yaanoncoward's comments

> The odds are much higher that your project will not be successful and so the choice of technology doesn't really matter.

I'm very well aware of that. I wouldn't recommend anyone to give such what-if scenarios much weight in their technology choice without tangible concerns. Yet, Java is one of the few technologies where I find myself thinking about its legalese at all, so I wondered if others had the same thought.

I guess it's because there's now a good bunch of new programming languages that start to compete on Java's grounds and don't have such PR disasters like the Google-Oracle lawsuit.

To be fair: most of the technical reasons for me choosing Java are based on improvements that came to Java under Oracle's ownership.

I'm less concerned about JVM incompatibilities and more about licensing terms.

In my opinion, you only own your technology stack if you can build the build systems of your product on your machines. I can do that with OpenJDK, and with Debian's apt-sources it is a matter of two command lines and waiting for the build.

From a glance at IBMs Java site I don't really find anything about their licensing. The Oracle JVM isn't open-source, nor is its JDK.

Let's be honest: the impact of most (including my) project to live or die with what Oracle does with Java in the future is marginal, in comparison to much bigger unknowns. Still I think that the big Java shops out there must have a contingency plan in mind, and I wonder if anyone could hint at what's their plan.