I wouldn't count on Oracle to be open minded or forward thinking, they very well may strangle Java out of their spite for the opensource community.
HTML5 is going to play an increasingly larger roll in desktop & mobile apps, in the long run this will be a good thing but in the short it will be an absolute pain if Oracle pulls the plug on Java sooner rather than later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsect
No actually, this is the problem. It runs terribly everywhere and subverts the mission of the mainframe: thousands of users simultaneously. Get it off the mainframe!
Our Java apps run just fine with thousands of users, thank you very much.
We're trying to decommission all of our mainframe apps because they're just about impossible to maintain and have archaic interfaces. Add to that the fact that they're difficult to audit and thus to meet our regulatory obligations.
No actually, this is the problem. It runs terribly everywhere and subverts the mission of the mainframe: thousands of users simultaneously. Get it off the mainframe!
From which nether orifice did you extract this particular claim?
True, but Java server side developers weren't normally developing on OS X either. People tend to develop on the architecture they are primarily deploying on, and not many were deploying on Xserves. I'm sure a few were, but Apple probably isn't going to lose much business from this. It also tells me they aren't making a major play for that part of the business market. Essentially they have declared they won't come out to compete with IBM and Oracle/Sun.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
I guess I would say the first steps in that look a lot like 1.6 update 3.
1) Make non Apple JDKs straightforward to manage.
2) Tell folks change is coming but not here yet. (deprecation)
3) TBD...
We'll have to see how the rest plays out, it might be OK, it might be a disaster. A lot depends on Oracle now.
We also see Apple is consistent over the long haul in dropping explicit support for legacy capability that doesn't align with their core business and OS performance goals. That's not to comfort, it just is what it is and has contributed to where OS X and iOS technically are today.
What spite? Java is still open source. OpenOffice is still open source. VirtualBox is still open source. Glassfish is still open source. Technically, OpenSolaris is still open source. Where did you get this information?
Even the W3C recommends against using it.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Oracle practically runs their business on Java. They have zero incentive to pull it. What's more, they just convinced IBM to contribute to OpenJDK. Oracle has a strong incentive to support Java on OS X. Whether or not they'll be able to do so with Apple's Swing code is the open question here.
JavaCowboy, the only reason the W3C recommends against using it is because it's not finalised and won't be until sometime later next year where it will most likely have a lot of changes made to it in the interim.
Oracles plans so far have not been impressing much of the Java Community at all but with the concept of OpenJDK it will be interesting to see what the acceptance of Java 7 will be like - remember with the events of Sun over the last couple of years, Java 7 is running incredibly late and things just seem messy.
There is still a need to have more companies on board to support Java going forward, unfortunately many of these companies have already been swallowed up by other companies or ventured into creating the Java World for themselves (Android for instance).
As long as Apple is part of the OpenJDK initiative - not so much on implementation but at the very least give feedback - then I'm all for continuing my development on a Mac OS X platform provided we see an Oracle release of the JDK for Mac OS X.
So apple should promote bloat in their system to support devs on other systems? Apple has a responsibility to it's users with performance, not just to developers.
For each developer Apple loses, it also loses a user.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
That commitment was only based on the fact that Sun originally had the Mac Look'n'Feel which Steve personally called up Sun Microsystems and threatened to sue if they did not remove it from the JVM - besides even I doubt that Sun could have maintained the Look'n'Feel independently of Apple.
It wasn't a case of "Let's come up with a mutual solution", Steve Jobs literally threatened Sun with a legal notice. The same thing happened with Sun's Project Looking Glass Operating System, Apple do not seem to want to negotiate.
What Apple are doing is basically saying to Java developers who were somewhat responsible for making the OS popular among developer circles, is thanks, we have used you to get to this point but now fuck off, we have no need for you any more.
First they deprecate Java, now Flash. Pissing off Oracle and Adobe is not a great way to build marketshare especially in business.
I'm not sure this is going to piss off Oracle - more the developers - as Oracle now has the opportunity to properly support Java on Mac OS X without the concern of stepping on Apple's toes in regards to UI patents etc (hopefully). But Oracle will now need to be more responsible in support Java on the Mac OS X platform which, since Mac OS X is UNIX based, shouldn't be too big a task.
For each developer Apple loses, it also loses a user.
And in cold hard business terms, the dollars Apple doesn't spend implementing the JRE on OS X go to development dollars on projects that are bringing users in at a rate a couple orders of magnitude higher. Anyone that doesn't think a decision like this has been found to have little downside financial risk isn't really thinking it through. Sure you can not like it, not like it a lot, but I think this is more because we don't know about Oracles plans than anything else right now.
Uh, because that's what they do for every other platform including Windows, Linux, and various *NIX flavors?
Except, they actually don't, despite what Jobs said. Every operating system Oracle supports Java on is an operating system Oracle itself sells. You can buy Sun x86 systems running Solaris, Linux, and Windows from Oracle. And Oracle does not produce JVMs for any other operating systems than those three. IBM implements Java for IBM systems, HP develops Java for HP-specific systems, etc. If Oracle doesn't sell it, Oracle doesn't ship Java for it.
So, unless Apple is licensing OS X to Oracle as an OEM like Microsoft licenses Windows, there is no particular reason to expect Oracle to support Java on OS X. Do you expect there to be any Oracle-made Mac clones in the near future? Because I sure don't.
Comments
I wouldn't count on Oracle to be open minded or forward thinking, they very well may strangle Java out of their spite for the opensource community.
HTML5 is going to play an increasingly larger roll in desktop & mobile apps, in the long run this will be a good thing but in the short it will be an absolute pain if Oracle pulls the plug on Java sooner rather than later.
No actually, this is the problem. It runs terribly everywhere and subverts the mission of the mainframe: thousands of users simultaneously. Get it off the mainframe!
Our Java apps run just fine with thousands of users, thank you very much.
We're trying to decommission all of our mainframe apps because they're just about impossible to maintain and have archaic interfaces. Add to that the fact that they're difficult to audit and thus to meet our regulatory obligations.
No actually, this is the problem. It runs terribly everywhere and subverts the mission of the mainframe: thousands of users simultaneously. Get it off the mainframe!
From which nether orifice did you extract this particular claim?
True, but Java server side developers weren't normally developing on OS X either. People tend to develop on the architecture they are primarily deploying on, and not many were deploying on Xserves. I'm sure a few were, but Apple probably isn't going to lose much business from this. It also tells me they aren't making a major play for that part of the business market. Essentially they have declared they won't come out to compete with IBM and Oracle/Sun.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
I guess I would say the first steps in that look a lot like 1.6 update 3.
1) Make non Apple JDKs straightforward to manage.
2) Tell folks change is coming but not here yet. (deprecation)
3) TBD...
We'll have to see how the rest plays out, it might be OK, it might be a disaster. A lot depends on Oracle now.
We also see Apple is consistent over the long haul in dropping explicit support for legacy capability that doesn't align with their core business and OS performance goals. That's not to comfort, it just is what it is and has contributed to where OS X and iOS technically are today.
First they deprecate Java, now Flash. Pissing off Oracle and Adobe is not a great way to build marketshare especially in business.
They didn't deprecate or remove or prohibit Flash, they just said go ahead and download it yourself. The Chicken Little routine doesn't help anything.
What spite? Java is still open source. OpenOffice is still open source. VirtualBox is still open source. Glassfish is still open source. Technically, OpenSolaris is still open source. Where did you get this information?
Even the W3C recommends against using it.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Oracle practically runs their business on Java. They have zero incentive to pull it. What's more, they just convinced IBM to contribute to OpenJDK. Oracle has a strong incentive to support Java on OS X. Whether or not they'll be able to do so with Apple's Swing code is the open question here.
JavaCowboy, the only reason the W3C recommends against using it is because it's not finalised and won't be until sometime later next year where it will most likely have a lot of changes made to it in the interim.
Oracles plans so far have not been impressing much of the Java Community at all but with the concept of OpenJDK it will be interesting to see what the acceptance of Java 7 will be like - remember with the events of Sun over the last couple of years, Java 7 is running incredibly late and things just seem messy.
There is still a need to have more companies on board to support Java going forward, unfortunately many of these companies have already been swallowed up by other companies or ventured into creating the Java World for themselves (Android for instance).
As long as Apple is part of the OpenJDK initiative - not so much on implementation but at the very least give feedback - then I'm all for continuing my development on a Mac OS X platform provided we see an Oracle release of the JDK for Mac OS X.
So apple should promote bloat in their system to support devs on other systems? Apple has a responsibility to it's users with performance, not just to developers.
For each developer Apple loses, it also loses a user.
Apple made a major commitment to their customers to providing Java on Mac (as opposed to Sun doing it) back in 2000. It's their responsibility to ensure an orderly transition to an Oracle-maintained JVM if they won't do it themselves.
That commitment was only based on the fact that Sun originally had the Mac Look'n'Feel which Steve personally called up Sun Microsystems and threatened to sue if they did not remove it from the JVM - besides even I doubt that Sun could have maintained the Look'n'Feel independently of Apple.
It wasn't a case of "Let's come up with a mutual solution", Steve Jobs literally threatened Sun with a legal notice. The same thing happened with Sun's Project Looking Glass Operating System, Apple do not seem to want to negotiate.
What Apple are doing is basically saying to Java developers who were somewhat responsible for making the OS popular among developer circles, is thanks, we have used you to get to this point but now fuck off, we have no need for you any more.
I couldn't agree with you more.
First they deprecate Java, now Flash. Pissing off Oracle and Adobe is not a great way to build marketshare especially in business.
I'm not sure this is going to piss off Oracle - more the developers - as Oracle now has the opportunity to properly support Java on Mac OS X without the concern of stepping on Apple's toes in regards to UI patents etc (hopefully). But Oracle will now need to be more responsible in support Java on the Mac OS X platform which, since Mac OS X is UNIX based, shouldn't be too big a task.
For each developer Apple loses, it also loses a user.
And in cold hard business terms, the dollars Apple doesn't spend implementing the JRE on OS X go to development dollars on projects that are bringing users in at a rate a couple orders of magnitude higher. Anyone that doesn't think a decision like this has been found to have little downside financial risk isn't really thinking it through. Sure you can not like it, not like it a lot, but I think this is more because we don't know about Oracles plans than anything else right now.
Uh, because that's what they do for every other platform including Windows, Linux, and various *NIX flavors?
Except, they actually don't, despite what Jobs said. Every operating system Oracle supports Java on is an operating system Oracle itself sells. You can buy Sun x86 systems running Solaris, Linux, and Windows from Oracle. And Oracle does not produce JVMs for any other operating systems than those three. IBM implements Java for IBM systems, HP develops Java for HP-specific systems, etc. If Oracle doesn't sell it, Oracle doesn't ship Java for it.
So, unless Apple is licensing OS X to Oracle as an OEM like Microsoft licenses Windows, there is no particular reason to expect Oracle to support Java on OS X. Do you expect there to be any Oracle-made Mac clones in the near future? Because I sure don't.