Signs Of The Apocalypse: Oracle and Apple to Collaborate on Open Source Java for Mac
Don't be fooled by serpents bearing fruit
By Alan Shimel on Fri, 11/12/10 - 3:07pm.
In a sure sign that the apocalypse is fast approaching, those two open source friendly powerhouses, Apple and Oracle, today announced that Apple is joining the Oracle OpenJDK community. After first casting doubt a while back about the future of Java on the OS X platform, Apple and Oracle today reaffirmed the future of Java on the Mac platform. Apple also pledged to help support the new version 7 of the Java SE by donating a lot of the code it has developed to date for Mac. It also pledged to continue supporting the Java SE v 6 currently available. While this seems like a truly altruistic, magnanimous move by Apple, as usual there is more here than meets the eye. In fact, like the good book says be careful of serpents bearing fruit
Apple's real intent here is to absolve themselves of any responsibility for Java security or performance going forward on the Mac platform. As you may know Apple just released a pretty big patch which covered something like 130 security holes. Many of them dealt with Adobe's Flash player. Much like Apple has done with Flash, they are seeking to move out from under the responsibility of making sure it runs securely on OS X.
This represents a big change for the "total control" Apple gang. Their insistence on total control left them to make sure that things like Java, Flash, etc. ran "Apple like" on the Mac. As a result Apple found themselves more and more having to plug holes in these technologies, because no one else had the ability to. With Adobe, Apple just put it back on them to deal with. In the newest Apple computers, Flash is not even shipped on board. Users if they want, at their own risk have to download and install it themselves. It will be Adobe's responsibility going forward to fix any holes on the Mac platform, the same way they do on Windows. Frankly, I don't have a problem with them putting the onus on Adobe for this.
What they are doing with the open source community here though is a different story. They are in essence turning over everything they have done to date. This amounts to a lot of work and code actually. It will allow the community to have both a 32 and 64 bit Java SE. However, the story is that is as far as Apple will go. After that they are done with the Java on Mac platform. It will be entirely up to the Java open source community to upkeep the Java machine. Security problems in Java on a Mac? Not Apple's problem (after all Apple's computers don't have security problems, just like the commercial says). Go tell it to those crazy open source dudes in the Java community.
Of course if there are not enough people to continue developing Java for the Mac after this next release, then what? Will Java just fade into oblivion on the Mac? I don't think it will be that drastic, but the open source community will have to step it up if they are serious about continuing Java on OS X.
Apple comes out of this pretending to be big supporters of open source and helping Oracle and the Java community. What they are really doing is just washing their hands of it. Don't be fooled by serpents bearing fruit.
- About Open Source Fact and Fiction
As co-founder and Managing Partner at The CISO Group, Alan Shimel is responsible for driving the vision and mission of the company. The CISO Group offers security consulting and PCI compliance management for the payment card industry. Prior to The CISO Group, Alan was the Chief Strategy Officer at StillSecure. Shimel was the public persona of StillSecure as it grew from start up to helping defend some of the largest and most sensitive networks in the world.
Shimel is an often-cited personality in the technology community and is a sought-after speaker at industry and government conferences and events. His commentary about the state of security, open source and life is followed closely by many industry insiders via his blog and podcast, "Ashimmy, After All These Years" (www.ashimmy.com). Alan is now also a regular contributor to The CISO Group’s security.exe blog and podcast.
Alan has helped build several successful technology companies by combining a strong business background with a deep knowledge of technology. His legal background, long experience in the field, and New York street smarts combine to form a unique personality.
Disclosure: The CISO Group sells a software-as-a-service PCI compliance application called SAQPro. The company is independent and does not represent any other vendor's products as a reseller.
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