[digitalzombie]

It's not like they did a hostile take over, sued Google for API, and dump their failing project to apache or anything. Or refused to give TCK to apache harmony project. Or hell even tons of anecdote of Oracle buying out services just to bilk people with more money until it rot. Or have a clause for anybody using Oracle DB cannot benchmark.

I feel people easily forget or act as if past actions/history isn't a metric to judge a company by. You can't predict the future with your feeling you can only do it via past data/actions. That or is it tribalism dogma that their bread and butter tech is being harshly criticize?

[pjmlp]

Google helped sink Sun with their Java fork and they could have bought Sun if they really cared about it.

The only company besides Oracle that cared about Sun assets was IBM, and I very much doubt they would not have done the same thing to Google. After all, Sun would have liked to do it if the bank account had any money left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be...

It was Sun who refused to give the TCK to Apache Harmony.

It was Sun that had different licenses and price categories depending on which kind of Java and version one would be using in production.

Some people easily forget or act as if past actions/history aren't a metric, while others forget who actually did them in first place.

[easytiger]

> Google helped sink Sun with their Java fork

How did that have any effect on Sun? Their mobile strategy was dead with the death of Symbian

[pjmlp]

They enabled a workaround for OEMs not to pay for Java licenses on embedded deployment.

Gosling refers to it.

[easytiger]

There was a limbo period where Sun, circa 2004-2007, had a defacto opposition to any consideration of any Java being open source until OpenJDK came along. I asked the question of senior figures in 2005 and they laughed it off. ONly to then be forced to adapt when Redhat et al wanted an FLOSS java. Thus OpenJDK got a licensing exception.

Ultimately the dev kit for android is a clean room implementation (submitters made legal commitments to that fact). The question pivots on how you feel abut the IP of the java language and the library interfaces being used by someone else.

[pjmlp]

With the caveat that Android is an incomplete implementation of Java libraries and JVM capabilities, thus not only it increased the bleeding on Sun's finances, to this day it is impossible to pick random Maven Central packages and be sure they actually run on Android.

A scenario that is only going to get worse as Java keeps improving.

[digitalzombie]

I remember exactly what Sun Microsystem did it breached and been waving a carrot in front of Apache about TCK. What's stopping Oracle from giving TCK now? Also that's exactly not the whole truth you're presenting.

https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the_asf_s_position...

> Unfortunately, Sun breached the JSPA in 2006 by licensing the Java SE Compatibility Kit under terms inconsistent with its prior representations to ASF and its obligations under the JSPA, and incompatible with ASF's development of Apache Harmony. ASF urged Sun to honor its agreements, but after Sun persisted in its breach for a year, ASF withdrew from the JCP. At the time, Oracle supported ASF's position that Sun was in breach of the JSPA. But after acquiring Sun, Oracle adopted Sun's policy, disregarding the limits of the JSPA that formed the basis for ASF's participation in the JSP and acceptance of the various TCK licenses.

> Some people easily forget or act as if past actions/history aren't a metric, while others forget who actually did them in first place.

Choosing a video to support half a truth or a part of timeline doesn't mean anything.

Here's another source:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/12/apach...

> The heart of the issue is that Apache can't certify that its open source Java implementation—called Harmony—conforms with the Java language standards because Oracle refuses to supply the necessary test suites under a suitably open license. Oracle's position on the issue falls afoul of JCP policies, which stipulate that standards and other relevant materials must be freely redistributable and made available under terms that are conducive to enabling third-party open source implementations.

You're deflecting any and all of Oracle's action toward Google should have bought it and well Sun did it first. That's a terrible argument to counter my point of Oracle past actions being terrible toward open source. The "google should have bought Java" is such a hand wave especially when Google did a clean room implementation of Java and involve the issue of if API is copyrightable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...).

[pjmlp]

Google did such a good job implementating Java that to this day there are still compatibility issues with standard Java, the library is incomplete and not all features of a standard JVM are available in ART.

They just broke Java the same way as Microsoft tried first, but since its the "Do no evil" company it gets a free pass.

Had it been other company and the Google support team would have another opinion.

I care about companies that care about Java, not those that fork the eco-system.

There are several companies playing by the rules, selling JVM implementations since the Sun days, none of them ever had issues either with Sun or Oracle.

[digitalzombie]

Again the main point of my post was the FUD about Oracle and opensource is not base on nothing. Oracle's past actions toward open source shows this. You're welcome to disagree with counter argument, I would like to learn and be wrong if I am wrong (or missing something).

But I failed to see how your personal opinion on fork on java and ecosystem have to do with my original post on Oracle's FUD and past action against open source.

If none of your cases you've bought in this argument/debate is toward this topic then I think you're pushing a narrative and being dogmatic toward Java. I have no beef against the language but I am wary of Oracle. I'm merely refuting/adding toward the comment of the post I'm replying to.

[pjmlp]

Fair enough, although had IBM bought Sun instead, as no other company cared to do an offer, I doubt that they wouldn't have done exactly the same thing towards Google.