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Oracle's Latest Java Moves Draw Industry Ire

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

snydeq writes "Two years later, Oracle's stewardship of Java continues to raise user and vendor ire, this time due to modularization, licensing, and security concerns. 'Plans for version 8 of Java Platform Standard Edition, which is due next year, call for inclusion of Project Jigsaw to add modular capabilities to Java. But some organizations are concerned with how Oracle's plans might conflict with the OSGi module system already geared to Java. In the licensing arena, Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu Linux, says Oracle is no longer letting Linux distributors redistribute Oracle's own commercial Java, causing difficulties for the company. Meanwhile, security vendor F-Secure views Java as security hindrance.'"

4 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Oracle and Java by ravenswood1000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With Oracle responsible for Java, is it even worth it to learn the language any more? I mean they will be killing it off soon.

    1. Re:Oracle and Java by Xtifr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do companies shoot themselves in their feet? I don't know, but companies do it all the time. Oracle has always been remarkably short-sighted and unable to see the bigger picture.

      On the other hand, the fact that there is a an officially GPL'd version of official Java out there may well mean that in the long term, Java will be fine. Oracle can kill off their own branch, but Java in some form is probably going to continue, because it's too entrenched. There are some big players on the sidelines (e.g. IBM) with a lot invested in Java who aren't going to sit idly by and let Oracle destroy it when Sun made it easy to go another route. OpenJDK may have a few shortcomings at the moment, but that could easily change if some bigger players got more serious about it.

      It's still too early to tell how this is all going to play out, but the death of Java seems like one of the least likely outcomes.

    2. Re:Oracle and Java by Ossifer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1. Most applications have base requirements for runtime (C libs, etc., for example)
      2. HotSpot yields native code
      3. Sure it does--better than any other generic language in its core, but it also provides JNI for anything else you feel you need outside of its core.
      4. OSX WFM.
      5. Red herring. See #2, also for truly intensive functions, use assembler.

    3. Re:Oracle and Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      2. Oracle thinks that Java is not open, and they also have damning email correspondence showing that Google did not actually believe Java could be used without a license.

      You mean the damning email that came out in August 2010 saying from engineer Tim Lindholm to Andy Rubin that said we need to license java?
      (http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/11_-_November/Oracle_v__Google_and_the_most_relentlessly_litigated_email_ever/)
      Remember that Oracle purchased Sun in 2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems) where Android was first released in 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system))

      Putting together a timeline:
      1) Android released in 2008
      2) Oracle purchased Sun in 2009
      3) "Damning" email in 2010

      So after Android is released, Oracle purchases Sun hoping to sue Google for $$$, then an engineer says yeah we better license java. That isn't damning, that's an opinion of one engineer (or more likely a team). Now if that timeline had #3 coming first, it would be damning, but to come last in the chain is hardly even worth mentioning. Oracle's case resting on that one email is laughable at best