Sun, Oracle and future perspectives
So, now it seems it’s done: oracle.com brightly announces the finalization of the Sun acquisition, the Oracle Java download section features a NetBeans logo (and, vice versa, netbeans.org comes with a “sponsored by Oracle” button), developers.sun.com is bright red as well, and there are numerous blog posts as well as official answers to questions asked just way too often the last couple of months. Overally, looking at the outcomes of webcasts provided yesterday, I have to say I am modestly pleased of what has been announced there:
- Generally, of course, I am happy to see tools that matter to me (Glassfish, NetBeans, OpenOffice, VirtualBox) seem to have quite a good perspective being under the hood of Oracle. Surely, time will tell and we will overally have to see how much of this commitment still will hold true one year from now, but at least it’s good not to see these projects / communities axed immediately. So far, the only thing that really seems to go away is kenai.com, at least as a public service.
- Reading this page, I have good hopes that the current ecosystem of user groups related to Java and OpenSolaris will continue to exist and be supported in its current form. Again, I guess, it’s wait-and-see how these things will be like, in near future, but at least it’s a pretty good start.
So, finally (and I guess this is my last post on Sun and Oracle): I like the overall product and platform strategy Oracle seems to adhere to (even though, as pointed out before, somehow I wished Sun came up with the same idea earlier). Maybe, by now, it’s up to the communities (NetBeans, Glassfish, …) to embrace the new situation and keep their projects up and alive the same way they would do being “under the Sun hood”. Let’s see where to get, this way. 🙂