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Questions: 1. What are the implications for the open source or cleanroom JVMs? 2. What are the implications for JVM-based languages like Kotlin, Scala, Clojur

Questions: 1. What are the implications for the open source or cleanroom JVMs? 2. What are the implications for JVM-based languages like Kotlin, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, etc.? Speculation: Even though, it doesn't apply to the OpenJDK, it still sends a signal that the JVM licensing/pricing terms may change in the future. Unlike other corporations developing PLs/runtimes, Oracle does derive their income from this activity. It make sense to avoid potential licensing/prcing changes by migrating to the JVM to modern and/or less resource-hungry PLs. This process already started in the Big Data infra space with projects like ScyllaDB and RedPanda.

eddsh1994 4y ago
OpenJDKs are totally free still aren't they? This is only for the Oracle flavour.
- kasperni 4y ago
  Actually, Oracle JDK are free for anyone. This only concerns people who have a Java SE Universal subscription.
- rickette 4y ago
  Indeed, this doesn't affect most folks
cnqso 4y ago
At a certain point, Oracle can safely assume that everything that still hasn't migrated to a modern language will never migrate to a modern language
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Which modern language, Go stuck in early 1990's language design, or Rust that still doesn't have a comparable Web story at enterprise level? Kotlin that leeches on Java infrastructure for its existence? And papa Google is yet to fully rewrite Android in Kotlin/Native? C# is an alternative, provided there is an implementation for the desired OS platform. Meadow is the only presence in Embedded without the capabilities from PTC, Aicas and microEJ. ...
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    Every language new or old will have cons. However, when the perceived con is financial (yes, I realize that OpenJDK isn’t affected, but as evident in the comments many people still don’t know that, and they will never know given all the choices); you’re going to lose a lot of future users. The part I find interesting is how Java is slowly becoming like COBOL all due to a combination of bad marketing and terrible messaging, and a flawed monetization scheme that was obviously rushed with little thought for the long term.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - petre 4y ago
      > flawed monetization scheme At this point it rather looks more like a "protection tax" than a flawed monetization scheme.
  - habibur 4y ago
    c++ for high level and C for lower level and library building. bonus : you don't have to learn a new language every decade.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      That ship has sailed in 2000… Plus the winds are changing in security liability.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - JonChesterfield 4y ago
      C++? You have to learn a new language every three years, with an argument for continually as the compilers update out of sync with each other
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    C# seems the obvious choice to me. One can probably compile Java to C# - it might be in the category of regex then fix compiler errors, so economically reasonable to do. Probably similar library coverage for the two ecosystems by now. That lets one replace the dependency on Oracle, whose reputation is invariant, with Microsoft, who are known to be nice people who won't blow up your world to increase their profits. Plus the legal team who liked contracts with Oracle can replace them with contracts with Microsoft. The developers who like Java are fairly likely to like C#, what with it being very nearly the same language. [in case the subtext is somehow missed, I believe this will punt the problem down the road until Microsoft do something similarly expensive to you]
- realusername 4y ago
  I'd say that at this point the problem isn't the language anymore which became perfectly fine but the culture of the devs using it...
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    That culture is the same regardless of the language. The famous Design Patterns book is for enterprise projects based on Smalltalk and C++. CORBA and DCOM were a thing a few years before Java was invented. And so forth.
    - realusername 4y ago
      Not really no, you can't just ignore the culture context of languages. Ruby projects are going to have a better testing coverage and culture in average than Python projects whereas in reality both languages could do the same. Java overengineer culture is still present despite being non-existent in other languages like Go whereas in theory it could exist in both. Nowadays you can do anything with any language, in practice the culture often goes in the way
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Ruby is hardly a thing in enterprise computing, and until AI craziness, the only thing that Python mattered for enterprise shops was system administration instead of dealing with a mess of shell scripts and Perl. Go culture has brought us YAML spaghetting and kubernetes madness at enterprise level.
        realusername 4y ago
        There's a very large world outside the "entreprisy" companies you are used to let's say...
        pjmlp 4y ago
        There is, however the subject here is enterprise culture, so lets not move goalposts.
- threeseed 4y ago
  Modern language like what exactly. Many of the features in modern Scala and Java don't exist in other languages.
  - nivertech 4y ago
    more features != better it just makes a language impossible to learn and use effectively need a reasonable amount of useful features
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    Many of the features in modern Scala and Java don't exist in other languages. I would appreciate if you could name them but I would understand if you didn’t have them handy to name. It’s unreasonable to expect you to know them off the top of your head.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  At a certain point what used to be customer turnover becomes business turnover as businesses fail and newer ones succeed.
pritambarhate 4y ago
This only for Oracle JDK. Oracle provides support for old versions of JDKs. So enterprises who have not updated their old software targeting old versions of JDK need to buy this support. Cost of that support contract is going up.
- xbmcuser 4y ago
  Yeah Oracle has them in a bind as long as the cost to replace the java codebase is more expensive than what Oracle charges they will keep paying. Most of these are probably my guess old banking and accounting systems. I wonder if any US or other countries different departments pay for it as they could take years to move away from it. Oracle I feel is the company that behaves like a gangster as most of their tactics are similar.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    This is just for Oracle's implementation of the JVM which has features and enterprise support capabilities that other implementations don't. No company has or is ever forced to use it. And no one is going to replace their Java codebase because of this. They will simply swap for a different JVM like many of us did years ago.
kaba0 4y ago
> What are the implications for the open source or cleanroom JVMs? Nothing and nothing. Usual FUD posting about something that doesn’t matter to almost anyone.

eddsh1994 4y ago

OpenJDKs are totally free still aren't they? This is only for the Oracle flavour.

kasperni 4y ago
Actually, Oracle JDK are free for anyone. This only concerns people who have a Java SE Universal subscription.
rickette 4y ago
Indeed, this doesn't affect most folks

cnqso 4y ago

At a certain point, Oracle can safely assume that everything that still hasn't migrated to a modern language will never migrate to a modern language

pjmlp 4y ago
Which modern language, Go stuck in early 1990's language design, or Rust that still doesn't have a comparable Web story at enterprise level? Kotlin that leeches on Java infrastructure for its existence? And papa Google is yet to fully rewrite Android in Kotlin/Native? C# is an alternative, provided there is an implementation for the desired OS platform. Meadow is the only presence in Embedded without the capabilities from PTC, Aicas and microEJ. ...
- chaostheory 4y ago
  Every language new or old will have cons. However, when the perceived con is financial (yes, I realize that OpenJDK isn’t affected, but as evident in the comments many people still don’t know that, and they will never know given all the choices); you’re going to lose a lot of future users. The part I find interesting is how Java is slowly becoming like COBOL all due to a combination of bad marketing and terrible messaging, and a flawed monetization scheme that was obviously rushed with little thought for the long term.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - petre 4y ago
    > flawed monetization scheme At this point it rather looks more like a "protection tax" than a flawed monetization scheme.
- habibur 4y ago
  c++ for high level and C for lower level and library building. bonus : you don't have to learn a new language every decade.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    That ship has sailed in 2000… Plus the winds are changing in security liability.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    C++? You have to learn a new language every three years, with an argument for continually as the compilers update out of sync with each other
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  C# seems the obvious choice to me. One can probably compile Java to C# - it might be in the category of regex then fix compiler errors, so economically reasonable to do. Probably similar library coverage for the two ecosystems by now. That lets one replace the dependency on Oracle, whose reputation is invariant, with Microsoft, who are known to be nice people who won't blow up your world to increase their profits. Plus the legal team who liked contracts with Oracle can replace them with contracts with Microsoft. The developers who like Java are fairly likely to like C#, what with it being very nearly the same language. [in case the subtext is somehow missed, I believe this will punt the problem down the road until Microsoft do something similarly expensive to you]
realusername 4y ago
I'd say that at this point the problem isn't the language anymore which became perfectly fine but the culture of the devs using it...
- pjmlp 4y ago
  That culture is the same regardless of the language. The famous Design Patterns book is for enterprise projects based on Smalltalk and C++. CORBA and DCOM were a thing a few years before Java was invented. And so forth.
  - realusername 4y ago
    Not really no, you can't just ignore the culture context of languages. Ruby projects are going to have a better testing coverage and culture in average than Python projects whereas in reality both languages could do the same. Java overengineer culture is still present despite being non-existent in other languages like Go whereas in theory it could exist in both. Nowadays you can do anything with any language, in practice the culture often goes in the way
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Ruby is hardly a thing in enterprise computing, and until AI craziness, the only thing that Python mattered for enterprise shops was system administration instead of dealing with a mess of shell scripts and Perl. Go culture has brought us YAML spaghetting and kubernetes madness at enterprise level.
      - realusername 4y ago
        There's a very large world outside the "entreprisy" companies you are used to let's say...
        pjmlp 4y ago
        There is, however the subject here is enterprise culture, so lets not move goalposts.
threeseed 4y ago
Modern language like what exactly. Many of the features in modern Scala and Java don't exist in other languages.
- nivertech 4y ago
  more features != better it just makes a language impossible to learn and use effectively need a reasonable amount of useful features
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Many of the features in modern Scala and Java don't exist in other languages. I would appreciate if you could name them but I would understand if you didn’t have them handy to name. It’s unreasonable to expect you to know them off the top of your head.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
anothernewdude 4y ago
At a certain point what used to be customer turnover becomes business turnover as businesses fail and newer ones succeed.

pritambarhate 4y ago

This only for Oracle JDK. Oracle provides support for old versions of JDKs. So enterprises who have not updated their old software targeting old versions of JDK need to buy this support. Cost of that support contract is going up.

xbmcuser 4y ago
Yeah Oracle has them in a bind as long as the cost to replace the java codebase is more expensive than what Oracle charges they will keep paying. Most of these are probably my guess old banking and accounting systems. I wonder if any US or other countries different departments pay for it as they could take years to move away from it. Oracle I feel is the company that behaves like a gangster as most of their tactics are similar.
- threeseed 4y ago
  This is just for Oracle's implementation of the JVM which has features and enterprise support capabilities that other implementations don't. No company has or is ever forced to use it. And no one is going to replace their Java codebase because of this. They will simply swap for a different JVM like many of us did years ago.

kaba0 4y ago

> What are the implications for the open source or cleanroom JVMs? Nothing and nothing. Usual FUD posting about something that doesn’t matter to almost anyone.