From the Editors: Java’s future as an open platform

By SD Times Editorial Board

July 1, 2009 —

JavaOne has come and gone. Will the 2009 conference be the last? Nobody knows for sure. When—as is expected—Oracle completes its acquisition of Sun, what will happen to Java? Nobody knows for sure.

Oracle is trying hard to assuage fears about Java’s future as an open platform where competitors collaborate to build and share common technology. At JavaOne, Oracle’s Larry Ellison made an expected “surprise” appearance on-stage with Sun’s Scott McNealy. Ellison reiterated his company’s interest in Java and expressed a surprisingly passionate endorsement of JavaFX.

Ellison said that Java is important to Oracle “because it allows us to extend our own platform and build applications on top of it.”

There’s no doubt that Oracle will take advantage of Java. What about the other organizations—some commercial companies, some open-source projects—that compete against Sun and Oracle? Sun’s leaders welcomed competitors into the Java Community Process, demonstrating their sincere belief in open standards and transparency. Collaboration is essential to Sun’s culture.

By contrast, playing well with other companies is not in Oracle’s DNA. Instead, Oracle dominates markets and crushes competitors. Of course, that’s why Oracle is financially successful and Sun is not.

We don’t blame companies like IBM for hedging their bets and beginning to look to an alternative to “official” Java for their technology underpinnings. After the acquisition closes, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a forking of Java into Sun/Oracle Java and Everyone Else’s Java.

Oracle has been fairly mum about its prospects for Sun’s technologies and communities. Ellison had no words for MySQL, for NetBeans or for the Java Community Process. Some of that is certainly due to the legal issues regarding the acquisition of a public company by another public company. Yet Ellison has been able to talk about other aspects of the purchase.

At this point, we must assume that Ellison won’t commit to continuing the openness that flourished at Sun, because that’s not Oracle’s plan.

Talent feast, talent famine
If you have a budget to hire new developers, the good news is that the current economic crisis means that you’ll be receiving many, many resumes. Clearly, that’s a sweeping generalization: Some countries and regions are more heavily affected than others. But overall, it looks like there’s a wealth of developer talent ripe for the hiring (and at lower salaries).

The bad news is that this smorgasbord of developer skill may be short-lived. Once the economy recovers, not only will hiring of technology professionals increase across the board, but the feast may also turn to famine, as there may not be enough developers to fill all the requirements.

Why? Many reasons. One of the biggest is that in many countries (including the U.S.), fewer students are graduating with computer science, software engineering and other related degrees. The pipeline is filling again; enrollment is going up for the first time in a decade. For the next few years, however, we may see fewer qualified graduates.

We are also seeing a decline in the appeal of IT-related jobs, including those in software development. The global recession may be forcing some developers to find other careers, and many may not return.

In many cases, the shortfall may be local, not global. Outsourcing and offshoring have moved some development jobs to low-cost, high-skill regions like India, China and Western Europe, which reduces the appeal of entering the profession in other countries.

Still, we can’t help but notice the numbers released by Evans Data and the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Statistics, showing the declines in software companies and in global developer population. While it may seem that once the market comes back, there will be plenty of out-of-work programmers to choose from, there’s no guarantee that there will be enough top-quality developers to go around.

Related Search Term(s): Java, Oracle, Sun

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From the Editors: Nervous about Sun's technologies While Oracle's decision to buy Sun is good news for Oracle and Sun's shareholders, expect the acquisition to cause a great deal of disruption, especially with the JCP and MySQL. Also, be careful when you use open source that you don't violate a license.

Oracle-Sun deal causes speculation, worry The future of the Java Community Process, and the MySQL database, are two main concerns as Oracle stands poised to acquire the shepherd of Java. Rod Johnson, creator of SpringSource, believes that Java will be able to survive Oracle's control over it.

Oracle completes Sun acquisition As Oracle maps out its future, greater attention is paid to PostgreSQL, which is considered a counterbalance to MySQL

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