Java Guru Quits Oracle
Written by Kay Ewbank   
Thursday, 10 March 2016

Oracle's Java EE evangelist has quit having lost faith in the way Oracle is dealing with Java developers.

Reza Rahman joined Oracle as a Java evangelist back in 2012, despite having concerns about whether Oracle could be a responsible steward for Java.

On his official Oracle Java EE/GlassFish blog, he gives his reason for leaving as wanting to find the best way to keep Java moving forward, saying:

"I have no doubt whatsoever that this was one of the top five hardest decisions of my life. I am also at this stage equally certain that this is the way I personally can best help continue to advance the Java and Java EE communities. I will be rejoining the purely community driven Java EE efforts I have been part of for the better part of a decade in complete good faith as soon as possible post-Oracle."

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However, on his personal blog, he says that his decision to leave was also prompted by Cameron Purdy leaving his role as Senior VP of Development at Oracle. Part of the reason Rahman joined Oracle was in order to work with Purdy, who is a major influence in the Java community having worked on Java standards development, and whose former company, Tangosol, invented the Coherence Data Grid.:

"The surroundings around Cameron's departure saw my skepticism of Oracle grow exponentially. Make no mistake - this skepticism is not merely around Java standard APIs for the enterprise. It extends to Java on the desktop, browser, client, mobile, embedded and yes, even the core language runtime."

It's clear that Rahman is seriously worried about what Oracle is doing. He points out that:

"Sun's entire promising open, collaborative technology portfolio largely centered around the JCP"

and adds that this:

"...is the portfolio that has helped make us all successful for the past two decades. You can be rest assured that if this portfolio does not remain robust we probably won't be celebrating Java's thirty year anniversary like we celebrated it's twenty year anniversary a few months ago.”

He also makes clear that part of his reason for leaving was the growing disquiet of the Java EE community regarding Java within Oracle: 

"My growing skepticism is of course independently shared by the ever vigilant Java EE community outside Oracle I have had the honor to serve. They have started to coalesce around these concerns quietly for months now. These are courageous folks I have the greatest regard for. The time is well past due I rejoined these folks in the community to help safeguard the well being of millions of Java developers worldwide and perhaps the well being of global IT itself."

From the beginning when Oracle took over Sun and acquired Java, the relation between the ultimate corporate computer company and the Java rebels has been an awkward one, and that seems to be continuing. 

shoal

More Information

Official Oracle Rahman Blog

Rahman's Personal Blog

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Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 March 2016 )