Re:Why I Left Oracle – A Confession
by pron on Sunday March 06, 2016 @01:49AM
(#11232767)
> for the sin of refusing the JCP process
That is one interpretation; I can think of others.
> Do you think they wouldn't do the same against any Java fork with a realistic chance of supplanting their implementation?
I think they wouldn't sue anyone complying with their very clear, very standard OpenJDK license. Google, apparently, thinks the same, and has now decided to comply with the OpenJDK license, too.
> OpenJDK open but not a realistic choice in most production deployments
What? AFAIK, Google, Twitter and plenty other companies run their servers on OpenJDK. It is absolutely realistic for most production environments. In fact, Oracle's JDK differs from OpenJDK only in a few monitoring features.
> Oracle JDK/JRE remaining as de-facto gold standard; a process that forces strict compatibility tests on any competitor
That's just not true. The Java standard is the standard, OpenJDK is the reference implementation and one of the most widely deployed implementations.
> RedHat is not the only Linux build with significant marketshare,
Neither is Oracle's JDK. OpenJDK, IBM's JDK and Azul's Zulu all have good market shares.
> and I won't get sued if I write a different POSIX system.
Probably not, but you wouldn't get sued (or, at least no one ever has been sued) if you comply with OpenJDK's open source license. You may well get sued if you don't comply with Linux's open source license, too (which happens to be the same as OpenJDK's).
> and people outside do not seem to realize it
Perhaps, but what's the difference? If they start doing a bad job with Java (so far they seem to be doing fine work), the community will fork OpenJDK.
That is one interpretation; I can think of others.
> Do you think they wouldn't do the same against any Java fork with a realistic chance of supplanting their implementation?
I think they wouldn't sue anyone complying with their very clear, very standard OpenJDK license. Google, apparently, thinks the same, and has now decided to comply with the OpenJDK license, too.
> OpenJDK open but not a realistic choice in most production deployments
What? AFAIK, Google, Twitter and plenty other companies run their servers on OpenJDK. It is absolutely realistic for most production environments. In fact, Oracle's JDK differs from OpenJDK only in a few monitoring features.
> Oracle JDK/JRE remaining as de-facto gold standard; a process that forces strict compatibility tests on any competitor
That's just not true. The Java standard is the standard, OpenJDK is the reference implementation and one of the most widely deployed implementations.
> RedHat is not the only Linux build with significant marketshare,
Neither is Oracle's JDK. OpenJDK, IBM's JDK and Azul's Zulu all have good market shares.
> and I won't get sued if I write a different POSIX system.
Probably not, but you wouldn't get sued (or, at least no one ever has been sued) if you comply with OpenJDK's open source license. You may well get sued if you don't comply with Linux's open source license, too (which happens to be the same as OpenJDK's).
> and people outside do not seem to realize it
Perhaps, but what's the difference? If they start doing a bad job with Java (so far they seem to be doing fine work), the community will fork OpenJDK.