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Comment by Longhanks | Hacker News Reader

And now imagine where Java could be if the ecosystem wasn't completely fucked up by oracle. Imagine a Java with a sane, user friendly installer, an open source community supported by a big corporation, actual development, no completely insane lawsuits.

Instead, developers want to abandon the JVM platform. They actively seek new platforms and create them.

The damage is done.

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Oracle pays very senior engineers and innovators to create a stable and still evolving ecosystem. Java is slow and steady. The JVM enables other innovators to explore and create languages radically different than Java. I am very thankful for Oracle's stewardship of Java and the JVM.

On the topic of stewardship, I highly recommend this talk by Brian Goetz titled "Stewardship: the Sobering Parts" [1]

Brian goes about how important compatibility is for the language, the concept not throwing customers code under the bus by bringing breaking incompatibilities. (ie Python 2 --> 3)

Java has its warts and isn't "cool" but I respect their design decisions.

[1] https://youtu.be/2y5Pv4yN0b0?t=1578

Thanks for the link. I haven't watched that talk, but I will, and I was thinking of Brian when I wrote my comment. His work and he work of others on the Java team is important, serious, and hard.

What's so hard about the JVM install? I googled for "java download" and this was my first hit: https://java.com/en/download/

Went there and found a single, totally obvious button labeled "Free Java Download" that detects your browser and Operating System and makes sure you download the proper version of the JVM.

How much easier could it be?

Dunno. Do you want the ask.com toolbar? How about updates that install the new version and remove the old version? Or maybe they've fixed the latter issue by now.

Well, the oracle website does tell you how to disable the toolbar, though I agree it shouldn't be there in the first place. As for uninstalling the old version, are you saying you want the new version to automatically uninstall old versions?

Yes. A new security release should absolutely remove the old release or at least disable any ability for less-than-fully-trusted code to invoke it.

On Windows it comes with an unrelated installed-by-default "malware" browser toolbar.

For one, it'd be nice if it only did what it says on the tin: install Java. There's no reason that a platform like the JRE should be installing a piece of crapware.

Except for the above malware comments, what exactly does "Install Java" mean?

You cannot redistribute the installer or the installed files. Except other things it means, you cannot make a docker image with java app and redistribute it. Everyone has to download their own java installer and build images themselves.

Yeah, no. https://hub.docker.com/r/madsonic/ubuntu-madsonic/~/dockerfi...

Java (openJDK) is GPL licenced.

Yes. But openJDK might not solve your problem

Is there one feature relevant to running enterprise apps that oracle jdk SE (straight out compiled from openjdk sources) has that the gpl edition does not?

I have no recriminations prepared for you but I am curious; where did you get the idea you can't make docker images for java apps? Did you piece it together mistakenly based on incomplete knowledge or is someone actually spreading that around?

Don't know about other poster, but I always thought that while you can make docker images for Java apps that include the Oracle JRE, there are restrictions if you want to distribute them - see http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/... . The no modifications clause is problematic for GPL software.

I don't understand where you have this information from.

Plenty of software comes with Java embedded - ie. IntelliJ Idea. Last time I installed Java was on a digital ocean remote box and I did it through apt-get.

Java may have some licensing that cause some open source system distributions not to include it but that is really their game.

yes, you can install open jre through repos.

most applications put "oracle jre" in their dependencies though.

INSTALLING JAVA

===============

Even if you are Day One brand-new to Java, page #1 in any book will tell you to download a Java Development Kit (JDK). Any Google search would take you straight to the download page for Oracle's implementation, which is fine.

The Oracle JDK does not include any "toolbar" malware. That's only an issue for the Oracle JRE download (i.e. the runtime without any compiler)... which page #1 in book will tell you not to bother downloading ever.

The JDK is open-source, based on the "OpenJDK" codebase (much like the difference between Chrome and Chromium). Oracle's binary build has some restrictions on redistribution (see below), but there are numerous other OpenJDK builds. Every Linux distribution has one, as does homebrew for OS X, and there are at least two for Windows:

http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/

http://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/

In the past, there were enough differences between the base OpenJDK and Oracle's build that people were wary of using OpenJDK. As of Java 7, and especially now with Java 8, those differences are nearly zero.

REDISTRIBUTION

==============

You absolutely CAN redistribute Java. OpenJDK builds have no restrictions whatsoever. Oracle's proprietary runtime binaries are also redistributable, with the only real restriction being that you can't exclude certain files (i.e. they don't want crippled Oracle runtimes floating around that can't run core Java):

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/jdk-8-readme-2...

Not only are you allowed to redistribute even Oracle's binaries, but the latest JDK includes a "javapackager" utility. It bundles up your code, along with a stripped-down embedded runtime, with an executable wrapper so that you can distribute your app as a zero-dependency standalone (on Windows, OS X, or Linux). Interestingly, I've found that creating an installer for a JavaFX GUI application, with the runtime included, is slightly smaller than the installer for a similar GitHub Electron based app.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/tools/unix/j...

https://gitlab.com/steve-perkins/MediaGallery-javafx

So why do we have to add a special source repository to do "apt-get install" and why is there a mandatory interactive license approval?

Because (Oracle) Java comes with its own EULA, and the DFSG forbid any EULA in Debian main.

OpenJDK is in Debian main, and does not require user interaction.

> You cannot redistribute the installer or the installed files. Except other things it means, you cannot make a docker image with java app and redistribute it. Everyone has to download their own java installer and build images themselves.

This is only true for Oracle Java, which is basically OpenJDK and some dev tools. OpenJDK is basically all you need and you can redistribute it or docker images with it. See http://zulu.org/

If you need to provision things automatically, you need to jump through hoops to bypass going through that website. For licensing reason the Oracle JDK/JVM cannot be distributed by O/S vendors.

Why should it detect my browser? I want to run Java Applications Lik Minecraft not Java insecure applets in my browser.

You don't need to imagine it, you can just look at what MS has done with .net and the community that's forming as a result. Java has such a horrendous ecosystem, it's really unacceptable.

> Java has such a horrendous ecosystem, it's really unacceptable.

This has not been my experience at all. Java's ecosystem and vast libraries of battle tested software is unmatched on any platform.

1. I check in on .NET Core and ASP.NET Core every few months, to see if the tooling and documentation have stabilized. I just happened to check in yesterday, trying to create a "Hello World" ASP.NET Core web app. The skeleton project created by the "dotnet new" command doesn't match the "Getting Started" documentation on the ASP.NET Core website. After tinkering in frustration for an hour, I gave up. See you again in another few months.

2. What .NET open source community? I'm not aware of single significant open-source community project in that ecosystem that isn't a lagging imitation of something from the Java community (e.g. Akka.NET, MassTransit, etc). There's a lot of excitement around VS Code, and the possibilities of future stuff on .NET Core, but chatter on HN and Reddit isn't the same as actual shipped code.

3. If by "ecosystem" you mean web forums filled with college students chatting about it, then fine. But I think for most people, "ecosystem" refers to the availability of production-grade libraries and infrastructure components. Try naming one server-side niche in which Maven Centrals lags behind any other language in existence.

You need to explain what you mean by "ecosystem".

We'd be in a much better world if IBM or Redhat had taken over Java.

That being said IBM is working on open-sourcing their core JVM technology to act as platform, not just for Java but other runtimes as well. [1]

There is hope still...

[1]http://www.infoworld.com/article/3014128/open-source-tools/i...

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