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Comment by Eliezer | Hacker News Reader

Are you offering to pay for Java development and maintenance? I mean... someone has to. How is this not a case of demanding things for free?

If the petition were asking Oracle to establish a nonprofit that could support Java and offering to pay the first $10,000 toward it, I'd have a quite different reaction. But this seems to me no different from agitating for "free healthcare" without even mentioning who might pay for it, just, "it should be free!"

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First of all, distributing something for free doesn't make the installation of unwanted deceptive software any more legit.

Second, Java is the basis for a lot of very expensive Oracle software. Does the Java updater work differently on their machines?

To be fair, Oracle is (or was planning on) making heaps of money out of Java for business. Client-side Java seems like less than a portion of their plan to start with (anyone who mentions JavaFX here gets banned from the internet) - I mean, start with hiring a designer for the download page. This disrespect to users is exactly why they're treating it that way. If it's not that important to them, might as well import com.oracle.money-making-addon; No big deal either way.

Anyway, as someone who regularly writes software for artists and designers with Java, I lately find myself avoiding JVM-based workflow on the client-side. It's just too much of a hassle for anyone I work with.

Agreed, I'm a big fan of Java and have written client software with it but the annoyances are rapidly beginning to outweigh the benefits. Bad press, awful UI support on OS X, Web Start's seeming disappearing/reappearing act... What's the point anymore?

What do you like instead? AFAIK there really isn't any good cross-platform client software development environment, particularly if you care about the Mac. My impression is that Java is no more or less crap than everything else.

So maybe a petition to get Oracle to stop bundling JavaFX with the rest of the JDK...?

I mean, what the hell are they thinking anyway? That we're going to be so awed by it just because it's rammed down our throats? Nobody is ever going to use JavaFX any more than they're going to use Silverlight. They should get over it already.

The petition doesn't ask for it to be free. Personally I have no problems with them including adverts, and they can make money by providing additional tools and services. The problem is that they are bundling borderline malware, using deceptive techniques.

.net is free and doesn't come bundled with toolbars and crapware

It's supposed to sell Windows licenses.

I don't think it's fair to say that .net is very effective in selling windows licences when mono can run CLR programs on more platforms than java can.

Despite the existence of mono, the vast majority of .net code runs on Windows machines.

True. The point I was trying to make was that Microsoft pays for the development of .net using revenue from other activities. Why can't Oracle do the same?

Except Windows is crapware.

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