Agree. I mean what was the alternative here ? 1. Pay them to do nothing. 2. Pay them to do something unrelated to their deep expertise of Java. By laying them

Agree. I mean what was the alternative here ? 1. Pay them to do nothing. 2. Pay them to do something unrelated to their deep expertise of Java. By laying them off I think Oracle has made available a large pool of very good java experts for the rest of the companies out there and the best company will derive more mileage from them. Of course this is assuming that this laying off is in accordance with their contract and Oracle has not put any unreasonable clause that prevents them from working for another company in similar position. If any of those good people are facing financial hardship I am pretty sure they can ask for help and receive it from wider dev community.