Why Oracle Should Cede Control of Java SE (infoworld.com)

An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: Now that Oracle wants to turn over leadership of enterprise Java's (Java EE's) development to a still-unnamed open source foundation, might the same thing happen with the standard edition of Java (Java SE) that Oracle also controls? Such a move could produce substantial benefits... Oracle said it has no plans to make such a move. But the potential fruits of a such a move are undeniable.

For one, a loosening of Oracle's control could entice other contributors to Java to participate more... [W]ith the current Oracle-dominated setup, other companies and individuals could be reluctant to contribute a lot if they see it as benefiting a major software industry provider -- and possible rival -- like Oracle... Indeed, the 22-year-old language and platform could be given a whole new lease on life, if the open source community rises to the occasion and boosts participation...

Despite the potential to grow Java SE by ceding control, Oracle seems content to hold on to its place as the steward of JDK development. But that could change given the tempestuous relationship Oracle has with parts of the Java community. Oracle has been at loggerheads with the community over both Java SE and Java EE... Oracle may at some point decide it is easier to just cede control rather than having to keep soothing the ruffled feathers that keep occurring among its Java partners.

Comments

Re:inb4 Microsoft

[sproketboy]

They can't cause they are too shit for that. Java > .NET in every conceivable way. If you don't understand that then go home.

Re:inb4 Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Java > .NET in every conceivable way.

Oh really? Take a look at the feature by feature comparison of C# and Java. C# supports both more and better features than Java and the .NET class library is richer in both breadth and depth. And where is Oracle in the cloud these days? The two biggest players right now are Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Google and Apple are both working on their cloud offerings, but they're still behind AWS and Azure. Oracle isn't even in the race. Oracle views the cloud as "pay us to run our software products for you on our servers", not as a development platform for independent software that might even compete with their cash cow business applications and database business. In many ways Oracle is where Microsoft used to be during the Steve Ballmer administration a decade ago, before Satya Nadella took over. Under Nadella's leadership Microsoft has seized upon opportunities to open source the .NET platform, build serious cross platform development tools and make them available free of charge while promoting the Azure cloud platform for independent development, even if it competes with them. Moreover, Microsoft is doing these things even though they arguably hurt the Windows and Office business in the short run because Nadella understands that Microsoft's future depends upon open source development and the cloud business, not the platforms of the past. Compare that with Larry Ellison of Oracle, who's still effectively in charge and is a contemporary of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates. He was late to the cloud and his leadership of Oracle in recent years suggests an antiquated and unreformed view of the software industry that's stuck in the past while his competitors take a more modern view. Java has languished under Oracle and was made radioactive after the Google lawsuit. Ellison demonstrated that he was perfectly willing to burn any good will that Java still had in the open source community, making them pawns in his grand strategy legal attack against Google and Android. Say what you want about Microsoft, but they never sued anybody for making compatible or interoperable implementations of .NET languages or class libraries. Why continue as Larry Ellison's bitch when there are so many better alternatives to Java? It's a good question.

Leave it for dead

[Billly Gates]

Let it go. Java had it's day in the sun during the .com era (no pun intended). It failed after Sun struck out bigtime on what could have been and the biggest thing in quite some time. .NET is taking over large scale stuff, and newer node.js, angular, and even Python for the small to medium projects. Java is outdated and Sun and then Oracle left it out to rot by not making native compilers and obsessing over making it work with Solaris and forcing developers not to do win32 only. Meanwhile Python for some reason doesn't have this problem.

It is legacy and a security risk and will never have a native look and feel and compiler. c# is what Java could have been and keeps getting innovations like Linq and generics (I might be outdated as I haven't touched Java in 10 years on generics). Let it die we have other newer things now.