Apache Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee

iammichael writes "The Apache Software Foundation has resigned its seat on the Java SE/EE Executive Committee due to a long dispute over the licensing restrictions placed on the TCK (test kit validating third-party Java implementations are compatible with the specification)."

Sad ...

[gstoddart]

Sad that it has to come to this ... I can't begin to say how useful the Apache libraries have been in past Java development. Why reinvent the wheel and plumbing when Apache is providing really awesome libraries for free that cover much of the "grunt work".

I fear Oracle is doing far more harm than good to Java.

Apache is out of the JCP only

[lehphyro]

We'll still get great java and other JVM based language libraries from Apache.

Re:The Sun has Set

[bberens]

I work at a nearly pure Java shop and last week attended a Java technology related conference (not run by Oracle/IBM). Not one single person there or at my work seems particularly concerned about the future of Java. If for some silly reason Java 6 was the last version of Java ever released I'm pretty sure I'd be writing code for the platform for the next 10 years and it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Re:FTA

[DrJimbo]

Perhaps not strictly to blame but certainly a truckload more hypocritical. Before buying Sun, Oracle was complaining about the very policies it is now trying to enforce. Furthermore, regardless of who started this idiocy (of subverting the TCK, which was by contract ( JSPA [jcp.org]) a strictly technical hurdle, into being an excuse to re-write the licensing terms in the JSPA), it is now entirely in Oracle's hands.

If you are implying that Apache has some anti-Oracle grudge, I think the conflict probably started after Oracle launched the first-strike by suing Google over its use of Apache's Harmony in Android (and other stuff. Oracle is being represented by BS&F who mastered the art of being unspecific when they represented SCO vs. the Free world). If Oracle hadn't violated the terms of the JSPA, their law suit against Google would have had no merit because according the JSPA, Apache was supposed to get an irrevocable, license to the very copyrights and patents Oracle is suing over.

If I had to dole out blame I would give 2% to Sun and 98% to Oracle.

Re:Sad ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they shouldn't. Google created Android because Java Me is ridiculously underpowered and not remotely innovative, let alone up to the task of achieving Google's vision.

Re:Somebody should tell us what this really means

[Anonymous Coward]

> Good performance? Check

Holy. Freaking. Crap. Seriously? Maybe when compared with shell scripts, but speaking as an 8-year python developer, I can tell you python is slow as all hell. Even Ruby outruns it now, no kidding. It also makes Java look lean with the amount of memory it takes up. It's a pretty decent language, but those are a dime a dozen.

Google does have unladen which does speed it up a bit, but there are pieces of the Python language specification that are simply actively hostile to being optimized because they assume a level of mutability in the object model that is "the definition of anything could change at any time for any reason". It doesn't typically happen that way, but the core language is still designed around binding so late it can never be optimized away.

I see Google going with an enhanced Javascript VM before adopting Python.