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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

For a long period of time I regarded Oracle as absolutely undeserving owners of the JDK; they didn't write it, it was bought from Sun, they shipped adware in the installer, tried to sue Android out of existence, and were poor stewards of the language.

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Oracle is in the Java world since the early days, they even collaborated with Sun on the whole Java workstation idea of the Network Computer. They used to have their own JVMs.

Also only IBM cared to make an alternative offer to acquire Sun, during the initial round.

The adware contracts were done by Sun, not Oracle.

Google has managed to create Android J++, and as Java developer that cares about the integrity of the Java platform I stand by Oracle.

You wrote in the past tense. Did something change your view?

I lost track of the detail and am vaguely aware of a Java renaissance, but not clear whether that's real or whether Oracle are responsible or whether it's Clojure. So now I don't know whether I have reasons to hate Oracle. But I keep a little resentment warm just in case.

well, with openjdk nobody remembers oracle now. so I guess that changed.

if oracle wanted to continue to be the owners of Java they shouldn't have called their bluff and sued Google.

OpenJDK is mostly developed by Oracle employees. There isn't OpenJDK without them.

Oracle did the right thing against Android J++.

Exactly. I avoid Oracle tech or products for all those reasons plus the fact that dollars to them support their lobbyists and lawyers. Those keep trying to undermine software freedom (esp API ruling) and patent troll successful companies. I refuse to support that kind of company. So, I tell people about EnterpriseDB being Oracle-compatible and cheaper. ;)

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