First things first: I don’t care about Apache Harmony. It’s not part of my daily life, it doesn’t pay my bills, I never downloaded it, I’m not a member of the community and I don’t even have an Android phone. In fairness, I couldn’t care less if the project is abandoned. Even more, I will readily admit there is a positive side in IBM ditching Harmony and joining OpenJDK, as the world is now closer to enjoy a strong Java platform.
The problem is the price tag. With IBM surrendering to the Oracle bully, the Java Community Process is now as credible as Weekly World News, and basically nobody is safe. The spin pros have been busy focusing on a strengthened, renewed Java effort, and they conveniently (or should I say pragmatically?) forgot to mention how dangerous it is to be under the illusion that the JCP is a neutral and cooperative body producing Open Source friendly specs when the truth is Oracle can and do whatever they want, including breaching the JSPA and getting away with it. Or play puppet master even with mighty IBM. I wish all my FSF friends will soon recover from the initial excitement for a GPLed Java and realize how, really, the party is over and we have much less freedom than before. And maybe a better JVM with no competitors – but is it worth the price?
There is nothing worse than living an illusion: if you still believe Java is free just because there is a GPL JVM out there, a rude awakening lies ahead.