[fn1]

> Java is one of the few ecosystems that provides a software distribution ecosystem that doesn't allow distribution of sources alongside binaries.

This is wrong, source distribution is a standard in maven.

> Gradle literally cannot be built from source[1] because it relies on a binary cache of dependencies held by Gradle to build Gradle.

This is wrong as well as pointed out in the thread.

> As a consequence, the Java ecosystem has become a security and maintenance nightmare that other ecosystems simply aren't. As bad as Nodejs is, it doesn't do this.

This is almost hilarious. I'm working at a company at the moment guiding security updates for java and node.js backends. The java backends are not an issue. The node.js backends are almost impossible to upgrade, the javascript-frontends are even closer to impossibility.