IBM and Oracle To Collaborate On OpenJDK 160
An anonymous reader writes "Today, IBM and Oracle announced their intent to work together to accelerate innovation on the Java Platform, leveraging OpenJDK. IBM and Oracle will also collaborate to support the Java SE 7 and Java SE 8 schedules presented recently at JavaOne and to continue to enhance the JCP."
Now maybe we can get a decent JDK with yum (Score:3, Interesting)
And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:3, Interesting)
I get that java is *the* enterprise-y choice for applications, but I still don't get it. I don't see the economic incentive for Oracle to keep this project, so I'm guessing the bulk of the Dev work is transitioning to IBM.
What is communicated as a collaboration is more a transition for what would have likely gone abandonware with a rats nest of Intellectual Property issues perpetually constraining re-use.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong because I never got Java from the beginning.
Re:Now maybe we can get a decent JDK with yum (Score:3, Interesting)
Not trying to be facetious, but this is the #1 reason I'm using Ubuntu instead of FC or OpenSUSE. (Not just Java specifically, but Java, restricted codecs, Flash, etc.) It also updates all of the relevant alternatives for me, as part of the package install, which is also very nice.
Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an uneasy truce where two competitors agree to not put pressure on the swords that they have at each others throats. Oracle invested considerably in Sun, and knows that the biggest asset that Sun brings to the table is their Java related people and knowledge-base (and not Sun's proprietary hardware). Java is incredible valuable to Oracle since they have also bought up BEA Systems (who produced WebLogic - leading J2EE container) and are using this acquisition to position them as a vendor that can do everything and anything in software space (like IBM). IBM can jeopardize this by splintering the Java brand and developing OpenJDK further. Conversely, IBM doesn't want Oracle to spike its Java food pool with Oracle poison, and sees this initiative as a way to not expend resources on an all-out war with Oracle. If anything, IBM is much more invested in Java, and stands to lose a lot more with Java splintering.
Of course, both these companies don't want the open source world to take Java away from them either. This is also a "both of us against the rest of the world" posture, which seems to smack of anti-competitive behavior.
Re:So will they stop suing Google? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you remember when MS had their own JVM and then started adding "extensions" to java? Yeah, that was bad. It was MS's embrace, extend, extinguish strategy. Id bound whatever you implemented on MS's java to Windows platform. Which is exactly the opposite of what java is all about. And yes, Sun sued them and MS discontinued it's own java and tarted .Net. Sun was considered to be the good guy and MS the bad guy.
Now please explain to me how Google, doing exactly the same as MS did, is now the good guy?
Re:Oracle, OpenJDK?? Yeah Right. (Score:5, Interesting)
They claimed to be using the Java language
Actually the main plank of Google's defence is that Android does *not* run Java. The test of whether they succeed or fail is largely whether they can convince the court that Dalvik is *not* a Java VM. And sure enough if you scan the Android SDK you'll find just about nowhere that it says you are programming in Java. It's pretty weird and interesting.
It's about bloody time... (Score:5, Interesting)
The way I see, IBM is progressing now towards a stewardship role in Java, without bothering with all the SUN's hardware business (which would have been a dead-weight for it)... and this without spending a extra nickel, on top the strong investment in Java IBM already has.
Almost a perfect solution... the only drawback being the Imaginary Property in Java still being owned by Oracle (with known consequences... the minuet and other high society dances Oracle chose to drag Google into).
Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:3, Interesting)
"I wonder what IBM has on Oracle?" Business respectability. No one in their right mind trusts Oracle further than they can spit a two-headed rat. IBM is similar. However, if you have two two-headed rats, you, as a PHB, can buttress your choice of Java + Database + business application software as being dual sourced. Without IBM, its Oracle and their dumb lawsuit against Google. Few organizations would attempt what Google has done with using the language but not the infrastructure. But yer basic PHB won't see that, they'll see Java + lawsuit. Oracle's lawyers convinced the idiots at Oracle, errr....Uncle Larry...that Beeelllions can be made by knackering Google or that Google, left to its own devices, might find a way to supplant Oracle's DBs with Cloudiness. Put yourself in Uncle Larry's position. You see the world in us vs. them. The bigger the Them, the bigger the threat because they might just find a way to stick in a pin in your revenues and suck them dry. Yeah, I know, it isn't a particularly nuanced view, but then Uncle Larry didn't get Oracle to be in the position it is in by being nuanced.
So about now, Oracle realized they've probably screwed the pooch deep enough and are attempting to pull it out a bit...just for aesthetic purposes.
Re:Here's a question ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Basically, since Oracle took over Sun, and hence bought the rights to Java, the Java community has been hostile to Oracle.
I suspect this is just a play to get at least one major player on Oracle's side to apply pressure to the JCP to bow down to almighty Oracle's whim.
Make of that what you will, I don't expect it'll work.
Re:What does this mean for Android? (Score:3, Interesting)