4 ms·

I believe he's trying to criticize Java for being owned by Oracle. The implication appears to be that alternative implementations are just compatibility layers

by chc 13y ago

I believe he's trying to criticize Java for being owned by Oracle. The implication appears to be that alternative implementations are just compatibility layers for Oracle's technology like WINE is for Windows. (For the record, I don't particularly agree with this. It seems like you could level the same criticism at nearly any language that has one person or stable group controlling it — for example, you could just as validly call Rubinius "WINE for Ruby".)

lmm 13y ago
Do the MRI people own Ruby trademarks and patents? Did they use them to torpedo a free Apache implementation of Ruby?
- chc 13y ago
  IIRC Harmony was scuttled primarily because of OpenJDK — Harmony's major corporate sponsor switched its support to OpenJDK, and shortly thereafter the Harmony committee unanimously agreed to put the project in the attic. I don't think Oracle ever actually went after Apache.
  - lmm 13y ago
    Nope. Oracle denied Harmony a TCK license, meaning they had no license to Java patents (and trademarks). IBM switched to OpenJDK because of this.
    - icefox 13y ago
      Bingo :) > A language that has a choice of runtimes from a choice of vendors like Java? At least historically it wasn't much of a choice and I wouldn't put it past Oracle to continue in this fashion.