This post was originally published here.
It’s a public secret that Oracle aims to destroy open source projects. According to their company policy and what they’ve done so far, I think I don’t have to tell you about it. But there’s something I really want to write about, in case you’ve forgot what Oracle’s true face is.
Last five years has been the most difficult ages for open source projects and other innovative companies. But the truth is, Oracle’s acquires start at year 1994, they bought a company called Rdb Division of Digital Equipment Corporation. I assume that’s the starting point of modern Oracle Relational database. A list of Oracle’s acquisitions could be found at THIS PAGE. It’s pretty impressive list, I think. From databases to data-mining technology, banking industry solutions, virtual directory solutions even payment solutions. Wow, looks like Oracle’s building a huge net of modern community. I’m not a guy who can stop them, after all, Oracle is a company but not a charity and I totally understand that.
But this change doesn’t fix anything of its greed. I don’t have to remind you that Oracle is suing Google for Java patents in Android. This case might change the way we’re using Java, and we have enough reasons to believe it would. Just because Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison thinks they can profit from it doesn’t mean that they really can. Look back these years, Microsoft wants to kill most of the open source community, but did they win? Ten years ago, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said "Linux is a cancer". Unfortunately, they hired Gianugo Rabellino and decided to be more open. The war between them is come to an end as Gianugo Rabellino said "we’re more open than you might think". Maybe it’s too early to say that, but I think this is a happy ending for all of us.
Some days ago, iteye.com one of the most famous Java community in China, had received a letter from attorneys. It was Oracle again swung their fists to a little innocent company to threaten them for some kind of tort. It’s just only because iteye.com has a "Java" word in their domain name. Same things happened before, like JavaWord.com.tw had to change their logo. I know "Java" is a trademark of Oracle right now, but what I don’t understand is why iteye.com. So, maybe JavaScript has to change their name too? It’s like, if you’re gonna have a baby but you can’t name your child as "John". Because you don’t want to find someone else jump out and tell you "Hey, John is a trademark of my company, and you can’t use it". It’s just ridicules.
Thought Oracle never mentioned about domain name change, @Robbin, founder of iteye.com decided to change their domain name including logo after a long negotiation with Oracle, in order to keep off the future threatens might coming. A Java community which has been running for 7 years, ended. A website which has 800,000 registered users and 1,300,000 PV each day, vanished. Yeah, I am a huge fan of iteye.com and I’m really disappointed. It’s almost a massacre. Oracle bought BEA and soon Dev2Dev is dead. After acquires of Sun, MySql is dead and NetBeans disabled. Even James Gosling, Father of Java had left Oracle.
In short, the war between open source projects and Oracle has started already. As a developer which side you on? What’s the future of Java, Android and other open source projects? It is the very time to give a serious thought about it.
A list of lawsuits about Oracle and using term of 'Java':
Oracle sues Google over Android and Java
Oracle sues iteye.com over using term of 'Java'
Java Creator James Gosling Leaves Oracle
What happens to MySQL?