Oracle buy Sun

[bibiteinfo]

It's been annonced that Oracle buy Sun http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... tory/Front, should we be scare for the open source of Java? As I know Oracle is more close source than anything else...

I would like to hear your tought on this.

[spookyboo]

My collegues are very upset by this, because they like the relaxed type of atmosphere that surrounds Java development at Sun. Oracle will push Java developed even more (also in their own direction). However, the gem about Java isn't the language anymore, but the hotspot JVM. I am more afraid about the future of Groovy.

[xavier]

More about MySQL (which Sun owns) IMO...

The whole thing to me is stupid -- can't Larry understand what IBM understood? Sun is dead (or close to it)...

More opinions: http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_five ... sun_oracle

[volca]

My collegues are very upset by this, because they like the relaxed type of atmosphere that surrounds Java development at Sun. Oracle will push Java developed even more (also in their own direction). However, the gem about Java isn't the language anymore, but the hotspot JVM. I am more afraid about the future of Groovy.

Could you please elaborate a bit - what is the risk JVM is facing? Oracle's products base non-trivially on Java and JVM, they probably won't do something that would break the compatibility. Java needs consolidation and love, address some core issues, it is a language beaten by marketing, in my opinion. If Oracle understood the reason why Ruby, Python, Groovy and others enter the hotspot - Hotspot is a quality product, Java language not so much, maybe the language could be revived to it's former glory. This is just my subjective opinion though, Java sees a lot of corporate usage (although it's usage declines - http://www.google.com/trends?q=java).

[Pyritie]

Java sees a lot of corporate usage (although it's usage declines - http://www.google.com/trends?q=java).

Blah, most of those news articles have to do with java the island, not java the language.

[Nauk]

Imho Sun / Java got already run over and burried quite a while ago by Microsofts .NET / C# combo which is essentially the same in green, but compiles into a almost always working double clickable .exe. Sun sadly never understood the importance of making java applications start enduser friendly. Just with a double click, no matter how your runtime is configured, never worked flawless and reliable just out of the box which cut down a lot of enduser acceptance of the whole java thing. Apart from that, where .NET is slow Java is even more so. Whats the use of a nice castle if you forget to build in a castle-gate?

[jacmoe]

I am more worried about OpenOffice and OpenBox.
I've never used Java much, tried it and didn't like it and have no intentions of using it, but since Oracle is using Java in their products, why should it die?

[Kencho]

Bleh, I hate Oracle (there's even a club with that name). I'm afraid of the new direction Java takes, as well as OpenOffice and VirtualBox. I guess as they're open source, they'll remain that way, or at least they'll become splitted into two different projects (one open, one closed).

Anyways, what I'm afraid most of is that Java becomes an unused language in favor of .NET. If .NET becomes the de-facto standard, Linux-compatible apps will drastically reduce in number (yes, Mono is fine, but not 100% compatible, while Java is).

[volca]

Thankfully Open Office(LGPL3) and VirtualBox(GPL) both bear fork friendly licenses.

Java is a language of the last century, in my opinion (It could as well be the new Cobol). I don't know how much C# .NET could replace it though - after all they are on opposite sides of the arena (Simple and inconsistent java v.s. complex and bloated C#). Java is used a lot on servers and OS'es other than Windows and has a good portability model, .NET is windows only and as Microsoft seeks vendor lock-in in nearly everything they do, this platform will probably stay that way. Netbeans will be hurt, quite probably, though.

The question is - if Java gets trashed, what it could be replaced with? I mean for new applications.

I share your fear that Linux could be hurt by this, but luckily only partially - there are only 2 or 3 Java applications really worth using on linux (for me), all those have an easy replacement in some native applications.

[Nauk]

Forking FTW - Like I red in Xaviers link they original MySQL developper already forked MySQL into MariaDB to make sure there always will be a free, open source community edition with no strings.

The question is - if Java gets trashed, what it could be replaced with? I mean for new applications.

I think D holds a lot of potential there, sure the compiled code isn't portable being native, but the source code seems to be very much.

[volca]

You may be actually right here! I hope D would take over, although it's a pity gdc seems to be not very finished and not very active project and dmd is closed source.