Oracle & Java - Coming back to the 90s

Remember Delphi ? Visual Basic? Borland C++ ?

What I’ve seen these weeks with Oracle letting Apache leaving the JCP Executive Committee seems to lead to the “old days” where we had to buy a closed platform to work on. It was before Internet, the open source movement, Linux, Git, etc.

A world where we have to rely on a company to have support, when we can’t make our C++ COM object working properly without MSDN subscription. A world where Delphi was a good tool for creating GUI (sic). A world were Visual Basic was one of the most used language.

Oracle has understood that the Java Language itself doesn’t worth any money, the JVM does. They don’t want to let an open source alternative to compete with their own. They already start to sell an “advanced” JVM with support. That is the main reason why the prevent Apache to have their JVM being distributed.

Hopefully, these days are over and Internet has open everything. Source code, Social activities, Location, Diplomat cables… and even sometimes our Mind (I’m too much an idealist sometimes :)).

We have entered a new millennium with Internet and I feel like what Oracle has done this week is just like a short term thinking how to make some money. At some point, they will realize that it’s not profitable anymore to follow this strategy and change it.

Let me guess, in two or three years, if they continue to “close” the java ecosystem, a new rise will appear. Hum, LLVM based software will start to raise (Objective-C, Scala, Go?, …). Apple and Google already support LLVM for their language. Chrome OS already has some port within there NaCl plug-in approach. LLVM is also used by Apple in many places in there platform. There is already some Java port to LLVM plateform, we just miss Scala integration and no-one will even care about Oracle trying to make money with the community works.

Java is Dead, Long live Java.