IBM to harmonise its open source Java efforts with Oracle

By tim, on October 12th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

IBM’s Bob Sutor, VP of Open Systems and Linux, says in a blog post that the company will now shift its open source Java effort from the unofficial Apache Harmony, to the official Open JDK. The announcement is also covered in an Oracle press release.

Sutor’s post is curious in some ways. He focuses

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Why Oracle is immoveable in the Enterprise

By tim, on September 20th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday I spoke to an attendee from a global enterprise. His company is a big IBM customer and would like to standardise on DB2. To some extent it does, but there is still around 30% Oracle and significant usage of Microsoft SQL Server. Why three database platforms when they would prefer

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Oracle: a good home for MySQL?

By tim, on September 20th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

I’m not able to attend the whole of Oracle OpenWorld / JavaOne, but I have sneaked in to MySQL Sunday, which is a half-day pre-conference event. One of the questions that interests me: is MySQL in safe hands at Oracle, or will it be allowed to wither in order to safeguard Oracle’s closed-source database

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Open season for patent litigation makes case for reform

By tim, on August 31st, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

It seems to be open season for software patent litigation. Oracle is suing Google over its use of Java in Android. Paul Allen’s Interval Licensing is suing AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Yahoo and others – the Wall Street Journal has an illustrated discussion of the patents involved here. Let’s not forget that

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Oracle still foisting Google Toolbar on Java users

By tim, on August 22nd, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

Oracle may be suing Google over its use of Java in Android; but the company is still happy to take the search giant’s cash in exchange for foisting the Google Toolbar on users who carelessly click Next when updating their Java installation on Windows. If they do, the Toolbar is installed by default.

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Apple not Android is killing client-side Java – so why is Oracle suing Google?

By tim, on August 19th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

Oracle is suing Google over Java in Android; the Register has a link to the complaint itself which lists seven patents which Oracle claims Google has infringed. There is also a further clause which says Google has infringed copyright in the:

code, specifications, documentation and other materials) that is copyrightable subject matter

and that

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Oracle breaks, then mends Eclipse with new Java build

By tim, on August 4th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

Somewhere in the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) is a company field, identifying the source of the JVM. Following its acquisition of Sun, Oracle reasonably enough changed the field in version 1.6.0_21 to reference Oracle rather than Sun.

Unfortunately some applications use the field to vary some command-line arguments according to which JVM is in

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Novell’s Michael Meeks downbeat on OpenOffice.org project

By tim, on June 21st, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

There is a fascinating interview over on The H with Michael Meeks, who works at Novell on OpenOffice.org development. It would be wrong to call OpenOffice.org unsuccessful: it is a solid product that forms a viable alternative to Microsoft Office in many scenarios. Nevertheless, it has not disrupted the Microsoft Office market as much

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Building for multiple mobile platforms with one codebase

By tim, on March 29th, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

Individuals may have strong opinions about the merits of Apple iPhone versus Google Android versus the struggling Palm WebOS versus the not-yet Windows Phone 7; but sit them round a table to discuss app strategy and those diverse platforms change from a debating point to a problem. Presuming a web app won’t cut it,

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Adobe Flash vs Apple iPad: RIA in the balance

By tim, on February 1st, 2010 Follow tim on Twitter

Adobe evangelist Lee Brimelow has posted some images of well-known sites that break if Adobe Flash is not enabled. His point: if Apple’s iPad does not support Flash, none of these sites will work correctly.

While true in the short term, I do not think this is an effective line of argument.

Let’s

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