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Oracle Asks Apache To Rethink Java Committee Exit

Posted by kdawson on from the with-sugar-on-top dept.

CWmike writes "Oracle has asked the Apache Software Foundation to reconsider its decision to quit the Java SE/EE Executive Committee, and is also acknowledging the ASF's importance to Java's future. In a message released late Thursday, an Oracle executive made conciliatory gestures to Apache. At least for now, the ASF doesn't seem eager to rejoin the committee. 'Give us a reason why the ASF should reconsider other than "please,"' ASF president Jim Jagielski said in a Twitter post on Thursday. The Java Community Process is 'dead,' Jagielski said in a blog post, also on Thursday. 'All that remains is a zombie, walking the streets of the Java ecosystem, looking for brains.'"

9 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. They reconsidered by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Answer is still no.

    1. Re:They reconsidered by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oracle uses a bully business model. With their database product, they charge and are paid unbelievable amounts of money and can demand prices based on the hardware you run their software on. (You can afford to buy a big beefy server, so you much also be able to afford a big beefy price for the SAME software you had before you upgraded your hardware!)

      They have been successful with their ridiculous model. So it stands to reason that when they bought Sun, they can just step right up and start bullying some more and continue to get their way. They failed to factor in the fact that users have pre-existing expectations of "free" and "open" that is simply not a part of Oracle mindset. So their newly acquired "free stuff" is rapidly losing value due to the new ownership and management.

      Already, The Document Foundation has abandoned Oracle's ship and took LibreOffice with them. Now ASF has left the ship as well. What's next? Will VirtualBox OSE become something else soon? What about MySQL?

      In this case, whatever Oracle touches is turning to dust because they do not have a pure heart.

    2. Re:They reconsidered by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its is not the "free stuff" that is valuable, or "rapidly losing value". What is of value is the "goose that lays the golden egg" - ecosystem of developers (paid and casual) and users that use the stuff, improve it, and especially *provide support to others* (which is what everyone really wants - from client companies to Stallman). Oracle sees the value as the software, but the greatest value is in having the 'mind share' of an active community (something Microsoft are famous for recognizing, even if they treat their users all like criminals). With a big community you can make money, since companies will pay for support and customizations of widely used stuff (eg. market leaders such as Apache HTTP and Tomcat) but you need a 'light hand on the tiller'.

      Oracle may deride Sun for messing up sales (yes, it was unnecessarily hard to buy stuff from Sun due to their crap sales process) but Oracle are just as clueless when it comes to maintaining a valuable established ecosystem. The Oracle management are destroying shareholder value by totally misreading where the value in Sun's assets really lies (dinosaurs! but that is typical of chief executive management, what made you successful a decade ago may ot be required anymore when the world outside your walls has evolved).

  2. Best quote ever. by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'All that remains is a zombie, walking the streets of the Java ecosystem, looking for brains.'

    Best quote ever. Hopefully, Oracle will get the clue and realize that you have play nice, even when you own the toys. Otherwise, you play alone.

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    1. Re:Best quote ever. by SerpentMage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would really be surprised if Oracle reconsiders. Oracle and Ellison himself are alpha males with no compromise. Oracle revolves around Ellison and I doubt he cares. He probably just thinks, "screw off I am here to make money not be an open source hippie!"

      Larry Ellison believes in growth by acquisition. He does not do it organically and so he really does not care about Java other than he has control and is able to sell it to the enterprise. He does not care about third parties! He only cares about how Oracle can make more money. It would not surprise me if Larry is thinking of taking Java private to f**k over IBM and everybody else. But hey I think IBM just signed a deal with Oracle...

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
  3. Looking at the bigger picture by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Was it ever a good idea for Apache to participate in Java in the first place, knowing that the exact situation that they are complaining about today existed when they started, and has existed for the entire time they've been developing?

    When we're finished with this one, we can think about Open Source projects and .NET .

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    1. Re:Looking at the bigger picture by inode_buddha · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know the answer to that, but I do know this: there is a *lot* of Java out there, being served by Apache based servers. From a strictly business standpoint, Apache is in a good position to know what devs want. And by extension, they know what businesses want. Oracle would be foolish to lose that expertise and insight, to what is a huge market.

      --
      C|N>K
  4. Re: The Licensing Picture by hexwyrds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I suspect it was neither good nor bad that Apache participated. One good outcome is a ton of AL-licensed core java code implementations, the copyrights of which are not owned by Oracle, and not under their control, easily integrated into most any OSS licensed language.

    One bad outcome of the many worthwhile contributions to OpenJDK is that Oracle owns them, they are copyright assigned, and clearly Oracle is not being a good actor in adoption of that code. The whole GPLv2+classpath exception, overloaded with a bevy of patent threats and outright ownership of the code, leaves something to be desired for anyone who champions reuse.

    If one were to create the Joe language tomorrow, syntactically different enough from Java and dodging Oracle's patent troves, it would be trivial to adopt all of those AL .jars and extend the language immediately. Not so with the GPLv2 OpenJDK code, forking to borrow the patents is highly suspect, and the code can never be brought up even to GPLv3 and its patent assertions without the owners/copyright holders direct consent.

    I sort of view this as a massive failure to the freedom of software perpetrated by Oracle, but no less by the FSF itself, and share my sympathies with all the non-employee contributors to OpenJDK who agreed to copyright assignment. Trusting a foundation such as the FSF with your copyright is one thing, but entrusting it to a for-profit to protect your code for public reuse is a bone headed move.

    Of course, all assurances were made by Sun prior to the ASF embarking on Harmony (there was no FoU considerations at that time, that was injected much later in flagrant violation of the JSPA), and prior to their contributing Tomcat to the ASF, that they were moving forwards. Staying with it prior to the Oracle acquisition was questionable, but staying long enough to determine that Sun had polluted Oracle's earlier positions *against Sun* seemed sensible enough. Now that all of this has played out, and the OSS universes of Java, OpenOffice and MySQL all implode, it seems like Apache chose just the right time to exit stage right.

    Agreed that .NET is interesting, once all threats of RAND are completely stripped away. MS would be wise to revisit their patent pledges at this time and address their criticisms, it could score them some serious open source credibility in this environment. Especially if they were to contrast themselves to Oracle's JVM ownership. Perhaps the Outercurve Foundation will help to win some of the necessary assurances. Clearly much of the future of computing will exist on portable and multivendor/multi-OSS project VMs.

  5. In Other News by Z_A_Commando · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lucy Asks Charlie Brown to Kick Football...Again