Friday Blog-o-Sphere Watch: Oracle, IBM and the Probably-Not-Going-to-Fork-Now Future of Java

The big news this week for developers was the revelation that the new keeper of the Java flame, Oracle, is getting into bed with IBM on the OpenJDK project. The blogosphere was buzzing with the news, but a few posts stood out, reminding me to make sure I follow these guys.

Bob Sutor, vice president of Open Systems and Linux in IBM's Software Group, posted a widely quoted commentary on the partnership on his blog. This is where the news broke that IBM would be "shifting its development effort from the Apache Project Harmony to OpenJDK." Sutor is an IBMer, but his blog is thoughtful and worth reading. He also maintains a great list of other bloggers under "People and Places."

Mark Reinhold, chief architect of Oracle's Java Platform Group, also blogged about the announcement. Reinhold handled Oracle's side of the story, but also offered his own predictions and expectations about who'll be doing what. Reinhold's blog is worth following for the news he provides, but also for the feedback he gets. Good conversations that include some questions and comments from the likes of another favorite blogger, Simon Phipps, and a bunch of first-string Java jocks

Danny Coward also blogged about the news. Coward was the chief architect of Sun Microsystems' client software -- that's Java SE, Java ME, and JavaFX. He also serves on the Executive Committee for the Java Community Process. This post on The Aquarium site, seems light and breezy because of its style, but it's full of hard data and links to hard data. He's an Oxford-trained number theorist, so that's not surprising.

Finally, Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation and a savvy Java-space watcher, commented on the news on his "Life at Eclipse" blog. "All of us who live within the Java ecosystem need to recognize that this fundamentally strengthens the platform, enhances the business value of Java, and offers the hope of an increased pace of innovation," he wrote in part. Definitely a blogger to follow for his own observations, but also because he links so often to other interesting sources. For example, in this post he points to comments from Redmond analyst James Governor and The ServerSide's Joseph Ottinger as examples of the conventional wisdom that there is a fork in Java's future, which the Big O/Big Blue agreement challenges.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 15, 2010