(a) On non Sun JVM-supported platforms Sun would always point to other VM's (eg, hardware support for JVM bytecodes in ARM, etc). Also, they would quite happily discuss the benefits of using IBM's Linux JVM.

d) The Java ecosystem has grown because of the diverse range of vendors. It's easy to make an argument that JavaEE only survived the .NET onslaught back in ~2002-2005 because of the high-quality and free implementations from Apache. The current biggest growth market for Java is in non-traditional areas (eg, Google's product: AppEngine/J, GWT and especially Android). Oracle should work with these vendors to keep the Java platform relevant.

I'm not disagreeing, the ideal solution for me at least would be for Oracle to BSD java, but that's not what I would do in their situation.

Everyone else wants Oracle to license to harmony because that's best for everyone... except Oracle.

I believe the operative word for point a) was "marketed."

Damn Sun fucked this whole thing up. Should have GPLed it from day one... They wanted their cake and they wanted to eat it too.

There are quite a few alternate commercial VMs including Oracle's own JRockit, IBM's commercial JVM and JVMs by some startups such as Fiji. But Sun/Oracle apparently had a problem with an alternate Apache licensed VM.

Wouldn't this mean that JRockit et al would no longer have to pay licenses for their implementations?

No, because the deal was that open source VMs get a free license but commercial VMs have to pay. Basically if you can afford to pay you have to pay.

No, because once something is bsd or apache licensed you could repackage it as a commercial vm.