Java in 2020, Part 1: What To Expect, According to the Experts

Wait, what? Java's not dead? Irrelevant? Replaced by Kotlin? Python? (Swift?)

Nope. Java weathered the predictions of its demise yet again, and though it missed being named TIOBE's programming language of the year for the second year in a row (good old C earned that title, which tells you something about this Who's the Most Popular dance), it remains one of the world's most valuable and widely used languages and platforms. More

Posted by John K. Waters on January 15, 20200 comments

Tech Orgs Urge SCOTUS to Reverse Google v. Oracle on Java Copyright

A number of small companies and tech organizations joined the Mozilla software community in a friend of the court brief, filed this week, urging the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to reverse a federal circuit court's decision that Google infringed on Oracle's copyrights to Java code in its Android mobile operating system.

The list of organizations on the Mozilla amici curiae includes Medium, Cloudera, Creative Commons, Shopify, Etsy, Reddit, the Open Source Initiative, Mapbox, Patreon, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Software Freedom Conservancy.  More

Posted by John K. Waters on January 14, 20200 comments

Exit the Java EE Guardians; Enter the Jakarta EE Ambassadors

The Java EE Guardians, the all-volunteer organization formed in 2016 to secure the continuing evolution of enterprise Java, is considering a name change -- and not just because "Java EE" has become "Jakarta EE." With the platform now securely evolving under the stewardship of the Eclipse Foundation, the members don't feel they have much to guard these days. In fact, they feel more like ... ambassadors.

Posted by John K. Waters on November 6, 20190 comments

Google's Quantum Supremacy Claim Has Practical Implications

Google researchers claimed to have reached a major milestone in the evolution of quantum computing called "quantum supremacy" in a paper published last week in the journal Nature. IBM quickly disputed that claim in a blog post that threw shade on the Alphabet subsidiary's conclusions. The headlines they generated notwithstanding, the claim and counterclaim involve a branch of computing most industry watchers say is still in the budding stage, so why should anyone care who's right?

Posted by John K. Waters on October 29, 20190 comments

Google to Supremes: Don't Listen to the Solicitor General

Google says the Supreme Court should ignore the recent recommendation of the Solicitor General of the United States, which advised the court to refuse to review a 2016 appeals court's rulings that Google infringed on Oracle's copyrights to Java code in its Android mobile operating system.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 23, 20190 comments

Oracle's Jakarta EE 9 Proposal: Pruned Specs and a Big Bang

The Eclipse Foundation announced the released the Eclipse Jakarta EE 8 specification just over two months ago and we’re already seeing the solidifying outlines of Jakarta EE 9 -- not especially fast by current release-cadence standards, but warp speed when you consider how enterprise Java had languished before the Foundation accepted the stewardship of the platform two years ago.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 22, 20190 comments

Justice Department: Say ‘No’ to Google on Java Copyright Petition

The U.S. Justice Department has urged the Supreme Court to deny Google's latest petition to review rulings that the Alphabet subsidiary infringed on Oracle's copyrights to Java code -- rulings that could cost Google billions.

This petition keeps alive the nine-year legal struggle over 37 Java APIs Google used to develop its Android operating system, which Oracle has maintained were copyrighted, and for the violation of which Oracle is demanding $9 billion in damages. The courts have gone back and forth on the issues in this case, but eventually came down on the side of Oracle's claim.

Posted by John K. Waters on October 9, 20190 comments

Oracle Reviews the Java Rapid Release Cadence: So Far, So Good

One of the most-mentioned keynote topics at this year's Oracle OpenWorld-adjacent Code One 2019 conference, wrapping up this week in San Francisco, was the rapid release cadence for Java SE and the JDK, which Oracle announced in 2017 and launched in March of last year.

Posted by John K. Waters on September 20, 20190 comments

Q&A: Eclipse Foundation's Milinkovich on the Road to Jakarta EE 8

The Eclipse Foundation today announced the released the first Jakarta EE specification, almost exactly two years after Oracle declared its intention to transfer the responsibility for enterprise Java to that open source standards organization.

Posted by John K. Waters on September 10, 20190 comments