There are quite some questions around at the moment, talking about the future or Java in Oracle's hands. To be honest, nobody knows about the future. At the moment, nobody even knows about the exact plans Oracle and/or Sun have about their future. What seems clear is, that Oracle is heading into the appliance direction with their products. A good example of this is the Exadata v2 maschine, presented at the Open World 2009. Some thoughts about possible Fusion Application Appliances are also out there. All this, is evidence enough for me to know Sun's hardware in save hands. But what about Software? What about Java in general. Even in the recent
email interview with Mike Lehmann (Oracle) I really did get now answer at the moment about any Sun related questions. What is clear to me is, that Oracle is into standards and standardization and open source since the beginning. And even more, the Application Grid Stack forms the basis for any Oracle product. This gets all the way down to Java on Weblogic server. Why should this change?
On a midterm some dissagreements between Oralce's product strategie and other JCP members' ideas could lead to problems. Of course, there is always a lot of politics in it. And I believe, that his will not be easy, if the JCP is lead by a company making money of it's products. To me, this seems as if it is not the biggest problem to others while Sun has the lead. I'll expect this to change. And this probably even leads to a redesign of the JCP in general.
Up to now, it is in your own hands to build your oppinion about all this. Some actuall blogposts around the future of Java, Sun, Oracle and discussions about the famous Larry Ellison quote "Java speaks for itself." are around. Take a look:
Kevin Farnham "Does Java "Speak for Itself"?
Discussion Forum about this quote
Recent poll on Java.net (one third "has it's doubts")
Thoughts from Bert Ertmann
Cay Hostmann about OpenWorld
