The big news this week is the sudden move by IBM to join with Oracle in collaborating on the OpenJDK. You can read the formal joint press release, or browse some of the first set of thoughtful commentaries here:
- IBM’s Bob Sutor talks about the IBM decision to move into OpenJDK – at the expense of contributions to Apache Harmony. Bob also has another good roundup of news coverage of this story.
- InfoQ asks some good questions about IBM’s and Oracle’s plans around this move.
- Paul Querna’s take on the Java Trap is a good perspective from a long-time open source contributor.
- Sacha Labourey’s “pragmatic” take on the blow this deals to community around Java.
- Gary Barnett’s posting seems to say this is good news, although he’s really understating the “serious concerns surrounding the JCP”.
- Steve covers The new cold war: IBM and Oracle against Google.
- Tim Ellison’s (unfortunately brief) post on the subject. I include this since Tim is the current VP of Apache Harmony.
- And although it’s a week old, James Governor’s post on Java: The Unipolar Moment is well worth a read for a detailed analysts view on the ecosystem before this announcement.
Required reading: everyone should re-read the ASF’s open letter to Sun Microsystems about the JCP. If you don’t remember why that letter is important, then go back through the Graphical Overview of Sun’s JSPA violations. If you like using the word “open” anywhere near the word “Java”, then you need to remember that they don’t really go together these days.