[fno]

Could someone be so kind to explain why this is bad for Java instead being bad for patents? I guess we all agree that software patents are bad. This issue seems to be just about them. Why is Java dragged into this? (Genuine curiosity.)

[sgift]

I'll try: Decisions for one "platform" (it's not just Java, it's J2EE etc.) are based on many factors, but one of the most important factors is trust. Examples:

  * Companies (more specially: Enterprises) must trust you or they won't use your technology
  * Library makers must have trust in you or they will not continue building libraries for your platform

Only two examples, but I think they highlight the point: Nobody will invest in a technology/platform/programming language they do not trust. And starting patent lawsuits against companies that use your platform is a great way to loose trust. While Android/Davik technically is not a Java VM that is not what most people will see. Most people will see "Oracle starts lawsuits against companies using Java"

[wazoox]

Because people will use something else instead of Java to avoid being sued by Oracle. Just like they stopped using OpenSolaris to avoid being sued by NetApp (like CoRaid). One by one, the open Sun technologies will fall into irrelevance.

[IdeaHamster]

Hold on a moment there... Java is still #1 on the TIOBE index and hasn't been lower than #2 since the index began in 2001. Oracle could declare by fiat that it was going to sue every single Java shop in existence, and it would still probably be cheaper for most of them to pay Oracle's settlement fee then to switch away from Java.

[Lewisham]

The problem is not that enterprise won't pay, they can and they will. That's how Oracle sells databases.

The problem is a middle-term one: open-source will shy away from it (and the Apache/JBoss libraries are A Big Reason to use Java), academia will begin to stop teaching it (for all the "it doesn't matter what language you use" arguments, there are many mediocre programmers who can only handle the one thing they are taught), and new company projects will try and avoid the license fees and choose unencumbered languages. That sort of thing won't hurt Oracle now, but it will in five to ten years.

Heck, if Microsoft ever saw the woods from the trees and freed C#, bought the Mono devs and pushed the .NET ecosystem to other platforms, creating a sea of programmers that use their language alone, Oracle could feel the results of this in less than three years.

[donw]

If MS turned C# and .NET into a true open-source ecosystem, as well as the CLR, my next project would be in C# without a doubt.

[mechanical_fish]

And what is going to stop the heirs to Microsoft's patent portfolio from suing you, ten years hence?

Microsoft's conversion to open source is going to have to be really really convincing after yesterday's precedent.

[fedesilva]

Mine in F#

[nickik]

Lets hope that Java will get thrown out of teaching. Its posible the worst langauge for teaching.

[gaius]

But... Isn't it baked into the HN DNA that you should be using something other than Java? http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html ;-)

[Lewisham]

For all the crap Java the language gets, it's led to many mature, excellent projects and libraries (just take a look down the Apache list), it's led to the JVM and Scala, Clojure, etc.

The language itself has shown that it probably isn't going to get past version 7, and even getting that through was by cutting a whole lot of features (lol closures lol?). However, that would just mean Java faded into insignificance when a new leader emerged. I think this may well have fallen to Scala given time. Oracle is unnecessarily hastening Java's demise, and from my limited understanding of the reporting, might be taking the JVM with it. That's a really bad thing for software development in general.

[werrett]

Ha, OK while it is slightly naff to do it I couldn't help but smile and pull this quote out of pg's essay:

  11. Its daddy is in a pinch. Sun's business model is being undermined on two 
  fronts. Cheap Intel processors, of the same type used in desktop machines, are 
  now more than fast enough for servers. And FreeBSD seems to be at least as good 
  an OS for servers as Solaris. Sun's advertising implies that you need Sun 
  servers for industrial strength applications. If this were true, Yahoo would be 
  first in line to buy Suns; but when I worked there, the servers were all Intel 
  boxes running FreeBSD. This bodes ill for Sun's future. If Sun runs into 
  trouble, they could drag Java down with them.

Prescient. I hadn't read that essay before.

[pavelludiq]

Java is much more than just the language, its the platform, the libraries and countless other JVM languages.

[gaius]

I'm aware of that; I was getting paid for Java work in 1995.

[nickik]

wrong Java is a language nothing more. Sun just sold it as a platform.

There are 3 things Java the Langauge JVM and the JDK (not sure if this is the write name i just meen the libs around it)

[FluidDjango]

In point #11 pg presciently says,

> If Sun runs into trouble, they could drag Java down with them.

[ 'trouble' could of course include 'nonexistence' or 'sleeps with the enemy' ]

[tjr]

Big companies that can't smell very well and have piles of Cobol-esque Java [The Java Programming Language (tm)] code running on things like AS/400's will probably just pay whatever patenting licensing fees they need to in order to carry on with Java as long as they possibly can.

[Nelson69]

It's just more anti-java noise. There are a lot of anti-java folks out there and I don't see how this isn't more ammunition.

All things being equal, Oracle suing somebody and doing it in part because of "java" does have to make you take notice if you do anything with it. It's not like there is some open standard for Java and 10 different yet fairly equal implementations to choose from like it is with a C compiler. For serious java work, there still are maybe 3 implementations (Sun's, IBM's and maybe OpenJDK?) and they share some common components and ancestry.

Time will tell though, we'll see what happens. The java haters will continue to hate it, the java lovers will continue to love it and then those in the middle will have a raised eye brow and sort of pay attention.