It doesn't "get" java any more than red hat/jboss "owns" nhibernate.

Alberto have you even read the article?

quote: The deal will end Sun's 27-year history as Silicon Valley's brash independent and give Oracle ownership of the Java programming language, which runs on more than 1 billion devices around the world.

It does get Java, MySQL and even the hardware division, but also StarOffice (Commercial OpenOffice release) is now part of Oracle.

It will be interesting to see how the marketing guy are going to make sense of Oracle DB vs MySQL DB. Those two products have been in competitions right from the beginning. And the Oracle DB 10g Express Edition was directly targeted against MySQL.

I predict that a new oss database project will grow rapidly out of this; probably with some of the former mysql people as contributors.

btw, I hope this doesn't damage openoffice as I use it a lot, including on my mac.

When I heard the news this morning, I thought it made perfect sense. Oracle has put a lot into Java, such as their Database Management software is written in Java, and you can also write stored procs in Java, much the same as sql server allows you to write server side database code in .NET. I think it makes sense for them to own the technology on which software is so heavily dependent.

Joannes,

I'm not really sure on that, unless something has drastically changed, Oracle DB division makes most of it's money (over 80%) off very large government contracts.

Let's face it, Oracle is so beyond overkill for most applications it's not even funny and due to it's very high price point is pretty much the exact opposite of what MySQL users want or even need.

Oracle DB 10g Express Edition is really like the gateway drug to full 10g, much like SQL Server 2008 Express is meant to entice users to get the full on editions of SQL 2k8. So unless you work for a company that is willing to take the Oracle jump (meaning, paying for it), you wouldn't have chosen 10g Express over MySQL anyways.

@Ayende. I don't know what you are trying to say.

@Dave, So what. I don't care much what the writer says. Java is open source, so Oracle can't "own" it in the sense they can't control it.

Alberto,

Unless I'm missing something, as a result of one of their many lawsuits against Microsoft, isn't Sun "in charge" of distributing the Java runtime? That is at least a form of control.

It's amazing how SUN - a company behind great technology (Java) that revolutionized the world of IT and has been so widely accepted, ended up financially struggling and finally bought by Oracle. They had everything it takes to succeed, but did not know how to make money on it. Oracle, on the other hand, has a giant, expensive, bloated database and some ugly applications and they make serious money on it.

@josh, PostgresQL is both open source and superior than MySQL in almost every metric except mindshare.

I doubt this will have any affect on MySQL development unless Oracle kill off the OSS version completely; its worth noting MySQL has had a non-OSS version for some time now.

It's about time for Microsoft to acquire Apple or HP. Bill Gates has always envied Steve Jobs his hardware. For years, the press has spread rumors about Microsoft's craving for serious iron. Bill Gates has always considered IBM the major competitor. Yes, IBM is the hardware and software heavyweight.

@Andrew, no, the lawsuit had to do with microsoft releasing an incompatible version of java.

Have a look at openjdk, which is sun's java implementation, open sourced.

Alberto,

I remember the lawsuit, I just seem to remember that the result of the suit (maybe via some sort of private settlement) was that Sun was now responsible for updates to the Java Virtual Machine for Microsoft Operating Systems.

Again, this is from memory so take it with a fistful of salt, but in the "old" days back on my Win 2000 machine I used to get Java Updates from Microsoft, but then they changed their websites explaining that all updates would now come from Sun and provided a link to the Sun website.

So in a way, if that is accurate (or at least close) that is a form of control. Granted, I doubt Oracle will mess with Java anyways, but who knows, companies always seem to find a way to do stupid things.

@Alberto,

Java itself is not opensource only the JDK. This means if you want to help to make changes to the core libraries you can but if you got a wild hair for some reason and wanted to figure out how to add LINQ to Java you couldn't. See www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/faq.jsp#b8

This is an important distinction. The JDK is opensource, not Java. This means the future of Java is in the hands of Oracle and it scares me. Development on the Oracle DB itself has been rather stagnant. I'm not saying that there haven't been new features added, just that Oracle hasn't been making any big leaps forward.

I've had the unique opportunity for the last 6 years to develop professionally in Java and the last 5 years in C#, a man of both worlds. When C# first came out I was thinking, so what? I can do that in Java and do it easier and cleaner. C# had a lot of catching up to do. Fast forward 5 years and Java is so far behind the curve now. Development of the Java language has become stagnant. Like the Oracle DB, new features are added sure, but there haven't been any significant leaps forward. Java has simply fallen behind. I just hope Oracle doesn't do to Java what it has done to it's DB and let it die a slow death. As pointed out by Andrew nearly all of Oracle's business is with the government, and having worked on some government contracts I can tell you that is starting to slip.

As a new generation of IT moves into places of power they simply are not as enamored with Oracle as the old guard were and they are willing to look to other solutions.

So what does this mean? C, C++ and Perl haven't had any new features for a long time. Does a language need to make leaps forward? C, C++ and Perl live in different worlds with different purposes then Java and .Net. Sure there are some cross purposes but for the most part they are separate. Java has to continue to innovate if it wants to stay a viable mainstream language. I hope that Oracle can bring innovation back to Java and yet worry that it doesn't really care.

Brian

@Brian, Well yeah, they didn't open source the specification, which is what java is, but they open sourced their implementation. What I am trying to say is that if Oracle controlled the JCP and tried to hijack/take Java into a different direction than the rest of the world, someone could just take the openjdk and fork from there.