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Oracle Begins Aggressively Pursuing Java Licensing Fees (theregister.co.uk)
Java SE is free, but Java SE Suite and various flavors of Java SE Advanced are not, and now Oracle "is massively ramping up audits of Java customers it claims are in breach of its licenses," reports the Register.
Oracle bought Java with Sun Microsystems in 2010 but only now is its License Management Services division chasing down people for payment, we are told by people familiar with the matter. The database giant is understood to have hired 20 individuals globally this year, whose sole job is the pursuit of businesses in breach of their Java licenses... Huge sums of money are at stake, with customers on the hook for multiple tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Slashdot reader rsilvergun writes, "Oracle had previously sued Google for the use of Java in Android but had lost that case. While that case is being appealed, it remains to be seen if the latest push to monetize Java is a response to that loss or part of a broader strategy on Oracle's part." The Register interviewed the head of an independent license management service who says Oracle's even targeting its own partners now.
But after acquiring Sun in 2010, why did Oracle's License Management Services wait a full six years? "It is believed to have taken that long for LMS to devise audit methodologies and to build a detailed knowledge of customers' Java estates on which to proceed."
Slashdot reader rsilvergun writes, "Oracle had previously sued Google for the use of Java in Android but had lost that case. While that case is being appealed, it remains to be seen if the latest push to monetize Java is a response to that loss or part of a broader strategy on Oracle's part." The Register interviewed the head of an independent license management service who says Oracle's even targeting its own partners now.
But after acquiring Sun in 2010, why did Oracle's License Management Services wait a full six years? "It is believed to have taken that long for LMS to devise audit methodologies and to build a detailed knowledge of customers' Java estates on which to proceed."
The industry prefers a strongly typed language for certain mission-critical applications, but the choices are dwindling there. Dynamic languages are just a poor fit for certain applications.
JavaScript is not a viable alternative also because it has an awkward OOP model and/or syntax that forces one to over-use anonymous functions or lamdbas.
Table-ized A.I.
The overall story: Java is dead.
Java will die at a speed limited the by ability of large corporations to move away from using it.
Long-time java developer here. I had to search myself as TFA is incredibly vague and the focus seems to be more on generating some sensationalist FUD.
To me it seems you're in the clear if you use the "standard" java stack for reading/running software such as jre, jdk, java ee,....
I think Oracle is only ramping up license inspection for clearly marked pay-for products such as http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaseproducts/overview/java-advanced-getstarted-2249239.html (java desktop, never heard of it), seems to contain the jrockit vm, monitoring tools, enterprise grade installer,....
I'm no Oracle fanboy (at all), but this seems no different from open source companies providing commercial enterprise-grade tooling on top of their base product.
Anyway, I could be wrong. But realistically speaking if Oracle really touches on the free character of java they will lose their developer community overnight.
Java is lagging behind C# for years now on every new features: enum (2004 vs 2002), generic (2004 vs 2002), anonymous function, lambda (2011 vs 2008).. pick your own and compare. Java is still lacking of 64-bit addressable arrays, async code as of Java SE9. Regarding poison pill worth mentioning that C# language is an open source Ecma and ISO standard... something Java is not. The compiler is open source so the whole framework. Microsoft repeatedly said that they want interoperability with other implementations such as mono... they even helped them at some point. During that time Java user get sue and now fine. I don't think we can say both C# and Java are the same at all.
Why? Why would anyone be stupid enough to do that? It has every potential to turn into a case of "out of the fire into the frying pan".
Microsoft is not one bit more trustworthy than Oracle.
Ellison isn't anything magical or mystical.
It's a mistake to give what he is that kind of an aura.
I agree with you! However, C/C++ isn't 'sexy' and isn't a buzzword thrown around to attract more students. Learning C/C++ is hard as a first language, though it makes for better programmers. Java looks easy but encourages bad design principals. I wish more CS schools would teach first principals like used to be taught 20-30 years ago.
Sun created Java because they wanted to boost hardware (SPARC systems) sales
More specifically, Sun needed a way to pry Microsoft customers away from Visual C++, hence the "run anywhere" claim. To some extent Sun's strategy worked, but most of those former Microsoft users went to PC/Linux servers rather than Sun.
False. Java was originally created as embedding controller language originally for interactive television. When it was released in 1995 it was released as a platform independent language, not SPARC specific.