Oracle's business model is about extracting value; whereas Sun was about building platforms (which they did several times). Oracle has a history of squeezing open projects and alienating developers. You're right, they've taken care not to completely chew up the tremendous business value of Java, only test-nibbling at the edges: projects like Hudson (now Jenkins), changes to JCP, cutting evangelists.

Many key people left Sun before or soon after the acquisition. Oracle is a different place to work, being sales-focused. It's not entirely due to Oracle though; the game had changed and Sun was no longer leading.

It's not specific changes to java, but changes to the philosophy of the java custodian. These determine its future.

BTW: I can't speak for the other upvoters, but I think Google was clearly in the wrong. They knew it, Sun knew it - but let them get away with it because a new platform was good for java (NB cf. Sun litigated MS for fragmenting java). In contrast, Oracle is suing Google for revenue, not for any platform.

So... although Google is the bad guy, it illustrates the different philosophies of Sun vs Oracle.

In this sense the old java - its philosophy and its future - "doesn't exist anymore". :(

What pisses me off about this whole saga is that now we are left with a legal precedent that broadly validates all copyrights on APIs.

And my feeling is that it may not have come to this if Google hadn't violated not just the law but also the spirit of the social contract around APIs in such a brazen fashion.

Here comes a hugely profitable company with a business model based on advertising and clones a struggling innovator's entire platform for use on the up-and-coming class of devices without paying the creator a single cent.

Google didn't just implement an API to make two different pieces of software compatible so they would work better together. They didn't fight for everyone's freedom to implement APIs either. The only thing they did was fight to keep every last cent of their profits to themselves in the most short sighted, unimaginative and harmful way possible.

I don't have great sympathy for Oracle's business culture. But as I see it, here are two big corporations, each of them ruthlessly pursuing their own self interest, neither of them giving a shit about everyone elses freedoms or any legal precendent they are setting. And neither of them is showing the slightest hint of creativity in their approach.

Freedoms ultimately cannot be based on the benevolence or charity of corporations. Sometimes we share common interests with one or other corporation. And sometimes, as in this case, we don't, and things go to shit without being in anyone's interest at all. Everyone loses, including Google and Oracle. Pure stupidity all the way down.