sarcasm, i guess - i interpret the statement as: why would you want to keep competent people around, even though their specialties lie in a different area? because competent people are usually also competent when employed in a slightly different sector; the mythical super-programmer is unlikely to depend on a specific language/technology anyway.

the comparison wasn't a very good one though: firing your army could lead to soldiers defecting to a possible future enemy, who would then be stronger in an attack.

so what does oracle gain by firing a couple of excellent java devs?

+ no wages paid - they could defect to a rivaling database company: unlikely - bad press: oh well, that's just another drop in the bucket - they lose a couple of experienced engineers that could have excelled in other projects