JAOO Day 4 – Java Future at Oracle

Today I was listening at Brian Goetz in his talk “Java Future at Oracle”. This talk was a warn welcome, since yesterday Java User Group, where it was not so much warmth about the evolving of the Java language, due to the problem in the Java Community Process (JCP). And how this has set footprint in the deliveries of new JDK version.

JDK 1.0 1996
JDK 1.1 1997
JDK 1.2 1998
JDK 1.3 2000
JDK 1.4 2002
JDK 5.0 2004
JDK 6.0 2006
…
JDK 7.0 2011?
JDK 8.0 ???

So what about new feature, well he said that they going to push out JDK 7.0, but of the expense of cutting functionality, which means in short:

• Some feature from Project Coin. http://openjdk.java.net/projects/coin/
• Some feature from the Da Vinci Machine Project. http://openjdk.java.net/projects/mlvm/

And that's it.

But on the other hand he also said that JDK 8.0 will be planned to be released thereafter 1-2 years, which sounds promising. Which Project Lambda (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/lambda/) will among other stuff be included. Other stuff in the pipe is also the Project Jigsaw (http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jigsaw/).

But the most interesting stuff was the news that they plan to merge the HotSpot with the JRockit! Wow, what a killer that will be! But, an unanswered question is, if they will change the license model of the JDK. It is like Brian put it: Oracle is really an easy company to understand, it is about making money.

And what about the JCP? Well, he quickly mentioned the problem, and this a top priority for Oracle to solve. And I really do hope that they solve this and quickly.