Java isn't dead on OS X as Apple contributes to OpenJDK
Were you worried about Apple's commitment to Java? Today's press release from Cupertino may make you feel a little better. It seems Oracle (who bought Sun and thus Java back in 2009) and Apple are going to support the OpenJDK project going forward. You can read the full press release below, but the practical upshot is that Java on the Mac is far from being dead. It's a good thing, too, because Java is still widely used for writing applications that need to be easily deployed across a multitude of platforms.
"We are excited to welcome Apple as a significant contributor in the growing OpenJDK community," said Hasan Rizvi, Oracle's senior vice president of Development. "The availability of Java on Mac OS X plays a key role in the cross-platform promise of the Java platform. The Java developer community can rest assured that the leading edge Java environment will continue to be available on Mac OS X in the future. Combined with last month's announcement of IBM joining the OpenJDK, the project now has the backing of three of the biggest names in software."
"We're delighted to be working with Oracle to insure that there continues to be a great version of Java on the Mac," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "The best way for our users to always have the most up to date and secure version of Java will be to get it directly from Oracle."
Apple also confirmed that Java SE 6 will continue to be available from Apple for Mac OS X Snow Leopard® and the upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion. Java SE 7 and future versions of Java for Mac OS X will be available from Oracle.
Java is a general purpose software development platform that is specifically designed to be open and enable application developers to "write once, run anywhere." The Java platform is most widely used in business software, web and mobile applications.
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Were you worried about Apple's commitment to Java? Today's press release from Cupertino may make you feel a little better. It seems Oracle...
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"Let's just hope Java will keep on being integrated nicely in terms of user interface."
It won't. Apple is almost as bad as Microsoft about os internals.
This is GREAT news especially for those users you RELY on Java apps like OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Maple etc. And Java apps are WIDELY used in the Education market.
I think Apple realized that if it killed Java on the Mac, it would loose a lot of sales in the Education market.
And this move should help IMPROVE SECURITY on the Mac. Apple often released Java Security Updates weeks and sometimes MONTHS AFTER they were released by Sun/Oracle. Now mac Users should get the Security Updates for Java at the same time Windows and Linux users do.
@digitalsedition:
No you wouldn't have to have used windows; linux makes a plenty nice java development environment, much more comfortable to a mac user (being unixy; bash, svn, vim et al behave as you're already used to), and you can already switch at will between sun-jdk and openjdk. :-) The biggest thing to miss is actually TextMate, but the 'geany' editor is a pretty close approximation, and there's nothing if not choice.
Exactly on point. You really can't be much of a developer if you don't recognize the fact that a Mac and a Linux machine are very similar for developers.
The thing these rants highlight is the stupidity of building major projects around languages not maintained by a standards organization. So when hearing all these comments about going to Windows and so forth I have to wonder if any body here has learned anything or looked in the mirror for the proper person to blame.
No coincidence that Steve and Larry are close friends, I'm sure.
November 12 2010 at 1:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYeah, I didn't want to say as much in the article (which is just a news piece) but I have to think there was a phone call involved in there between Larry and Steve.
November 12 2010 at 9:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyEnough friends to get Mac OS X on Sun Fire x4170's?
Help save the Xserve here: http://www.savethexserve.com/
This is the way that Apple abandons Java. Apple donates its codebase to the OpenJDK project and then it doesn't have to worry about maintaining it, security holes, patches or anything.
If Oracle wants Java on the Apple platform then it is entirely up to Oracle to do that - Apple doesn't need to do anything. Apple no longer needs to even ship it.
It's exactly like Flash - Apple has stopped supporting it or even bothering to ship it with its Macs. It is now entirely up to Adobe to support Flash and people have to go to Adobe to download it.
iOS doesn't support Java, and you don't see Oracle/Sun get all worked up about it.
November 12 2010 at 1:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThat's some of the best news I've heard all day. Was wondering if I would end up having to go back to Windows in order to get work done. This confirms that I won't :)
November 12 2010 at 1:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyA bit extreme no? I rely on Java every day and I didn't think I would need to switch platforms again. Even if Apple and Oracle didn't come up with the code donation to OpenJDK there are other alternatives out there. WINE comes to mind.
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