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Will Oracle Be Good For Java?

Of course that's a question critics have been asking since Sun Microsystems agreed to be acquired by Oracle earlier this year for $7.4 billion. Sun founder and chairman Scott McNealy looked to reassure his faith that Oracle will be good for Java. Speaking in a keynote address at this week's Oracle OpenWorld 2009 conference in San Francisco, McNealy gave his blessing and then called on VP and Sun Fellow James Gosling, known as the "father of Java" to give his take.

"You look at Oracle's product mix, they're committed," Gosling told attendees. "Their fastest growing products are all big bags of Java code, and over the years Oracle has been great contributors to the whole process. Most people use Java each and every day, and behind a lot of these Java apps are big bags of Oracle code and it's been pretty wonderful."

As I wrote back in August, developers are still concerned about the fate of the Java Community Process. The European Commission's inquiry of the Oracle centers around what Oracle will do with MySQL, which the company said at Open World it intends to invest in, following remarks by CEO Larry Ellison to that effect last month.

As for Java, the McNeally-Gosling love fest aside at Open World, what's your take? Feel free to comment below or drop me a line at [email protected].

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on October 13, 2009