[curtis17]

My only use of Java is for Android.

The Android VM - Dalvik - uses Dalvik not JVM byte code. Now ART - the new Android runtime replacing Dalvik - is native - no more byte code.

There's not much Java left apart from the (poor) syntax. Why doesn't Google bless one of the alt-Java's, like Kotlin, and cut out Java entirely.

[bsdetector]

Sun used to make a good portion of their revenue from Java licensees. Then Google copied Sun's JVM, language, and APIs with a few very minor tweaks in Android. Sun's Java revenue dried up because its licensees didn't renew because they could just use Android.

Dalvik and JVM bytecode map 1:1 with one or two exceptions for initializing arrays with data instead of a sequence of instructions. Even if you want to pretend that Dalvik isn't a JVM then you must accept that it is a derivative work, as even the names of the bytecode instructions are the same.

Google killed Sun and if they end up paying for it by APIs being copyrightable that may be a disaster for the tech industry, but it's karma for Google.

[tensor]

Java is used in a great many places other than Android. Google most certainly did not kill Sun.

[bsdetector]

An analyst came up with a $250 million annually for Java licenses. Andy Rubin said (exhibit 13) that "Sun is prepared to walk away from a $100M annual J2ME licensing business" into a deal with Google for some portion of Android income, which obviously is not an exact but indicates the scale.

Java wasn't going to power a Sun-sized company by itself, but having this income dry up while already trying to save the company from linux is a death blow.

[Shebanator]

Cheap and good Linux servers did far more to kill Sun than anything anyone did w.r.t. Java.

[rodgerd]

Sun died because they were incompetant. Their server business was a mess.