Oracle owns Java. They will attempt to turn it into a profit center. The Google suit is one example. Another way is to make their database/s and products perform better, by integrating them more tightly with Oracle's version of Java (which includes BEA System's version) - analogously to MS making Office apps perform better under Windows.
Sure, it's against the concept of a public spec, and OpenJDK; and it might not work, or at worst fragment the Java standard and destroy much of its value - but I can't see how Oracle could help themselves from doing this. It's inevitable.
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Java isn't just Oracle stack. It's also SAP, IBM, Red Hat(JBoss), VMWare(SpringSource) & Google stack.
The only thing you need from Oracle nowdays is JDK, and with OpenJDK becoming a standard - you need nothing.
Oracle owns Java. They will attempt to turn it into a profit center. The Google suit is one example. Another way is to make their database/s and products perform better, by integrating them more tightly with Oracle's version of Java (which includes BEA System's version) - analogously to MS making Office apps perform better under Windows.
Sure, it's against the concept of a public spec, and OpenJDK; and it might not work, or at worst fragment the Java standard and destroy much of its value - but I can't see how Oracle could help themselves from doing this. It's inevitable.
OpenJDK is not a standard. Java itself is not a standard open to third-parties, unless Sun/Oracle wants to.
It's not the JDK that you need from Oracle for Java to be a standard, but rather the JCK.
This issue is a couple of years old and hasn't been solved: http://www.apache.org/jcp/sunopenletter.html
Unless by "standard" you mean what everybody uses.
http://openjdk.java.net/groups/conformance/JckAccess/index.h... http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/08/openjdk-jck
Notice the part where the released JDK is only available for OpenJDK.
How does that contradict what I said?