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Why I Left Oracle – A Confession

140 points by cronjobber 11y ago

MrTonyD 11y ago
I was a Product Manager at Oracle when we decided to integrate Java. It seemed like an odd decision to those outside Oracle, but at the highest levels in Oracle we were circulating a Microsoft internal presentation about how Microsoft was going to use the dominance of Visual Studio to defeat competitors across the application space. So Oracle had no choice except to support Java as the alternative to Visual Studio. So Java and all Open Source support were really done only to the extent which self-interest demanded. We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) And we coordinated with HP, IBM, Sun, Red Hat, and others so that they would encourage and pay their engineers to support Open Source. The idea that Open Source is somehow separate from business and market forces ignores its history. And the idea that Open Source is always positive is equally absurd. I've been working in open source for decades now, and the big winners are often the same rich companies which are extracting the wealth of our society - as they get software for free while the engineers provide work without getting the true "fruits of their labor". Does it make sense for multi-billionaires to get this software for free? Really, the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers.
- static_noise 11y ago
  Yes, Oracle benefited from Open Source, but it also invested into Open Source and others benefited, too. That's the real key: Most people get out more than they put in by using Open Source instead of supporting proprietary software from few proprietary vendors for programs many people need.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  In the same paragraph you indicate that Oracle and other companies paid for people to work on open source projects, then bemoan that companies get the work for free. The signal is a little mixed, care to clarify your stance on this?
  - chii 11y ago
    Some engineers got paid by oracle to work on open source software. But there are still contributions from others who weren't paid by oracle, and yet oracle is extracting a lot of profit from said software (more than what they paid, because of the 'free' contributions from the unpaid engineers).
    - marcosdumay 11y ago
      And everybody is wealthier as a consequence. Oracle's clients pay less for a solution than they would otherwise, Oracle can compete on this area, some engineers get paid by Oracle to improve a commons, and everybody else gets a more functional system for free. Ok, maybe somebody worked there against their best interest, but that somebody wasn't coordinated by any big corporation, and should look onto fixing himself only. The ecosystem as a whole is healthy.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >And everybody is wealthier as a consequence. Well, except for those using Java. Because Oracle screwed it up.
        pron 11y ago
        > Because Oracle screwed it up. I am quite involved in the Java community and I don't see it. How did Oracle screw it up?
        pjmlp 11y ago
        Support for mobile OSes. You could have had JIT/AOT for Windows Phone and AOT compiler for iOS, but they never cared. Now C++ and C# reign as the languages to go for portable mobile native apps.
        pron 11y ago
        This may well have been a mistake, but it is being addressed now, though probably not aggressively enough. Also, depending on how Google integrates OpenJDK into Android, we may soon have Java (real Java, that is) on the world's leading mobile platform.
- pasbesoin 11y ago
  Having watched -- from the inside, for a while -- another major corporation increasingly leach off of open source (taking much, giving little -- practically nothing), I'm just adding my voice to this perspective. I'm not inside nor advanced enough to have a... really well-informed, well-grounded opinion, perhaps. But, I've seen enough of corporate behavior, across multiple substantial corporations over extended periods of time, to speak to that. Even their "charitable giving." Even if is starts with or has components of genuine good will, by the time the suits, PR folks, and bureaucrats get done with it, it's pretty damned self-serving.
  - MrTonyD 11y ago
    I was part of the team choosing charities. You might be surprised to hear that we evaluated all our giving for ROI (measured in columns of print or TV time and the equivalent cost of purchased time. We also considered audience - and overlap with purchase influencers.) In general, the decision was simple - are we making more money than we are spending on the charity.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      I'm not surprised one little bit.
      - noir_lord 11y ago
        Me either but if the charities where good ones then it seems like a win-win to me. It's not that different than celebrities endorsing a charity for "free", they give up some time which gets positive PR and the charity gets the benefit of raising against their events.
        chris_wot 11y ago
        It's definitely amoral. But it's also highly inefficient - it means that if everyone takes Oracle's approach then only charities with high levels of positive publicity get charity dollars. Those charities who cannot generate lots if positive press can't help fund important research. Ironically sometimes research that crosses into another field and benefits another bug if research bring done.
- toyg 11y ago
  As a fellow ex-Oracle (although a coalface support minion coming through an acquisition), and with all due respect, I downvoted your comment because it looks like a bit of an incoherent rant with no apparent link to the post. What Rhaman is saying is: the wide Java portfolio is dying because people are not making enough waves around the JCP to keep Oracle on the straight and narrow. Nothing to do with opensource, the JCP is a very different project from traditional opensource development. The JRE has never been a "real" open source project, but rather a proprietary system that opened up enough to develop a caring community. The problem is that, at the moment, the interests of Java's owner are not aligned with the interests of such community, and not enough people seem to care. This has nothing to do with Java being "open source" or not; in fact, a real OSS project would happily fork at this point (as it happened with OpenOffice), but the Java community cannot really do it. It seems pointless to debate the merits of OSS in a situation where there is no OSS; it's like saying "We supported Windows out of self-interest; but let's talk about the pros and cons of opensource...".
  - pron 11y ago
    > The JRE has never been a "real" open source project What does that mean? Compare Java to other open source projects of similar magnitude (and there aren't many; maybe only Linux, which is actually bigger). Linux is even more exclusive than OpenJDK, and just like Linux, companies with appropriate resources often make changes to the software even if those changes aren't contributed back (or contributed but not merged). > and not enough people seem to care People will care once many start to actually feel it. Oracle's interests are probably not aligned with mine, and may or may not be a cause for concern for me, but so far Oracle's actions wrt OpenJDK don't harm me at all. The investment in the platform feels to have only grown in the past few years. > but the Java community cannot really do it Why not? I think it most certainly can, but at this point there's not enough motivation to do it.
    - toyg 11y ago
      Look at what Oracle is doing to Google for the sin of refusing the JCP process. Do you think they wouldn't do the same against any Java fork with a realistic chance of supplanting their implementation? The details are not important, they'll throw the book at you and find something that sticks. The current situation (OpenJDK open but not a realistic choice in most production deployments; Oracle JDK/JRE remaining as de-facto gold standard; a process that forces strict compatibility tests on any competitor) can be fine from a certain point of view, but in practice it means that Java is not a traditional community-led OSS program. Rather, it's a program where the OSS community helps a company improve their software. RedHat is not the only Linux build with significant marketshare, and I won't get sued if I write a different POSIX system. > at this point there's not enough motivation to do it. No there isn't, that's what Rhaman is saying. But what he's also implying is that the direction of travel has changed inside Oracle, and people outside do not seem to realize it. IMHO it's fairly obvious where things are going (you'll stop "installing Java", and only develop and deploy in the Oracle cloud or similar Oracle-sanctioned environments).
- vmorgulis 11y ago
  > ... We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) ... It reminds me a story about evolution. It says that the wheat (or the corn) is a successful specie because it is grown by man at a wide scale. Those Oracle engineers are like bees collecting pollen from the Linux flowers :-) It's a two-way link.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  > the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers. Except Oracle getting rich on say, Linux, doesn't hurt me if I am running Ubuntu, Debian or Gentoo. In fact, if their patches are any good, due to the GPL, it helps me. Now, if I develop open source software, I might or might not be able to extract as much of the value generated as if I was making it a proprietary product. On the other hand, the total reach and value of the project might be magnified just because other people (and also for-profit-corporations) can take it and extend it and use it. I might see less of that value myself but: a) It might not be my primary goal to capture as much value as possible, just to get enough money out of it so that I can continue working on that project. b) The "size of the pie" that the same project is worth as open-source, specially for developer tools, is much much larger than if I kept it proprietary. So, in some cases, I might be able to capture more absolute value that way, even if I am helping some huge megacorp get filthy rich too (which is what would happen if I got a 'normal' software job, anyways). Making your software free to me is not quite an ethical imperative in most cases, but it is a personal decision that can make a lot of sense, even if the entity that will profit the most from your software in monetary terms might not be yourself. The flip side is that, all things being equal, a great open-source software is likely to have a higher impact (and bring you more fame), than a great proprietary program. Specially for infrastructure, libraries and the like vs user-facing software. If Tim Berners-Lee had been paid for the world-wide web what his contribution ended up being worth to the world, he would be the world's first trillionaire. On the other hand, if he had insisted that he get paid for all uses of the web, the web might have never come be to (or might have lost to a much more "corporate" system, under the control of one or a few companies).
  - notalaser 11y ago
    > Except Oracle getting rich on say, Linux, doesn't hurt me if I am running Ubuntu, Debian or Gentoo. In fact, if their patches are any good, due to the GPL, it helps me. It does if they manage to get in a position where they "own" enough of what you're using so that they can force their choices on you. Red Hat has been in such a position for a long time now, and their world domination agenda has been steadily hurting non-enterprise Linux users in a higher and higher proportion.
- Confusion 11y ago
  What do you mean by 'integrating Java'? You are comparing Java to Visual Studio, which feels like comparing apples to orchards. AFAIK the vast majority of Java programmers use Eclipse, Netbeans or IntelliJ. Oracle has had JDeveloper since 1998. So what was Java being integrated into?
  - MrTonyD 11y ago
    We started off with a series of strategy meetings prior to the release of JDeveloper. We hired a small team to integrate the JVM into Oracle with the idea that we might be able to replace PL/SQL with Java within the Database. We started by bundling JDeveloper from Borland, and it was awful, so we brought it in-house to continue developing it. From there, there was a continuously evolving strategy of how we could position Java to compete with Visual Studio. Microsoft had explicit plans (internally) to add more APIs to the APIs in order to capture developers, and "not fix" other existing APIs which they had mis-implemented in order to give the impression that our products were broken. And since every deployment began with a development project, it was very important that we kept a working set of APIs to our products in Java - so that Microsoft didn't take all our customers. We had seen Microsoft harm other competitors by using those same tricks (and claim that it wasn't intentional.)
- ErikAugust 11y ago
  I am reminded of Aaron Swartz wearing the "My Free Software Runs Your Company" shirt: http://assets.bwbx.io/images/icUNrxSKG6Pc/v1/-1x-1.jpg http://assets.bwbx.io/images/icUNrxSKG6Pc/v1/-1x-1.jpg
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  I cannot comprehend a situation wherein open source is negative. Clearly it might not be the most lucrative path but we are all net consumers of technology. What's the better alternative to billionaires getting their software for free? It's unlikely that companies will contribute manpower to software if they then have to pay for it too. If you have a better strategy I'd like to hear it.
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    > What's the better alternative to billionaires getting their software for free? Billionaires paying for their software?
    - klibertp 11y ago
      It would be very hard, not to mention almost impossible politically, to make only billionaires pay for free software. You'd probably end up making everyone pay, with billionaires paying a bit more than most. Would that be good for OSS and for the users, I wonder?
    - michaelmrose 11y ago
      So we need to implement user restrictions licensing codes software audits etc and ensure that there are no benefits to companies embracing free software ensuring their contributions dry up. Not precisely a winning strategy
- frik 11y ago
  > We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then). When was "back then". Are you talking about the 1990s or the 2000s? You are not talking about RedHat Linux fork "Oracle Linux", right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux
- cyphar 11y ago
  > I was a Product Manager at Oracle when we decided to integrate Java. It seemed like an odd decision to those outside Oracle, but at the highest levels in Oracle we were circulating a Microsoft internal presentation about how Microsoft was going to use the dominance of Visual Studio to defeat competitors across the application space. So Oracle had no choice except to support Java as the alternative to Visual Studio. So Java and all Open Source support were really done only to the extent which self-interest demanded. We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) And we coordinated with HP, IBM, Sun, Red Hat, and others so that they would encourage and pay their engineers to support Open Source. The idea that Open Source is somehow separate from business and market forces ignores its history. And the idea that Open Source is always positive is equally absurd. I've been working in open source for decades now, and the big winners are often the same rich companies which are extracting the wealth of our society - as they get software for free while the engineers provide work without getting the true "fruits of their labor". Does it make sense for multi-billionaires to get this software for free? Really, the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers. If you only use permissive licenses, free software can result in large corporate monopolies. Copyleft licenses help counter this. Linux, GNU, VLC, FFmpeg, etc are all good examples of this.
npalli 11y ago
What exactly is the reason for leaving Oracle? Seems like an exec. at Oracle, Cameron was forced out. OK. Not sure what the background on the departure is. Everyone knows Oracle is evil. So that can't be it. Is there some reading between the lines here? Maybe somebody embedded in the Java ecosystem can shed light.
- toyg 11y ago
  Look at the list of stuff his skepticism "extends to" and see what is missing. Hint: web apps. That's because Oracle is betting the farm on "cloud services", and a few of their offerings are based on the concept of containerized java apps running on the Oracle cloud. That alone will survive; everything else is fair game. Anything on-premise, including the JRE, are going to be basically ignored from now on. I work in a different Oracle niche and the message is the same: nothing matters but cloud. If a product can be moved to the cloud, good; if it can't, it will be killed. On-premise versions are pretty much all in legacy-mode, getting patches that pay lip-service to the idea of hybrid setups, but 90% of development resources are busy on cloud-related stuff. Somehow, the current Oracle leadership believes they should become "AWS for the enterprise", and in traditional Oracle style, they will pull all stops (and cut all corners) to get there. If you don't like it, that's the door. "Java everywhere" advocates are now surplus to requirements.
  - X-Istence 11y ago
    I wouldn't want the vendor lock-in that comes with Oracle's "AWS". There has been a lot of teeth gritting over how locked into AWS certain parts of a customers company has become, using their API's, their services, and with no real way to move away if anything ever happened.
    - rodgerd 11y ago
      > I wouldn't want the vendor lock-in that comes with Oracle's "AWS". AWS has already perfected vendor lock-in, so I doubt Oracle can make it much worse, beyond their normal trick of de-certifying their products on competing platforms.
kumarm 11y ago
I knew Cameron from 15 years back. Always helpful and very down to earth person. I am surprised he stayed at Oracle that long. He was very active in BEA Weblogic Forums/usergroups. He would answer most questions with helpful answers. When he started building Coherence (which was sold to Oracle and hence ended up at Oracle) he added Coherence link to his signature while answering questions or trouble shootings other users problems. Pretty soon most JavaEE developers became aware of Coherence with that single trick.
itaysk 11y ago
Touching story, but... Why did he leave oracle?
- Gratsby 11y ago
  I re-read the whole thing, then went looking for a page 2. Clearly, his future isn't in journalism.
  - gunnihinn 11y ago
    The top 8 reasons why no one's future is in journalism! Number 5 will shock you!
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
Humans love mental shortcuts. E.g. Taibbi has forever tagged Goldman Sachs as "The Vampire Squid". Years ago somebody Google bombed Microsoft as "more evil than Satan himself". And Bush became "miserable failure". So, what of Oracle? I'm drawing a blank, but that's probably because I don't frequently interact with Oracle or with its products. Anyone?
- Scuds 11y ago
  From the article "Many people seem to have an impression of Oracle as a company full of corporate drones. This is far from the truth." But IMO Oracle's reputation is a portfolio of overarchitected overpriced enterprise products that encourage lock-in.
kzhahou 11y ago
What is it that compels people to write these posts? I remember when you'd make some personal decision, and just tell friends if they happened to ask why.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  I'm in the middle of writing one because I think it will help both the company and other start ups. The TLDR is an HR rep left because she was facing a hostile work environment. So what hope did the rest of us have? It's an appeal for startups to train their managers better.
  - kzhahou 11y ago
    Are you gonna send it to their CEO privately, or air a bunch of dirty laundry in public?
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      Well I did email the CEO when I left and he was like that's nice. There isn't any dirty laundry. I just want to make the case for better training, especially since my friends continue to complain to me after I left.
      - gtirloni 11y ago
        It might be useful to ask if it's something new in the HR guidebook or a new trend you're seeing in your area.
        kelukelugames 11y ago
        They did update the employee conduct when I first complained about it. Previously it just said, "don't watch porn at work." I'm exaggerating. But barely. I want to laugh and I want to cry.
      - hitekker 11y ago
overgard 11y ago
I'm nitpicking a bit, but this stood out to me as a good example of why I've never wanted to be part of Java-land: > He helped pioneer one of the most successful pieces of enterprise infrastructure that has stood the test of time. Yet he is humble enough to still code I mean, doesn't coding being perceived as a "humble" job he's lowering himself to really say it all? It's rarely explicitly said, but coding is considered a low status activity in those spheres. That's why I avoid Java work. Other languages have cultures that respect the craft, rather than viewing it as something you grow out of.
- wrong_variable 11y ago
  Programmers get no respect - and its our own fault. The computing industry is directly responsible for 1/3 of global GDP in 2016. Its time that this is reflected in our paycheck.
  - andrei_says_ 11y ago
    Unions?
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      Those did work out well for the auto makers in the US.
      - deleted 11y ago
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      - deleted 11y ago
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      - nostrebored 11y ago
        And excellently in the sphere of teaching. I would be woeful to see devs operate with the same level of impunity with the toxicity that exists within our community...
bitwize 11y ago
Many people seem to have an impression of Oracle as a company full of corporate drones. This is far from the truth. I wasn't, Cameron wasn't and we are very far from being alone. That may be true, but if you're not generating revenue for Oracle, you will be fired and replaced with a lawyer who can at least look for a new IP angle to sue over, or a new way to nickel-and-dime existing customers to extract more license fees. (Coming to Java 10: Garbage Collector Licensing. Beginning with Java 10, Oracle will assess a fixed fee for each byte of memory reclaimed by the Oracle JRE garbage collector. Contact your Oracle sales representative for pricing details.)
- needusername 11y ago
  I always thought that Cameron and Reza didn't present a very balanced view. Which is OK if you're hired for marketing as long as you don't claim you're not a corporate drone. Two examples: Reza is a famous spring hater and much of his writing can be summarised as "Java EE rocks, Spring sucks". Which is fine if you're hired to sell Java EE. Which is fine, just don't claim otherwise. Cameron's view on TCK licensing was also very one sided and uncompromising. In every JCP meeting the topic of TCK licensing pops up. Everybody except Oracle agrees on the subject. Everybody has the same position Oracle had before the Sun acquisition. I was at a JCP meeting when the whole panel (all JCP members) agreed on TCK licensing and Cameron from the audience simply said "no". Then he said something like "if you open source a TCK that makes the TCK worthless because anybody can change anything". Totally ignoring the fact that the best TCK out there (the CDI TCK) is open source. Even if that was an issue there would be fixes for this like trade marking the TCK like Mozilla does with Firefox. Again if you're hired to wield the power of the TCK against Apache Harmony for whatever political reason that's fine. Just don't claim you're not a corporate drone.
maxlybbert 11y ago
So, Java doesn't live up to the hype?
geodel 11y ago
There is tremendous activity in OpenJDK projects which means Oracle is finally concentrating on core technology. So many of these projects seems to directly help developers as compare to JavaEE stuff which is mostly targeted for vendors peddling there gigabytes size application servers. I have had misfortune of using those products. Now I am much happier using Core Java / servlets with tomcat. A possible fallout of Oracle focussing on core Java and cutting down on JavaEE monstrosity is that all those pattern laden enterprise architect/astronauts/evangelists seems less in demand at least at Oracle. I may not be biggest fan of Oracle but I think in case of evangelist types leaving Oracle is good thing.
goldenkey 11y ago
Hmm thats similar to why I left Amazon. I was tasked with mundane tasks like localizing strings for huge marketing faq pages. I wrote scripts to give the 900 odd strings numerical locale ids. But my manager who all my code had to pass through for code review wanted individually described and named ids. For what other reason than he was a corporate drone with Java abstractions for factories of factories of DatabaseQueryCreator that invoked DatabaseQueryBuilder etc etc I do not know. I will never work for another corp where I dont feel like a magician in terms of programming and tooling efficiency. It was absolutely dreadful and loathing to march to my death as a creative and intellectual. Fuck drone work and fuck drone managers and executives who try to serve it up only because they hate themselves too much to embrace the beauty of the discipline of hip and efficient software engineering
exabrial 11y ago
Dude, Reza is a bamf. I've attended many of his talks. Guy had a hard job, and he took flak from all sides. Good luck buddy!

140 points by cronjobber 11y ago

I was a Product Manager at Oracle when we decided to integrate Java. It seemed like an odd decision to those outside Oracle, but at the highest levels in Oracle we were circulating a Microsoft internal presentation about how Microsoft was going to use the dominance of Visual Studio to defeat competitors across the application space. So Oracle had no choice except to support Java as the alternative to Visual Studio. So Java and all Open Source support were really done only to the extent which self-interest demanded. We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) And we coordinated with HP, IBM, Sun, Red Hat, and others so that they would encourage and pay their engineers to support Open Source. The idea that Open Source is somehow separate from business and market forces ignores its history. And the idea that Open Source is always positive is equally absurd. I've been working in open source for decades now, and the big winners are often the same rich companies which are extracting the wealth of our society - as they get software for free while the engineers provide work without getting the true "fruits of their labor". Does it make sense for multi-billionaires to get this software for free? Really, the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers.

static_noise 11y ago
Yes, Oracle benefited from Open Source, but it also invested into Open Source and others benefited, too. That's the real key: Most people get out more than they put in by using Open Source instead of supporting proprietary software from few proprietary vendors for programs many people need.
oldmanjay 11y ago
In the same paragraph you indicate that Oracle and other companies paid for people to work on open source projects, then bemoan that companies get the work for free. The signal is a little mixed, care to clarify your stance on this?
- chii 11y ago
  Some engineers got paid by oracle to work on open source software. But there are still contributions from others who weren't paid by oracle, and yet oracle is extracting a lot of profit from said software (more than what they paid, because of the 'free' contributions from the unpaid engineers).
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    And everybody is wealthier as a consequence. Oracle's clients pay less for a solution than they would otherwise, Oracle can compete on this area, some engineers get paid by Oracle to improve a commons, and everybody else gets a more functional system for free. Ok, maybe somebody worked there against their best interest, but that somebody wasn't coordinated by any big corporation, and should look onto fixing himself only. The ecosystem as a whole is healthy.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >And everybody is wealthier as a consequence. Well, except for those using Java. Because Oracle screwed it up.
      - pron 11y ago
        > Because Oracle screwed it up. I am quite involved in the Java community and I don't see it. How did Oracle screw it up?
        pjmlp 11y ago
        Support for mobile OSes. You could have had JIT/AOT for Windows Phone and AOT compiler for iOS, but they never cared. Now C++ and C# reign as the languages to go for portable mobile native apps.
        pron 11y ago
        This may well have been a mistake, but it is being addressed now, though probably not aggressively enough. Also, depending on how Google integrates OpenJDK into Android, we may soon have Java (real Java, that is) on the world's leading mobile platform.
pasbesoin 11y ago
Having watched -- from the inside, for a while -- another major corporation increasingly leach off of open source (taking much, giving little -- practically nothing), I'm just adding my voice to this perspective. I'm not inside nor advanced enough to have a... really well-informed, well-grounded opinion, perhaps. But, I've seen enough of corporate behavior, across multiple substantial corporations over extended periods of time, to speak to that. Even their "charitable giving." Even if is starts with or has components of genuine good will, by the time the suits, PR folks, and bureaucrats get done with it, it's pretty damned self-serving.
- MrTonyD 11y ago
  I was part of the team choosing charities. You might be surprised to hear that we evaluated all our giving for ROI (measured in columns of print or TV time and the equivalent cost of purchased time. We also considered audience - and overlap with purchase influencers.) In general, the decision was simple - are we making more money than we are spending on the charity.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I'm not surprised one little bit.
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      Me either but if the charities where good ones then it seems like a win-win to me. It's not that different than celebrities endorsing a charity for "free", they give up some time which gets positive PR and the charity gets the benefit of raising against their events.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        It's definitely amoral. But it's also highly inefficient - it means that if everyone takes Oracle's approach then only charities with high levels of positive publicity get charity dollars. Those charities who cannot generate lots if positive press can't help fund important research. Ironically sometimes research that crosses into another field and benefits another bug if research bring done.
toyg 11y ago
As a fellow ex-Oracle (although a coalface support minion coming through an acquisition), and with all due respect, I downvoted your comment because it looks like a bit of an incoherent rant with no apparent link to the post. What Rhaman is saying is: the wide Java portfolio is dying because people are not making enough waves around the JCP to keep Oracle on the straight and narrow. Nothing to do with opensource, the JCP is a very different project from traditional opensource development. The JRE has never been a "real" open source project, but rather a proprietary system that opened up enough to develop a caring community. The problem is that, at the moment, the interests of Java's owner are not aligned with the interests of such community, and not enough people seem to care. This has nothing to do with Java being "open source" or not; in fact, a real OSS project would happily fork at this point (as it happened with OpenOffice), but the Java community cannot really do it. It seems pointless to debate the merits of OSS in a situation where there is no OSS; it's like saying "We supported Windows out of self-interest; but let's talk about the pros and cons of opensource...".
- pron 11y ago
  > The JRE has never been a "real" open source project What does that mean? Compare Java to other open source projects of similar magnitude (and there aren't many; maybe only Linux, which is actually bigger). Linux is even more exclusive than OpenJDK, and just like Linux, companies with appropriate resources often make changes to the software even if those changes aren't contributed back (or contributed but not merged). > and not enough people seem to care People will care once many start to actually feel it. Oracle's interests are probably not aligned with mine, and may or may not be a cause for concern for me, but so far Oracle's actions wrt OpenJDK don't harm me at all. The investment in the platform feels to have only grown in the past few years. > but the Java community cannot really do it Why not? I think it most certainly can, but at this point there's not enough motivation to do it.
  - toyg 11y ago
    Look at what Oracle is doing to Google for the sin of refusing the JCP process. Do you think they wouldn't do the same against any Java fork with a realistic chance of supplanting their implementation? The details are not important, they'll throw the book at you and find something that sticks. The current situation (OpenJDK open but not a realistic choice in most production deployments; Oracle JDK/JRE remaining as de-facto gold standard; a process that forces strict compatibility tests on any competitor) can be fine from a certain point of view, but in practice it means that Java is not a traditional community-led OSS program. Rather, it's a program where the OSS community helps a company improve their software. RedHat is not the only Linux build with significant marketshare, and I won't get sued if I write a different POSIX system. > at this point there's not enough motivation to do it. No there isn't, that's what Rhaman is saying. But what he's also implying is that the direction of travel has changed inside Oracle, and people outside do not seem to realize it. IMHO it's fairly obvious where things are going (you'll stop "installing Java", and only develop and deploy in the Oracle cloud or similar Oracle-sanctioned environments).
vmorgulis 11y ago
> ... We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) ... It reminds me a story about evolution. It says that the wheat (or the corn) is a successful specie because it is grown by man at a wide scale. Those Oracle engineers are like bees collecting pollen from the Linux flowers :-) It's a two-way link.
lazaroclapp 11y ago
> the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers. Except Oracle getting rich on say, Linux, doesn't hurt me if I am running Ubuntu, Debian or Gentoo. In fact, if their patches are any good, due to the GPL, it helps me. Now, if I develop open source software, I might or might not be able to extract as much of the value generated as if I was making it a proprietary product. On the other hand, the total reach and value of the project might be magnified just because other people (and also for-profit-corporations) can take it and extend it and use it. I might see less of that value myself but: a) It might not be my primary goal to capture as much value as possible, just to get enough money out of it so that I can continue working on that project. b) The "size of the pie" that the same project is worth as open-source, specially for developer tools, is much much larger than if I kept it proprietary. So, in some cases, I might be able to capture more absolute value that way, even if I am helping some huge megacorp get filthy rich too (which is what would happen if I got a 'normal' software job, anyways). Making your software free to me is not quite an ethical imperative in most cases, but it is a personal decision that can make a lot of sense, even if the entity that will profit the most from your software in monetary terms might not be yourself. The flip side is that, all things being equal, a great open-source software is likely to have a higher impact (and bring you more fame), than a great proprietary program. Specially for infrastructure, libraries and the like vs user-facing software. If Tim Berners-Lee had been paid for the world-wide web what his contribution ended up being worth to the world, he would be the world's first trillionaire. On the other hand, if he had insisted that he get paid for all uses of the web, the web might have never come be to (or might have lost to a much more "corporate" system, under the control of one or a few companies).
- notalaser 11y ago
  > Except Oracle getting rich on say, Linux, doesn't hurt me if I am running Ubuntu, Debian or Gentoo. In fact, if their patches are any good, due to the GPL, it helps me. It does if they manage to get in a position where they "own" enough of what you're using so that they can force their choices on you. Red Hat has been in such a position for a long time now, and their world domination agenda has been steadily hurting non-enterprise Linux users in a higher and higher proportion.
Confusion 11y ago
What do you mean by 'integrating Java'? You are comparing Java to Visual Studio, which feels like comparing apples to orchards. AFAIK the vast majority of Java programmers use Eclipse, Netbeans or IntelliJ. Oracle has had JDeveloper since 1998. So what was Java being integrated into?
- MrTonyD 11y ago
  We started off with a series of strategy meetings prior to the release of JDeveloper. We hired a small team to integrate the JVM into Oracle with the idea that we might be able to replace PL/SQL with Java within the Database. We started by bundling JDeveloper from Borland, and it was awful, so we brought it in-house to continue developing it. From there, there was a continuously evolving strategy of how we could position Java to compete with Visual Studio. Microsoft had explicit plans (internally) to add more APIs to the APIs in order to capture developers, and "not fix" other existing APIs which they had mis-implemented in order to give the impression that our products were broken. And since every deployment began with a development project, it was very important that we kept a working set of APIs to our products in Java - so that Microsoft didn't take all our customers. We had seen Microsoft harm other competitors by using those same tricks (and claim that it wasn't intentional.)
ErikAugust 11y ago
I am reminded of Aaron Swartz wearing the "My Free Software Runs Your Company" shirt: http://assets.bwbx.io/images/icUNrxSKG6Pc/v1/-1x-1.jpg http://assets.bwbx.io/images/icUNrxSKG6Pc/v1/-1x-1.jpg
michaelmrose 11y ago
I cannot comprehend a situation wherein open source is negative. Clearly it might not be the most lucrative path but we are all net consumers of technology. What's the better alternative to billionaires getting their software for free? It's unlikely that companies will contribute manpower to software if they then have to pay for it too. If you have a better strategy I'd like to hear it.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  > What's the better alternative to billionaires getting their software for free? Billionaires paying for their software?
  - klibertp 11y ago
    It would be very hard, not to mention almost impossible politically, to make only billionaires pay for free software. You'd probably end up making everyone pay, with billionaires paying a bit more than most. Would that be good for OSS and for the users, I wonder?
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    So we need to implement user restrictions licensing codes software audits etc and ensure that there are no benefits to companies embracing free software ensuring their contributions dry up. Not precisely a winning strategy
frik 11y ago
> We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then). When was "back then". Are you talking about the 1990s or the 2000s? You are not talking about RedHat Linux fork "Oracle Linux", right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux
cyphar 11y ago
> I was a Product Manager at Oracle when we decided to integrate Java. It seemed like an odd decision to those outside Oracle, but at the highest levels in Oracle we were circulating a Microsoft internal presentation about how Microsoft was going to use the dominance of Visual Studio to defeat competitors across the application space. So Oracle had no choice except to support Java as the alternative to Visual Studio. So Java and all Open Source support were really done only to the extent which self-interest demanded. We had floors of kernel engineers fixing Linux to make it work (it was barely functional back then.) And we coordinated with HP, IBM, Sun, Red Hat, and others so that they would encourage and pay their engineers to support Open Source. The idea that Open Source is somehow separate from business and market forces ignores its history. And the idea that Open Source is always positive is equally absurd. I've been working in open source for decades now, and the big winners are often the same rich companies which are extracting the wealth of our society - as they get software for free while the engineers provide work without getting the true "fruits of their labor". Does it make sense for multi-billionaires to get this software for free? Really, the Open Source idea is very messed up in an economy with distinct winners and losers. If you only use permissive licenses, free software can result in large corporate monopolies. Copyleft licenses help counter this. Linux, GNU, VLC, FFmpeg, etc are all good examples of this.

npalli 11y ago

What exactly is the reason for leaving Oracle? Seems like an exec. at Oracle, Cameron was forced out. OK. Not sure what the background on the departure is. Everyone knows Oracle is evil. So that can't be it. Is there some reading between the lines here? Maybe somebody embedded in the Java ecosystem can shed light.

toyg 11y ago
Look at the list of stuff his skepticism "extends to" and see what is missing. Hint: web apps. That's because Oracle is betting the farm on "cloud services", and a few of their offerings are based on the concept of containerized java apps running on the Oracle cloud. That alone will survive; everything else is fair game. Anything on-premise, including the JRE, are going to be basically ignored from now on. I work in a different Oracle niche and the message is the same: nothing matters but cloud. If a product can be moved to the cloud, good; if it can't, it will be killed. On-premise versions are pretty much all in legacy-mode, getting patches that pay lip-service to the idea of hybrid setups, but 90% of development resources are busy on cloud-related stuff. Somehow, the current Oracle leadership believes they should become "AWS for the enterprise", and in traditional Oracle style, they will pull all stops (and cut all corners) to get there. If you don't like it, that's the door. "Java everywhere" advocates are now surplus to requirements.
- X-Istence 11y ago
  I wouldn't want the vendor lock-in that comes with Oracle's "AWS". There has been a lot of teeth gritting over how locked into AWS certain parts of a customers company has become, using their API's, their services, and with no real way to move away if anything ever happened.
  - rodgerd 11y ago
    > I wouldn't want the vendor lock-in that comes with Oracle's "AWS". AWS has already perfected vendor lock-in, so I doubt Oracle can make it much worse, beyond their normal trick of de-certifying their products on competing platforms.

kumarm 11y ago

I knew Cameron from 15 years back. Always helpful and very down to earth person. I am surprised he stayed at Oracle that long. He was very active in BEA Weblogic Forums/usergroups. He would answer most questions with helpful answers. When he started building Coherence (which was sold to Oracle and hence ended up at Oracle) he added Coherence link to his signature while answering questions or trouble shootings other users problems. Pretty soon most JavaEE developers became aware of Coherence with that single trick.

itaysk 11y ago

Touching story, but... Why did he leave oracle?

Gratsby 11y ago
I re-read the whole thing, then went looking for a page 2. Clearly, his future isn't in journalism.
- gunnihinn 11y ago
  The top 8 reasons why no one's future is in journalism! Number 5 will shock you!

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

Humans love mental shortcuts. E.g. Taibbi has forever tagged Goldman Sachs as "The Vampire Squid". Years ago somebody Google bombed Microsoft as "more evil than Satan himself". And Bush became "miserable failure". So, what of Oracle? I'm drawing a blank, but that's probably because I don't frequently interact with Oracle or with its products. Anyone?

Scuds 11y ago
From the article "Many people seem to have an impression of Oracle as a company full of corporate drones. This is far from the truth." But IMO Oracle's reputation is a portfolio of overarchitected overpriced enterprise products that encourage lock-in.

kzhahou 11y ago

What is it that compels people to write these posts? I remember when you'd make some personal decision, and just tell friends if they happened to ask why.

kelukelugames 11y ago
I'm in the middle of writing one because I think it will help both the company and other start ups. The TLDR is an HR rep left because she was facing a hostile work environment. So what hope did the rest of us have? It's an appeal for startups to train their managers better.
- kzhahou 11y ago
  Are you gonna send it to their CEO privately, or air a bunch of dirty laundry in public?
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Well I did email the CEO when I left and he was like that's nice. There isn't any dirty laundry. I just want to make the case for better training, especially since my friends continue to complain to me after I left.
    - gtirloni 11y ago
      It might be useful to ask if it's something new in the HR guidebook or a new trend you're seeing in your area.
      - kelukelugames 11y ago
        They did update the employee conduct when I first complained about it. Previously it just said, "don't watch porn at work." I'm exaggerating. But barely. I want to laugh and I want to cry.
    - hitekker 11y ago

overgard 11y ago

I'm nitpicking a bit, but this stood out to me as a good example of why I've never wanted to be part of Java-land: > He helped pioneer one of the most successful pieces of enterprise infrastructure that has stood the test of time. Yet he is humble enough to still code I mean, doesn't coding being perceived as a "humble" job he's lowering himself to really say it all? It's rarely explicitly said, but coding is considered a low status activity in those spheres. That's why I avoid Java work. Other languages have cultures that respect the craft, rather than viewing it as something you grow out of.

wrong_variable 11y ago
Programmers get no respect - and its our own fault. The computing industry is directly responsible for 1/3 of global GDP in 2016. Its time that this is reflected in our paycheck.
- andrei_says_ 11y ago
  Unions?
  - brianwawok 11y ago
    Those did work out well for the auto makers in the US.
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    - nostrebored 11y ago
      And excellently in the sphere of teaching. I would be woeful to see devs operate with the same level of impunity with the toxicity that exists within our community...

bitwize 11y ago

Many people seem to have an impression of Oracle as a company full of corporate drones. This is far from the truth. I wasn't, Cameron wasn't and we are very far from being alone. That may be true, but if you're not generating revenue for Oracle, you will be fired and replaced with a lawyer who can at least look for a new IP angle to sue over, or a new way to nickel-and-dime existing customers to extract more license fees. (Coming to Java 10: Garbage Collector Licensing. Beginning with Java 10, Oracle will assess a fixed fee for each byte of memory reclaimed by the Oracle JRE garbage collector. Contact your Oracle sales representative for pricing details.)

needusername 11y ago
I always thought that Cameron and Reza didn't present a very balanced view. Which is OK if you're hired for marketing as long as you don't claim you're not a corporate drone. Two examples: Reza is a famous spring hater and much of his writing can be summarised as "Java EE rocks, Spring sucks". Which is fine if you're hired to sell Java EE. Which is fine, just don't claim otherwise. Cameron's view on TCK licensing was also very one sided and uncompromising. In every JCP meeting the topic of TCK licensing pops up. Everybody except Oracle agrees on the subject. Everybody has the same position Oracle had before the Sun acquisition. I was at a JCP meeting when the whole panel (all JCP members) agreed on TCK licensing and Cameron from the audience simply said "no". Then he said something like "if you open source a TCK that makes the TCK worthless because anybody can change anything". Totally ignoring the fact that the best TCK out there (the CDI TCK) is open source. Even if that was an issue there would be fixes for this like trade marking the TCK like Mozilla does with Firefox. Again if you're hired to wield the power of the TCK against Apache Harmony for whatever political reason that's fine. Just don't claim you're not a corporate drone.

maxlybbert 11y ago

So, Java doesn't live up to the hype?

geodel 11y ago

There is tremendous activity in OpenJDK projects which means Oracle is finally concentrating on core technology. So many of these projects seems to directly help developers as compare to JavaEE stuff which is mostly targeted for vendors peddling there gigabytes size application servers. I have had misfortune of using those products. Now I am much happier using Core Java / servlets with tomcat. A possible fallout of Oracle focussing on core Java and cutting down on JavaEE monstrosity is that all those pattern laden enterprise architect/astronauts/evangelists seems less in demand at least at Oracle. I may not be biggest fan of Oracle but I think in case of evangelist types leaving Oracle is good thing.

goldenkey 11y ago

Hmm thats similar to why I left Amazon. I was tasked with mundane tasks like localizing strings for huge marketing faq pages. I wrote scripts to give the 900 odd strings numerical locale ids. But my manager who all my code had to pass through for code review wanted individually described and named ids. For what other reason than he was a corporate drone with Java abstractions for factories of factories of DatabaseQueryCreator that invoked DatabaseQueryBuilder etc etc I do not know. I will never work for another corp where I dont feel like a magician in terms of programming and tooling efficiency. It was absolutely dreadful and loathing to march to my death as a creative and intellectual. Fuck drone work and fuck drone managers and executives who try to serve it up only because they hate themselves too much to embrace the beauty of the discipline of hip and efficient software engineering

exabrial 11y ago

Dude, Reza is a bamf. I've attended many of his talks. Guy had a hard job, and he took flak from all sides. Good luck buddy!