Is there $0 in it for Oracle to support Windows? Linux? Why aren't they just supporting Solaris if what you say is true? WTF is the point of a cross-platform development language if it doesn't support all the top operating systems, especially one that is growing leaps and bounds lately?
It is not about "top" OS in terms of units deploy. It is "top" OS in terms of generating revenue. There
is a growing server market on Windows, Linux , and Solaris ( and most other Unix flavors too).
There are folks who run Java App servers on Windows Server.
The clear issue is that Apple can bill every Mac OS X copy $0.50-1 for Java. At this point that would bring in about $3-12M (depending how you look at it before or after taxes. ). that is plenty to fund a Java port team on. At $250K/year per head in expenses that's a team of at least 12.
The ironic part is Apple's sometimes hostile approach to what business customers need. Oracle's EBusiness Suite ( which generates millions in revenues ) requires JInitiator ( a java applet plug-in ) to run. (Yeah EBiz is ugly looking but many thousands of folks use it everyday ) So I guess that is Oracle's motivation if have to support Macs inside of businesses. However, that tends to put just as much pressure on businesses to dump Macs in the workplace since Apple plays opaque Zen Koan long term support statement games like this. If businesses dumps Macs in workplace than Oracle doesn't have to care as much.
Likewise Oracle could make some sales on the "for pay" versions of JDeveloper on Mac OS X. But if Apple generates a ton of FUD about Java on the mac and all of those developers bolt to Linux/Windows for Java development work then Oracle isn't really motivated anymore.
Oracle is
not going to put Java on any platform that doesn't make
Oracle money. That whole "need to be nice to enable Mac OS X".... or the "at least Microsoft isn't getting the OS money" pfttt. Oracle sells two technical workstation OS ( "Unbreakable" Linux and Solaris ) too. If Apple wants to turn it into a war....
make sure you keep buying new hardware by removing all support for your older hardware artificially. It's a good business trick, if you can get the public to buy into it and apparently Apple has found a way to do so, at least enough to make them rich.
In part Apple cuts off support because they, in many cases, give away support for free. There is only so long you can coast off of some "prebuilt in" revenue to cover support in later years. If you look at business class machines they come with yearly support contracts if want to go longer. Apple controls support costs by starting to cut folks off after 3 years and closing the door, regardless of how much money you have, around 5.
Java is already largely irrelevant on the desktop. Most people use it to play games on Pogo or Yahoo, not do anything serious with it.
Most people wouldn't even notice that it's missing, really.
That's bull. As pointed out there is several Oracle
business applications that depend upon applets. The Oracle installer app for all of the long term Oracle applications .... written in Java. Kill off Java, you can't install Oracle DB or AppSever. Apple taking steps to kill off their Server market doesn't help. Killing off Java just makes even less friends inside of Oracle. There is going to be a large faction of folks inside of Oracle complaining that Mac OS X just increases their support and porting costs and brings in zero revenue in return. Making them also contribute money in the shared money kitty to get java ported there too.
This isn't about running iFart apps.
Yeah sure java generally dropped out of that market
long ago.
Crashplan ..... java.
Cisco has some configuration utility assistances ... Java.
Look lots of business wrote utilities for businesses in java because need something that runs on multiple platforms. The don't need super deluxe inteface. Just something simple that runs, gets the job done, and quits.
You kill those off your platform and your platform isn't business viable.
As for being trivial to make, if Apple shares its current development tree for its version of Java with Oracle, it would be rather trivial for them to take over it and update it.
It is not trivial even if do a source code dump. Frankly, Oracle has 10x the experience porting code than Apple has and they know the coders who wrote custom stuff are important to have as much as the code. What is not there is often as important as what is there in the code if there are a significant tricky spots that were problematical areas in the past.
It is also unlikely that Apple shared most of their code. They don't share the Cocoa, "Mac" layer on top of Darwin. they may have leaked some to Sun over the years as ran into show stopper bugs where needed shared eyeballs to work out a solution that would be compatible with the baseline code long term. But the whole tree, I doubt it.
Assuming Gosling is correct and there are secret APIs in there just for Java. I can easily see Apple nuking those in the future unless held to some contract. So it isn't useful to get obsolete code either.
It would be more 'trivial' to oracle to pick up the OpenJDK port and extend that. No "secret" APIs. Leverages FreeBSD bindings which likely aren't going to be changed willy nilly by Apple.
If they force them to start from scratch, Java for Mac might indeed be dead.
Push come to show I think Oracle would drop money into write a native port from scratch. It would not come quickly but if Mac market share keeps increasing there are about as many pain points to having it on Mac OS X as not . However, at that point Apple would have started a war with Oracle. They be inclined to push Java if only to push JavaFX to help kill off Mac OS X as being a necessary platform.
If Apple doesn't like Oracle's port I'm sure they will get a stream of "F you" back. Apple needs Oracle also. Java probably is going to loose ground in the applet space going forward even more. But as a multiplatform framework.... they have momentum. Lots of businesses need to support multiple platforms and don't have huge margins to rewrite large chucks of every app for each platform and everything can't run in the browser.
If they piss off large sections of Oracle I would not be shocked if the Mac OS X port is the
last port done by Oracle on each cycle. There will
not be an improvement in Java being behind the "top tier" releases each cycle. That is only going to serve to continue help marginalize the Mac platform.
