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Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

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11–20 of 103 posts

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#12
post #10
post #8

This is off-topic, but I'm amazed by the descriptions at the end of TFA (I know, I know, it's a press release, but still...) Oracle is the world’s most complete, open and integrated business software and hardware systems company. (...) Let's grant integrated and complete, but definitely not "open". Though this is dwarfed by Apple's incredible self-praise: Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world,…

I'm no fanboy, believe me. But most of that is pretty accurate.

The iPad is magical?

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#13
post #4

Though I'm glad for this desicion, I can't help but wonder: what's in it for oracle? The puny 5% of desktops running mac os?

Money. They're in for the money.

a) Even if it is only 5%, it is almost pure profit for Oracle. Many big companies would like to expand 5% for almost free.

b) The decision maker might run mac. No mac support, no sales. (One of my customers is like that). This is similar to the "American’s with Disabilities Act" which requires accesibility even though less than 5% of the users are disabled.

c) 5% is the average. Many companies aren't average, e.g. universities and research based companies.

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#14
post #10
post #8

This is off-topic, but I'm amazed by the descriptions at the end of TFA (I know, I know, it's a press release, but still...) Oracle is the world’s most complete, open and integrated business software and hardware systems company. (...) Let's grant integrated and complete, but definitely not "open". Though this is dwarfed by Apple's incredible self-praise: Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world,…

I'm no fanboy, believe me. But most of that is pretty accurate.

I'm no a meta-fanboy, believe me. But a real fanboy would have written that comment too.

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fanboy, believe me. But most of that is pretty accurate.

The iPad is magical?

Indeed. And seemingly animate as well, since it "is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices." Would've thought that was the folks making and using them, but hey, I'm not the one wearing the turtlenecks.

(And yes, I own an iPad. But probably not the one that is going around defining things. Other than words. With a dictionary app.)

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#18

This is really Oracle's news rather than Apple's.

It's actually a more important announcement for Apple though in light of their stopping development of their own JVM.

This allows them to still be behind it without having to actually do the work.

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#19
post #7

So... Is this good or bad? I know Oracle is giving its back (not to say finger) to the Apache Foundation, but OpenJDK is a GPL-licensed version of the Java stack. Why is it bad (as in why so many complain) that Apple, Oracle and IBM cluster around OpenJDK? Why is the GPL not good enough?

It's not "clean", only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, if you modify the JRE and don't get it re-certified then you lose the patent protection. And to get it certified you have to agree to a restrictive licence from Oracle. Sun promised Apache to make the TCK available under an open licence but this never happened.

IBM was previously putting pressure on Sun/Oracle to make the TCK available under the open licence to Apache that they had promised, since IBM have switched to OpenJDK, it removes that pressure and makes Java much more closed.

Re: Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for Mac OS X

#20
post #7

So... Is this good or bad? I know Oracle is giving its back (not to say finger) to the Apache Foundation, but OpenJDK is a GPL-licensed version of the Java stack. Why is it bad (as in why so many complain) that Apple, Oracle and IBM cluster around OpenJDK? Why is the GPL not good enough?

I don't think this has anything to do with that dispute (at least on Apple side). Rather, Apple wanted to lose the responsibility of bundling Java with Mac, but they couldn't abandon Java altogether.
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