueless users, and the endless demands of other departments within their organization. But few can compare to the conflicts raging within IT itself.' Dev vs. ops, staff vs. management — taking flak from fellow IT pros has become all too common in today's highly territorial IT organizations."

GMGruman writes "Oracle has steadily provoked the open source community since its acquisition of Sun, raising the question of whether the move will simply destroy Sun. But as Paul Krill observes, Oracle has been steadfast in upgrading Sun-derived technologies — and making them profitable, which should mean they will stick around a long time."

GMGruman writes "A new open technology report card shows that only a third of federal agencies get a passing grade on open source usage and contribution, with the Defense Department leading the way. Savio Rodrigues explains what both government and business can learn from the DoD's open source prowess."

snydeq writes "Bing principal Scott Prevost is the latest of several high-profile exits from Microsoft in the wake of Bob Muglia's departure, causing some to question the long-term outlook for Redmond, InfoWorld reports. While the departures have spanned the company's business divisions, the concern centers square on the Microsoft core: 'Microsoft's numbers are looking good in the short term, but the future of core products remains unclear, and so far, Redmond's cloud and mobile strategies don't seem to be paying off.'"

snydeq writes "Bing principal Scott Prevost is the latest of several high-profile exits from Microsoft in the wake of Bob Muglia's departure, causing some to question the long-term outlook for Redmond, InfoWorld reports. While the departures have spanned the company's business divisions, the concern centers square on the Microsoft core: 'Microsoft's numbers are looking good in the short term, but the future of core products remains unclear, and so far, Redmond's cloud and mobile strategies don't seem to be paying off.'"

GMGruman writes "Egypt's cutoff of the Net enrages the Netizenry, who are finding a bunch of ways — high tech and low tech — to fight back, from dial-up to ham radio, from mesh networks to Twitter. Robert X. Cringely shows how the Net war is being waged, and asks, Could it happen at home, too?" Sure, it could. On the same topic, reader dermiste writes "In reaction to the Egyptian government crackdown on the Internet, the French non-profit ISP French Data Network set up a dial-up Internet access. This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network using the following number: +33 1 72 89 01 50 (login: toto, password: toto)."

GMGruman writes "The end of numbering for HTML versions beyond HTML5 hides two painful realities, argues Neil McAllister. One is that the HTML standards process has failed, becoming a seemingly never-ending bureaucratic maze that has encouraged the proliferation of draft implementations. That's not great, but as all the wireless draft standards have shown, it can be managed. But the bigger problem is that HTML has effectively been abandoned to four companies: Apple, Google, Opera, and Mozilla. They are deciding the actual fate of HTML, not a truly independent standards process."

snydeq writes "Amazon Simple Email Service and Amazon Web Services look to be a potent combination for businesses and developers, no matter which side of the law they're on, InfoWorld reports. The newly announced bulk email service, which will enable Amazon customers to send 100 emails for a penny, could prove enticing to those seeking a cheap way to bombard inboxes with spam, malware, and phishing lures. Amazon claims its in-house content filtering technology should assuage anyone thinking SES will be used by scammers. 'Those assurances aren't entirely heartening, though, unless Amazon is way ahead of the curve with content-filtering technology. Email services and software vendors have tried for years to keep spam and other unwanted messages from showing up in users' viewing pane, but the crud keeps slipping through.'"

snydeq writes "Amazon Simple Email Service and Amazon Web Services look to be a potent combination for businesses and developers, no matter which side of the law they're on, InfoWorld reports. The newly announced bulk email service, which will enable Amazon customers to send 100 emails for a penny, could prove enticing to those seeking a cheap way to bombard inboxes with spam, malware, and phishing lures. Amazon claims its in-house content filtering technology should assuage anyone thinking SES will be used by scammers. 'Those assurances aren't entirely heartening, though, unless Amazon is way ahead of the curve with content-filtering technology. Email services and software vendors have tried for years to keep spam and other unwanted messages from showing up in users' viewing pane, but the crud keeps slipping through.'"

tsamsoniw writes "The rumors that a Playboy app would appear in the Apple App Store were greatly exaggerated. Playboy plans to offer an online service through which subscribers can access past and current issues of the nudie mag — and per Playboy, it will be accessible via Safari and support iPad features (whatever that means). But if Playboy does come out with a native app for iPad, all the nudity will be censored. That should be just fine for the legions of people who indeed read the magazine for the articles. This really shouldn't be a surprise, though: If Apple insists on 'protecting' users of its high-priced gear from pixelated naughty bits in a graphic-novel version of classic literature, it certainly won't let users access the full monty. It's a shame, though: If Apple's customers want access to that sort of content, Apple should allow them to get at it via a native app instead of suffering a potentially buggier, less secure browser-based experience."

GMGruman writes "Hewlett-Packard is planning to unveil its Palm WebOS strategy in a few weeks, while RIM is allegedly working up a new version of its popular Curve that uses the new BlackBerry OS 6 and its touch interface. WebOS has largely faded from view since HP bought it nine months ago, and RIM's been largely silent since its summer release of the BlackBerry Torch, its first successful modern BlackBerry, and the fall announcement of its PlayBook tablet. Meanwhile, it's been an Apple iOS and Google Android show at CES 2011, in the popular press, and in customers' hands. (Microsoft and Nokia essentially ceased to matter by Christmas 2010.) Is it too late for WebOS and BlackBerry? They're running out of time, and the public signs of their plans are not so positive. Still, the two 'also-ran' mobile OSes have a couple opportunities to resurrect themselves."

snydeq writes "The wake of State Department document leaks to WikiLeaks may have the unhappy rousted from government agencies' 'privileged insiders' ranks, thanks to a recent memo from the US OMB asking agencies to spell out their strategies for minimizing insider risk. 'It's likely that federal contractors and government suppliers will also find themselves responding to this list of questions (PDF) and the central issue of preventing the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified materials. In a key section of the memo, the OMB requests information on whether organizations are measuring the "trustworthiness" of their employees and whether they use a psychiatrist or sociologist to measure the unhappiness of an employee as a measure of trustworthiness.'"

snydeq writes "The wake of State Department document leaks to WikiLeaks may have the unhappy rousted from government agencies' 'privileged insiders' ranks, thanks to a recent memo from the US OMB asking agencies to spell out their strategies for minimizing insider risk. 'It's likely that federal contractors and government suppliers will also find themselves responding to this list of questions (PDF) and the central issue of preventing the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified materials. In a key section of the memo, the OMB requests information on whether organizations are measuring the "trustworthiness" of their employees and whether they use a psychiatrist or sociologist to measure the unhappiness of an employee as a measure of trustworthiness.'"

snydeq writes "German white-hat hacker Thomas Roth claims he can crack WPA-PSK-protected networks in six minutes using Amazon EC2 compute power — an attack that would cost him $1.68. The key? Amazon's new cluster GPU instances. 'GPUs are (depending on the algorithm and the implementation) some hundred times faster compared to standard quad-core CPUs when it comes to brute forcing SHA-1 and MD,' Roth explained. GPU-assisted servers were previously available only in supercomputers and not to the public at large, according to Roth; that's changed with EC2. Among the questions Roth's research raises is, what role should Amazon and other public-cloud service providers play in preventing customers from using their services to commit crimes?"

snydeq writes "German white-hat hacker Thomas Roth claims he can crack WPA-PSK-protected networks in six minutes using Amazon EC2 compute power — an attack that would cost him $1.68. The key? Amazon's new cluster GPU instances. 'GPUs are (depending on the algorithm and the implementation) some hundred times faster compared to standard quad-core CPUs when it comes to brute forcing SHA-1 and MD,' Roth explained. GPU-assisted servers were previously available only in supercomputers and not to the public at large, according to Roth; that's changed with EC2. Among the questions Roth's research raises is, what role should Amazon and other public-cloud service providers play in preventing customers from using their services to commit crimes?"

snydeq writes "Longtime Microsoft executive Bob Muglia, president of the company's server and tools business, will step down from his position later this year, according to a Steve Ballmer memo issued Monday to company employees. Muglia has been with Microsoft for 23 years, leading development efforts in Microsoft Office, Windows NT and online services businesses. More recently, Muglia shepherded Microsoft's entry into cloud computing, guiding the rollout of the company's Azure platform. Muglia's departure follows that of Ray Ozzie, whose exit was made all the more notable by a memo warning Microsoft to start thinking beyond the PC."

snydeq writes "Longtime Microsoft executive Bob Muglia, president of the company's server and tools business, will step down from his position later this year, according to a Steve Ballmer memo issued Monday to company employees. Muglia has been with Microsoft for 23 years, leading development efforts in Microsoft Office, Windows NT and online services businesses. More recently, Muglia shepherded Microsoft's entry into cloud computing, guiding the rollout of the company's Azure platform. Muglia's departure follows that of Ray Ozzie, whose exit was made all the more notable by a memo warning Microsoft to start thinking beyond the PC."

GMGruman writes "The high-speed trading exchanges that conduct the business of buying and selling stocks and mutual funds are so fast that hackers can introduce delays of a few microseconds completely unnoticed by today's network monitoring technology — and manipulate prices in the process to reap millions of dollars to the detriment of everyone else, InfoWorld's Bill Snyder reports. This kind of activity creates new reason to distrust Wall Street and shows how the computer networks we all rely on for conducting business and moving information are ripe for undetectable hacking."

snydeq writes "The underfunding of routine hardware replacement purchases and the degradation of aging enterprise apps pose systemic risk for many IT organizations, thanks to a ballooning 'deferred IT maintenance debt' in the decade since Y2K fears pushed enterprises to invest heavily in essential system upgrades, InfoWorld's Bill Snyder reports. And with sysadmins 'scrambling to keep systems up and running with budgets that barely cover the basics,' this 'IT debt' promises only to increase in the coming years, especially as IT continues to defer routine maintenance in favor of new 'cost-saving' initiatives, particularly around the cloud."

An anonymous reader writes "In May, Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization to become the second largest company (by that measure) in the world. Today, with its shares riding high, Apple passed $300 billion in market cap, entering a club of two along with the still-gigantic ExxonMobile. And investors' targets could bring Apple beyond where Exxon is now (though Exxon continues to soar as well). Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable. If you consider the iPad to be a PC (which enterprise increasingly is), then suddenly you realize that Apple is expected to climb to 12% market share in 2011. Plus, of course, they have those little things called iPods, and iTunes..."

GMGruman writes "Anyone in IT has a story or two involving stupid users, crazy co-workers, kludgy technology, and airhead managers. Lisa Blackwelder has collected top tales of the tech trenches, covering user antics, office politics, and unusual technical challenges that IT pros faced (usually) with aplomb, insight, and savvy."

GMGruman writes "12 years ago, seven people in a room coined the term "open source" and launched what initially seemed like a quixotic exercise. Today, open source is mainstream, with original believers such as Red Hat worth billions and superpowers such as Oracle buying in. But open source has changed along the way, says InfoWorld's Peter Wayner, and may change more in coming years."

GMGruman writes "As smartphones become ubiquitous accessories, unexpected consequences can result. In this blog post, InfoWorld's Galen Gruman looks at some of the unintended consequences of mobile technology's ubiquity, in which very useful technology can also raise issues. For example, the US Army has put out a training video to tell troops how to disable the location detection on iPhones and Androids so they can't be tracked when on deployment. That's just one example of the behavior and awareness that most people haven't yet grokked. Others involve cameras, microphones, and USB drives."

GMGruman writes "InfoWorld has caught two Android devices that falsely report security compliance that the Android OS does not actually support, and Apple quietly has dropped its jailbreak-detection API from iOS 4. So how can IT and businesses that allow iPhones, iPads, and Androids trust that the new generation of mobile devices won't become Trojan horses for malware? There's no easy answer, but Galen Gruman explains what current technologies can do to help — and how Apple, Google, and others might increase the trustworthiness of their platforms in the future."

adeelarshad82 writes "While Google has made it clear that Cr-48 is nothing more than a test prototype, it was interesting to see the machine Google used to demonstrate Chrome OS. Out of the box, the Cr-48 conjures images of the Black Apple MacBook, from the plain, rubberized chassis to what looks like the same chiclet-style keyboard. The 12-inch notebook weighs about 3.8lbs and comes with a clickpad which recognizes one finger as a left click, while a two-finger tap triggers a right-click function. The laptop obviously contains a hard drive for storing backup data, but the capacity is unknown. The notebook comes with a lone USB port on the right side, which has limited functionaly. For now, thumb drives, hard drives, cameras, printers and other USB peripherals do not work with Cr-48. Google is working on getting its Chrome OS to recognize storage drives, but it's a work in progress. Once Chrome OS does recognize storage drives, users can probably install other OSes on Cr-48 for fun. Video playback seems to struggle with Hulu videos, while YouTube clips were okay. The device operates at a 1,280x800 resolution, which means the Cr-48 can theoretically support 720p video playback, but the videos were capped at 480p." Engadget posted photos a Cr-48 teardown if you'd like a look at its guts. An article at InfoWorld suggests Google needs to work on the cloud offerings underpinning the device.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Paul Venezia serves up six real-world tales of IT stunts and solutions that required a touch of inspired insanity to pull off, proving once again that knowing when to throw out the manual and do something borderline irresponsible is essential to day-to-day IT work. 'It could be server on the brink of shutting down all operations, a hard drive that won't power up vital data, or a disgruntled ex-employee who's hidden vital system passwords on the network. Just when all seems lost, it's time to get creative and don your IT daredevil cap, then fire up the oven, shove the end of a pencil into the motherboard, or route the whole city network through your laptop to get the job done,' Venezia writes."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Paul Venezia serves up six real-world tales of IT stunts and solutions that required a touch of inspired insanity to pull off, proving once again that knowing when to throw out the manual and do something borderline irresponsible is essential to day-to-day IT work. 'It could be server on the brink of shutting down all operations, a hard drive that won't power up vital data, or a disgruntled ex-employee who's hidden vital system passwords on the network. Just when all seems lost, it's time to get creative and don your IT daredevil cap, then fire up the oven, shove the end of a pencil into the motherboard, or route the whole city network through your laptop to get the job done,' Venezia writes."

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner outlines some of the most common programming mistakes and how to avoid them. 'Certain programming practices send the majority of developers reaching for their hair upon opening a file that has been exhibiting too much "character." Spend some time in a bar near any tech company, and you'll hear the howls: Why did the programmer use that antiquated structure? Where was the mechanism for defending against attacks from the Web? Wasn't any thought given to what a noob would do with the program?' Wayner writes. From playing it fast and loose, to delegating too much to frameworks, to relying too heavily on magic boxes, to overdetermining the user experience — each programming pitfall is accompanied by its opposing pair, lending further proof that 'programming may in fact be transforming into an art, one that requires a skilled hand and a creative mind to achieve a happy medium between problematic extremes.'" What common mistakes do you frequently have to deal with?

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner outlines some of the most common programming mistakes and how to avoid them. 'Certain programming practices send the majority of developers reaching for their hair upon opening a file that has been exhibiting too much "character." Spend some time in a bar near any tech company, and you'll hear the howls: Why did the programmer use that antiquated structure? Where was the mechanism for defending against attacks from the Web? Wasn't any thought given to what a noob would do with the program?' Wayner writes. From playing it fast and loose, to delegating too much to frameworks, to relying too heavily on magic boxes, to overdetermining the user experience — each programming pitfall is accompanied by its opposing pair, lending further proof that 'programming may in fact be transforming into an art, one that requires a skilled hand and a creative mind to achieve a happy medium between problematic extremes.'" What common mistakes do you frequently have to deal with?

A number of readers have sent in new WikiLeaks stories today, many of which focus on the content of the leaked diplomatic cables. The documents showed how the US government bullied and manipulated other countries to gain support for its Copenhagen climate treaty (though behavior from the US wasn't all negative), how copyright negotiations largely meet the expectations of critics like Michael Geist, and how Intel threatened to move jobs out of Russia if the Russian government didn't loosen encryption regulations. Perhaps the biggest new piece of information is a list of facilities the US considers 'vital to security.' Meanwhile, the drama surrounding WikiLeaks continues; Julian Assange's Swiss bank account has been frozen and the UK has received an arrest warrant for the man himself; the effort to mirror the site has gained support from Pirate Parties in Australia, in the UK and elsewhere; and PayPal was hit with a DDoS for their decision not to accept donations for WikiLeaks.

GMGruman writes "Carriers are increasingly charging for 3G mobile access by the megabyte, to prevent 'unfair' subsidies of heavy users by everyone else. So why does the price of a 3G megabyte vary based on the device used to send or receive it? Why is an iPad megabyte cheaper than a MiFi one? After all, a megabyte is a megabyte as far as the network is concerned. InfoWorld has a comparison of 3G pricing for the four major US carriers for their various supported devices, so you can see whose 3G pricing is out of whack for which devices."

snydeq writes "Ransomware is back. After a hiatus of more than two years, a variant of the GpCode program has again been released, kidnapping victims' data and demanding $120 for its return, InfoWorld reports. 'Like the ransomware programs before it, GpCode encrypts a victim's files and then demands payment for the decryption key. The new version of GpCode — labeled GpCode.AX by security firm Kaspersky — comes with a bit more nastiness than previous attempts. The program overwrites files with the encrypted data, causing total loss of the original data, and uses stronger crypto algorithms — RSA-1024 and AES-256 — to scramble the information.'"

snydeq writes "Ransomware is back. After a hiatus of more than two years, a variant of the GpCode program has again been released, kidnapping victims' data and demanding $120 for its return, InfoWorld reports. 'Like the ransomware programs before it, GpCode encrypts a victim's files and then demands payment for the decryption key. The new version of GpCode — labeled GpCode.AX by security firm Kaspersky — comes with a bit more nastiness than previous attempts. The program overwrites files with the encrypted data, causing total loss of the original data, and uses stronger crypto algorithms — RSA-1024 and AES-256 — to scramble the information.'"

snydeq writes "Security professionals are tapping Trojan horse access points cloaked in printers and other office equipment to infiltrate clients who want their defenses tested, InfoWorld reports. Attackers dressed in IT supplier uniforms drop off printers to a company for a test-drive. Once the device is connected to the network, the penetration testers have a platform behind any perimeter defenses from which to attack. 'You can put your box inside a printer tray and glue it shut, and who will notice if there are one or two or three power cables coming out?' one security researcher says of the method. A variant of the attack, presented by Errata Security at the Defcon hacking convention, uses an attack-tool-laden iPhone mailed to a target company to get inside the firm's network defenses."

snydeq writes "Security professionals are tapping Trojan horse access points cloaked in printers and other office equipment to infiltrate clients who want their defenses tested, InfoWorld reports. Attackers dressed in IT supplier uniforms drop off printers to a company for a test-drive. Once the device is connected to the network, the penetration testers have a platform behind any perimeter defenses from which to attack. 'You can put your box inside a printer tray and glue it shut, and who will notice if there are one or two or three power cables coming out?' one security researcher says of the method. A variant of the attack, presented by Errata Security at the Defcon hacking convention, uses an attack-tool-laden iPhone mailed to a target company to get inside the firm's network defenses."

snydeq writes "ARM Holdings will unveil new plans for processing cores that support 64-bit computing within the next few weeks, and has already shown samples at private viewings, InfoWorld reports. ARM's move to put out a 64-bit processing core will give its partners more options to design products for more markets, including servers, the source said. The next ARM Cortex processor to be unveiled will support 64-bit computing. An announcement of the processor could come as early as next week, and may provide further evidence of a collision course with Intel."

snydeq writes "ARM Holdings will unveil new plans for processing cores that support 64-bit computing within the next few weeks, and has already shown samples at private viewings, InfoWorld reports. ARM's move to put out a 64-bit processing core will give its partners more options to design products for more markets, including servers, the source said. The next ARM Cortex processor to be unveiled will support 64-bit computing. An announcement of the processor could come as early as next week, and may provide further evidence of a collision course with Intel."

snydeq writes "ARM Holdings will unveil new plans for processing cores that support 64-bit computing within the next few weeks, and has already shown samples at private viewings, InfoWorld reports. ARM's move to put out a 64-bit processing core will give its partners more options to design products for more markets, including servers, the source said. The next ARM Cortex processor to be unveiled will support 64-bit computing. An announcement of the processor could come as early as next week, and may provide further evidence of a collision course with Intel."

snydeq writes "Windows NT name size limits, network cabling and protocols, Linux printer daemon commands, AD&D character alignments — find out how much you know where it really counts by taking InfoWorld's 2010 Geek IQ Test."

snydeq writes "Windows NT name size limits, network cabling and protocols, Linux printer daemon commands, AD&D character alignments — find out how much you know where it really counts by taking InfoWorld's 2010 Geek IQ Test."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes about what could be the end of the Java Community Process as we know it. With the Apache Software Foundation declaring war on Oracle over Java, the next likely step would be a vote of no confidence in the JCP, which, if the ASF can convince enough members to follow suit, 'could effectively unravel the Java community as a whole,' McAllister writes, with educators, academics, and researchers having little incentive to remain loyal to an Oracle-controlled platform. 'Independent developers could face the toughest decisions of all. Even if the JCP dissolves, many developers will be left with few alternatives,' with .Net offering little advantage, and Perl, Python, and Ruby unable to match Java's performance. The dark horse? Google Go — a language Google might just fast-track in light of its patent suit with Oracle over Android." Reader Revorm adds related news that Oracle and Apple have announced the OpenJDK project for OS X.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes about what could be the end of the Java Community Process as we know it. With the Apache Software Foundation declaring war on Oracle over Java, the next likely step would be a vote of no confidence in the JCP, which, if the ASF can convince enough members to follow suit, 'could effectively unravel the Java community as a whole,' McAllister writes, with educators, academics, and researchers having little incentive to remain loyal to an Oracle-controlled platform. 'Independent developers could face the toughest decisions of all. Even if the JCP dissolves, many developers will be left with few alternatives,' with .Net offering little advantage, and Perl, Python, and Ruby unable to match Java's performance. The dark horse? Google Go — a language Google might just fast-track in light of its patent suit with Oracle over Android." Reader Revorm adds related news that Oracle and Apple have announced the OpenJDK project for OS X.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes about what could be the end of the Java Community Process as we know it. With the Apache Software Foundation declaring war on Oracle over Java, the next likely step would be a vote of no confidence in the JCP, which, if the ASF can convince enough members to follow suit, 'could effectively unravel the Java community as a whole,' McAllister writes, with educators, academics, and researchers having little incentive to remain loyal to an Oracle-controlled platform. 'Independent developers could face the toughest decisions of all. Even if the JCP dissolves, many developers will be left with few alternatives,' with .Net offering little advantage, and Perl, Python, and Ruby unable to match Java's performance. The dark horse? Google Go — a language Google might just fast-track in light of its patent suit with Oracle over Android." Reader Revorm adds related news that Oracle and Apple have announced the OpenJDK project for OS X.