> Not a lot of people have played with Jigsaw: it is hardly a thing you can play with in an afternoon.
Presumably the people voting on it have.
> can you explain why saying exactly the same thing much sooner would not have been?
Because letting it get this far (weeks? from release) and then suddenly objecting loudly seems a little fishy versus bringing up technical objections years ago when there would be adequate time to address them?
This is not the first time those people have complained about Jigsaw by any stretch; it is the first time it has come to a vote and people felt it was worth to summarize the arguments. Oracle didn't even think Jigsaw was ready for a long time, which is why it didn't _even come to a vote previously_ and has delayed Java 9 by months. The release cycle was supposed to be 2 years, and Jigsaw is the only reason it isn't.
Jigsaw has been a project for... a decade? now. That isn't a consequence of easy consensus.
It is the first time people who aren't voting, Java programmers, could realistically try Jigsaw.
If the fact they do it at this point is evidence of politics, can you explain why saying exactly the same thing much sooner would not have been? Jigsaw hasn't been in a state that most people can go try it for very long -- and most people are the folks who are impacted the most (for reasons the RH blog post explains).
Finally: it's not like Red Hat blocked this. A majority of stakeholders did, and most of them don't own module systems.