Java is now part of Oracle . This means that Java has a legal pitbull out to clawback Intellectual Property after Sun, with no-help from the Java community, gave away the keys to the store via Open Source. Specifically, Java was decimated on the client by Microsoft [with no help from big Java users like IBM, Oracle, and the Open Source community] and then Stallmanned again in the Open Source community for not being Open and Pure enough.
Yes, with Java you are seeing the steamy, seamy, and downright ugly underside of USA software” innovation”.
This analysis from Engadget predicts a nasty battle between Oracle and Google on Java. And here is the overflow continuing from the Microsoft vs Sun Java legal conflict. In short, one of the first, better, if not best, client side tools for apps developments has been sidelined and sabotaged by patent wrangling and ultra-purist Open Source activists. Welcome to software development in America!
So now Creative Destruction requires a lengthy period of development of work-arounds – Ruby [too slow operationally], Flash [too flaky in performance and proprietary for some people working in the Cupertino area], JavaScript [too slow and streaked with Microsoft proprietary JScript], Curl[whats that? – MIT off on a tangent again], etc, etc. Java’s debacle is the male testosterone equivalent of the current National Political Paralysis.