The main entity with commercial interest in splitting up the JVM is Oracle. Jigsaw was originally just a plan to split up the runtime into components and the mo

The main entity with commercial interest in splitting up the JVM is Oracle. Jigsaw was originally just a plan to split up the runtime into components and the module aspects were added later. OpenJDK is now being used by Google on all Android devices and Oracle is probably furious that there's no way to extract licensing fees from this arrangement. To me that sounds like plenty of ulterior motive. OpenJdk has a linking exemption which would allow Oracle to develop closed source extensions to the JVM if it was built in a modularized way. Why else would Oracle continue to push something that's been so controversial for years? The only explanation I can think of is that it would allow them to put other more profitable plans into motion. It's definitely speculation but not totally baseless. Oracle has been increasingly aggressive about monetizing Java in the last few years. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to add language features to increase their ability to make money from Java licensing.