Oracle Asks Apache To Rethink Java Committee Exit 266
CWmike writes "Oracle has asked the Apache Software Foundation to reconsider its decision to quit the Java SE/EE Executive Committee, and is also acknowledging the ASF's importance to Java's future. In a message released late Thursday, an Oracle executive made conciliatory gestures to Apache. At least for now, the ASF doesn't seem eager to rejoin the committee. 'Give us a reason why the ASF should reconsider other than "please,"' ASF president Jim Jagielski said in a Twitter post on Thursday. The Java Community Process is 'dead,' Jagielski said in a blog post, also on Thursday. 'All that remains is a zombie, walking the streets of the Java ecosystem, looking for brains.'"
Re:They reconsidered (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at Oracle's head honcho Larry Ellison... A macho alpha male that MUST under all circumstances have control. The moment Ellison leaves Oracle will collapse since corporations like his do very badly with their hallowed leader.
Once you see that you see the angle of Oracle. Oracle I think really doesn't give a flying f**k and they are now starting to understand the jello nature of Open Source. By jello I mean you squeeze jello hard and all you get is ooze coming out between your fingers. I would be really surprised if Oracle caved in. I bet Ellison is thinking, "no f***g way some open source hippies are going to make me bend, me a billionaire"
If you think I am being harsh, look at Ellison when he takes "time off" like sailing! This is not a guy I would ever want to hang out with. At least with Bill Gates I could play cards...
Re:They reconsidered (Score:4, Interesting)
What the CEO thinks is a bunch of basement dwellers tinkering with OpenSolaris and OpenOffice vs "The" webserver for the internet (even if it's those same set of people tinkering with it).
Apache is a big enough name that hopefully the IT guys heard they were leaving and flipped out a bit.
Cynical but true... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure even Larry and Company realize the importance of not angering every single one of your customers. If you drive absolutely everyone off your ubiquitous application platform, and no one wants to develop for it anymore, you don't get the opportunity to lock them into your products.
Granted, every single Sun customer I've talked to (including myself) is running away from Solaris and SPARC as fast as they can. SPARC hardware was great, the OS was good for an enterprisey Unix, but everyone's scared to death of Oracle quadrupling the price for next year's service contract and making a mess of support.
When it comes to hardware and Solaris, Oracle doesn't give a damn. What they do care about is their application platforms. Almost every CS program in the country is pumping out Java coders, many enterprisey applications have been written in Java/J2EE over the past 10 years, etc. Keeping developers interested in the Java/J2EE ecosystem is important long-term. Even if they don't want to support non-Oracle apps on Java, having a critical mass of Java coders means they have someone to maintain the disasters that they have to integrate like PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and other Oracle-developed products. If people stop writing for the platform, and Oracle doesn't at least maintain the illusion of an open standard, the platform goes away, as does the lock-in opportunity.
Although, I've never seen an acquiring company come down so hard on acquired customers before. Friends have been telling stories of their Oracle reps coming in and trying to double the price of their service contracts since the takeover. The entire secondary/hobbyist market for Solaris OS and SPARC hardware is toast because you can't even get firmware updates for hardware without Oracle service contracts. Maybe someone is realizing that they need to lighten up a little?? Nah...
Its the old joke (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
Seriously, Oracle is an arrogant blood sucking company with its fangs in the fortune 500 markets and government organizations. Oracle DBAs demand a high price, and make sure you can't really escape the vendor lock.
Its a house of cards, really. Oracle on a single system doesn't scale much better (if even) than PostgreSQL on a single system. Oracle's cluster solution is nice, but the expense is crazy. Only fortune 500s and governments can waste that kind of money. I don't know of any "new" business that chooses Oracle.
They are trying to kill MySQL, and while I hope it dies a quick but painful death, PostgreSQL offers far more features and equivalent performance for free. What they are doing with Java is crazy. They don't even know what they have or how to capitalize on it. This isn't like MySQL where it is a direct competitor to their cash-cow, this is a key infrastructure piece that gives them a solid foot-hold in the industry. By suing Google and the actions they are taking now, it just tips the scales a bit more toward other languages and environments and weakens their position.
But, Larry is an idiot. Periodic flashes of brilliance, followed by long periods of narcissistic retardation disorder.
Re:Looking at the bigger picture (Score:5, Interesting)
Given this, all Oracle has really done so far is explicitly state some of the restrictions on the software that were basically already in place, just not actually in writing, with Sun. However, since Sun was a "good" company and Oracle is a "bad" company, everyone is suddenly abandoning ship. Oracle is likely to keep all of this software, especially Java, just as "open" as it ever was (that being not very open at all). However, since Sun was a techie darling and Oracle has long been seen as a villain within the community, everyone is acting like everything's changed even though very little actually has.
Re:Looking at the bigger picture (Score:4, Interesting)
Not much has changed? Programmers have forked OpenSolaris, programmers have forked OpenOffice, and now Apache is forking "Open" Java.
It reminds me of a joke where a Jewish guy is so impressed by visiting a Catholic church he becomes a Catholic. So he tries calling his wife, son and daughter to tell them the news. All three are to busy to listen and hang up on him. The punchline is essentially "I have only been a gentile for 10 minutes and I have already found 3 Jews I don't like."
Only this is sort of the opposite. Sun, since converting to Oracle has been so obnoxious that they have already alienated 3 of their open source communities in less than 1 year.
With claiming ownership over others codes by threatening any who would host code someplace else, and by begging 3 communities to fork their code. Oracle is doing some outstanding work here.
Usually when one buys a company, you sell off everything of value before you destroy what ever is left. They seem to think they can skip step 3 ???? and go stright for 4. profit.
Re:Cynical but true... (Score:4, Interesting)
Recently, someone analyzed Oracle's latest financial reports and discovered something interesting. Although Oracle appears to be very profitable, it all comes from maintenance contracts. Take away the maintenance revenue and they lost money. This means that Oracle probably doesn't give a rat's ass about Java or who they alienate, as long as they can continue to milk the cash cow of maintenance revenue.
Re:Cynical but true... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Looking at the bigger picture (Score:4, Interesting)
Apache should have known very well what it was getting into when it commenced the Harmony project. The TCK for the Java platform as a whole (excluding individual JSRs) was *never* free but rather licensed by IBM, Apple and others for a considerable sum. Apache maintains Sun changed the terms but I'm not convinced that beneath all the legal mumbo-jumbo regarding the JCP that there was clear agreement on a royalty-free TCK for Java SE.
I'm not condoning the actions of Sun/Oracle but the position should have been clarified and a specific perpetual binding agreement reached before a single line of code was written. Instead, development ploughed on *for several years* without an agreement - hoping Sun would 'come around' eventually.
Now the corporate backing has dried up, any independent contributors have the right to feel aggrieved. But aggrieved with whom? Did IBM and others ever negotiate with Sun on Apache's behalf for TCK-licensing before commencing development? If not, was it a wise decision for the Apache board to endorse a second clean-room implementation when GNU Classpath was well on the way, albeit with a non-Apache license?