Oracle Is Looking To Offload Java EE To A New Steward

[bug77]

Oreacle does not seem to know to be inspired by the success of other Java or Javascript frameworks and in the same time to have a substantial profit.

Oracle makes money by targeting enterprises. A programming language is just a toy for them.

Despite their current ineptitude, I wish it was IBM who had succeeded in buying Sun. IMO Java et. al. may have been in a much better place today.

Well, the truth is Oracle didn't buy Java. They bought (and pretty much killed) MySQL. Everything else was a bonus on the side, hence their treatment of OpenOffice, Jenkins, Netbeans and who knows what else. The only point of interest about Java was that they thought they could milk Google for using it in Android. Since that has fallen flat on its face, we're now seeing Oracle moving their money elsewhere.

[Michael_S]

Oracle has been doing some interesting work on Java and the JVM with the Graal project. But in typical Oracle fashion, the best bits are proprietary add-ons to the Oracle JDK. Only the less exciting parts of Graal are currently open source.

I've heard the latest Java EE is orders of magnitude more lightweight to code against and to run than the early Java EE stuff. But from my tiny corner of the technology industry, it looks like they're too late to solve the problem - early experience with Java EE was so painful that most teams won't even consider it today.

[geearf]

They bought (and pretty much killed) MySQL.

Does it actually even matter with the fork MariaDB?

[jacob]

In Oracle English, "open foundation" means simply "we want to dump it somewhere and not have to support it or care about its users ever again".

Not that I particularly care about Java or Java EE, but seriously, this company really makes Microsoft look good in comparison.

[wizard69]

This gives me the same kind of willies that I got when Microsoft announced they were moving from their own compiler suite to LLVM. Both are obvious ploys to move the cost of development to the open source community and other companies while continuing to reap the exact same benefits as before.

Seeing how they've pretty much discontinued all Solaris development, killed off SPARC hardware, let the open source community do what they wanted with Star Office and are now in the process of flogging off Java EE development to companies that more interested in actually paying for it, is there really anything left of Sun Microsystems?

Well Sparc was dying so that made sense, they switched to Linux fo rate most part so Solaris is just baggage, Star Office is likely better off in the hands of the open source community and frankly Java stinks. So maybe Oracle isn't evil but rather just smart about business.

As for MS I once suggested in a forum. that they move to LLVM/CLANG. Now I'm not taking credit for that move but it is a very smart thing to do as it strengthens the LLVM world and gives us as users of open source two very compelling compiler suites in GCC and LLVM/CLANG.

I really think you have need of an attitude adjustment. After years of the open source world crying about the evils of MS and Oracle we actually are seeing the companies contribute to the open source world. Maybe Oracles approach isn't perfect but they could just as easily have dropped Java, gave the custormers a year or tow to adjust, washed their hands afterwards. It is actually a bit shocking to see them (Oracle) taking this approach rather than to let the technology completely die.

The real concern here isn't so much what is happening with Java, but rather Oracles direction in the future. Is Java dead there and do they have intentions to adopt new tech, RUST, Swift, Go or something else. Or maybe it isn't dead and they just realize that the platform is mature enough for a standards organization to Shepard from now on.

The negativity here just doesn't make sense.

[wizard69]

Exactly. And I would guess that Oracle (by dint of its apparently not-very-community-friendly attitude when it comes the development of Java) has implicitly encouraged the development of better programming languages that run on the JVM (Kotlin, Ceylon, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, JRuby etc.).

I suspect this is the wrong view, the new languages to run on top of the JVM came about due to the fact that Java had become a massive mess. Also Java wasn't Oracles baby which people seem to forget.

The JVM is ubiquitous and well-developed, but Java is stuck in the past in many ways. Also, it doesn't look as if Oracle will *ever* be able to leverage its ownership over Java the way it likely intended (forcing Google to pay up via lawsuit), so from a business standpoint it's all really downsides by now.

You can call it stuck but you might also call it aged and past its prime. Java can and should go the way of languages like BASIC, COBOL and a whole host of others that are most memories these days.

Oracle's likely thinking "The community asked for Open Governance: Let's give it to them and try to remain at least a little relevant going forward, hopefully reaping some community goodwill along the way. Who knows, maybe we'll get cool features for free? It's worth a shot anyway."

Or at least, that's my take.

My take is that they never really had any interest in Java long term after buying Sun. The problem is sometimes companies just don't know how to deal with these loose ends. In the end the potential is here to fix many of the issues that are hanging around in Java, though I believe it is too late. Sometimes community management of a language works out better than what has come before. In this regard C++ is a perfect example, initially the language had more issues than many thought where worthwhile and pretty substantial complexity. Once the stake holders got serious about standardization and refining the language, C++ has morphed into something far better than it ever was. It might be complex still but it is far more usable by mere mortals and has achieved a bit of a rebirth as a result.

I really think people need to look on the bright side here, there are examples of such transitions being a success.

[wizard69]

In Oracle English, "open foundation" means simply "we want to dump it somewhere and not have to support it or care about its users ever again".

Not that I particularly care about Java or Java EE, but seriously, this company really makes Microsoft look good in comparison.

Maybe that is their intention but that is far better than what they might have done. At least this way the language has a potential future. I say potential because I really don't see many people or companies flocking to what is at best a language on the ropes with no strong reason for further development. I'm very perplexed at the negativity with respect to this subject, for me it really looks like Oracle is taking a serious effort here to keep Java out of the dust bin.

Somebody mentioned IBM above but frankly I don't see IBM moving to pick up Java stewardship. They might have done os 5-10 years ago but I think that boat has sailed, the tech world moves forward and as such there are better languages to bet on these days.

[bug77]

Does it actually even matter with the fork MariaDB?

That's one thing Oracle miscalculated. But whether it's MySQL or MatiaDB, neither has the popularity MySQL once had. Today it's more about PostgreSQL or NoSQL.

[geearf]

That's one thing Oracle miscalculated. But whether it's MySQL or MatiaDB, neither has the popularity MySQL once had. Today it's more about PostgreSQL or NoSQL.

Oh interesting, I had no idea the others took over. Is it because of Oracle?

[bug77]

Oh interesting, I had no idea the others took over. Is it because of Oracle?

Since Oracle got their hands on MySQL, it has seen snail-slow progress (which was always the plan - let it rot so we can push OracleDB to anyone). Naturally, talent migrated to somewhere else and alternative solutions got more traction.