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Open source or not, I'll do my best tp avoid any product by oracle. They have shown to value short-term profit above both community and even PR, which makes usi

Open source or not, I'll do my best tp avoid any product by oracle. They have shown to value short-term profit above both community and even PR, which makes using their products an uneasy gamble for me.

jsmthrowaway 9y ago
They're all Apache 2, which is about as permissively decoupled from the organization as it gets. Oracle could disappear tomorrow, delete all the repos, or begin charging $5,000/seat for this software, and nothing would happen. You could, literally, fork all three, rename them, and run off on your own projects and have a merry 'ole time. In fact, everyone going after Oracle in this thread should do exactly that right now.
- Illniyar 9y ago
  You are right in theory, however it's very rare for abandoned or mishandled OSS projects to gain new life by forking. Most of the knowledge, expertise and incentives are tightly coupled with the original creators. Also, open source license doesn't cover patents, so they could decide to sue for patent infringement, which I don't thunk is likely, but if there ever was a company that might try something like that it's oracle.
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    > Also, open source license doesn't cover patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences#Apache_License_2.0 http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences... The patent assignment and retaliation clause, in Apache 2.0 §3, is one of the key reasons to use it. Your hypothetical would not happen. > however it's very rare for abandoned or mishandled OSS projects to gain new life by forking. Given the counterexamples that have sprung to life from Oracle's behavior in the past (MariaDB, Jenkins), I find this a very odd observation in this thread.
    - Illniyar 9y ago
      didn't realize apache had a patent clause. That's awesome.
      - cyphar 9y ago
        The Apache-2.0 patent clause inspired the GPLv3 patent clause (previously Apache-2.0 was incompatible with GPLv2 because GPLv2 didn't have a patent clause).
      - steveklabnik 9y ago
        This is why MIT/Apache2 dual licensed is popular; Apache2 contains a patent clause, but isn't GPL compatible, so you can use the Apache2 variant if you don't use anything GPL, but use the MIT variant if you have to have compatibility.
pjmlp 9y ago
I have been using Oracle products since around 1996 and will keep using them. MS SQL Server is the only one that can compete with PL/SQL, the feature lists, and the GUI tooling provided out of the box for database administration, report generation and data modeling. Java, they have made quite a few improvements to the language and runtime, some of them even unthinkable under Sun's stewardship, namely adding Graal to the official JDK and adding AOT support (most commercial JDK have it since early days of Java). Also their roadmap for value types, GPGPU, fully replacing Hotspot with Graal and eventually having OpenJDK mostly implemented in Java, after those changes are done. They created SPARC M7 with Silicon Secured Memory, as yet another band-aid against C security exploits. So while the company might be heavy profit oriented, it is no different than any other corporation that likes money.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  A couple of examples where they failed the Java community: Hudson (now Jenkins) JavaEE 8 (delayed, uncertainity around at least one JCP. Really poor communication.)
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    A couple of examples where Sun failed the Java community: - Java3D - JOGL - Java Desktop Integration apis - Java packaging for desktop apps (Oracle eventually did it with the JavaFX reboot) - Requiring devs to master the "Filthy Rich Clients" book in order to create cool Swing interfaces - Making a mainstream product out of Sun SPOT before Arduinos and RaspberryPIs were a thing - Ensuring J2ME fragmentation wasn't the way it turned out to be - Supporting AOT compilation to native code, while all commercial vendors selling JDKs were doing it since the early days. - Creating a GNOME based desktop named Java Desktop System Sun wasn't all flowers and hugs regarding Java development.
- robert_foss 9y ago
  To say that Oracle is no worse than any other profit oriented company is not quite true. It is the worst company that we in the open source community know of. Everything they touch dies. If it does not die, it probably should, probably even for technical reasons.

jsmthrowaway 9y ago

They're all Apache 2, which is about as permissively decoupled from the organization as it gets. Oracle could disappear tomorrow, delete all the repos, or begin charging $5,000/seat for this software, and nothing would happen. You could, literally, fork all three, rename them, and run off on your own projects and have a merry 'ole time. In fact, everyone going after Oracle in this thread should do exactly that right now.

Illniyar 9y ago
You are right in theory, however it's very rare for abandoned or mishandled OSS projects to gain new life by forking. Most of the knowledge, expertise and incentives are tightly coupled with the original creators. Also, open source license doesn't cover patents, so they could decide to sue for patent infringement, which I don't thunk is likely, but if there ever was a company that might try something like that it's oracle.
- jsmthrowaway 9y ago
  > Also, open source license doesn't cover patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences#Apache_License_2.0 http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences... The patent assignment and retaliation clause, in Apache 2.0 §3, is one of the key reasons to use it. Your hypothetical would not happen. > however it's very rare for abandoned or mishandled OSS projects to gain new life by forking. Given the counterexamples that have sprung to life from Oracle's behavior in the past (MariaDB, Jenkins), I find this a very odd observation in this thread.
  - Illniyar 9y ago
    didn't realize apache had a patent clause. That's awesome.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      The Apache-2.0 patent clause inspired the GPLv3 patent clause (previously Apache-2.0 was incompatible with GPLv2 because GPLv2 didn't have a patent clause).
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      This is why MIT/Apache2 dual licensed is popular; Apache2 contains a patent clause, but isn't GPL compatible, so you can use the Apache2 variant if you don't use anything GPL, but use the MIT variant if you have to have compatibility.

pjmlp 9y ago

I have been using Oracle products since around 1996 and will keep using them. MS SQL Server is the only one that can compete with PL/SQL, the feature lists, and the GUI tooling provided out of the box for database administration, report generation and data modeling. Java, they have made quite a few improvements to the language and runtime, some of them even unthinkable under Sun's stewardship, namely adding Graal to the official JDK and adding AOT support (most commercial JDK have it since early days of Java). Also their roadmap for value types, GPGPU, fully replacing Hotspot with Graal and eventually having OpenJDK mostly implemented in Java, after those changes are done. They created SPARC M7 with Silicon Secured Memory, as yet another band-aid against C security exploits. So while the company might be heavy profit oriented, it is no different than any other corporation that likes money.

reitanqild 9y ago
A couple of examples where they failed the Java community: Hudson (now Jenkins) JavaEE 8 (delayed, uncertainity around at least one JCP. Really poor communication.)
- pjmlp 9y ago
  A couple of examples where Sun failed the Java community: - Java3D - JOGL - Java Desktop Integration apis - Java packaging for desktop apps (Oracle eventually did it with the JavaFX reboot) - Requiring devs to master the "Filthy Rich Clients" book in order to create cool Swing interfaces - Making a mainstream product out of Sun SPOT before Arduinos and RaspberryPIs were a thing - Ensuring J2ME fragmentation wasn't the way it turned out to be - Supporting AOT compilation to native code, while all commercial vendors selling JDKs were doing it since the early days. - Creating a GNOME based desktop named Java Desktop System Sun wasn't all flowers and hugs regarding Java development.
robert_foss 9y ago
To say that Oracle is no worse than any other profit oriented company is not quite true. It is the worst company that we in the open source community know of. Everything they touch dies. If it does not die, it probably should, probably even for technical reasons.