&gt;Well on HN, it seems Google cannot do no wrong<p>Is this HN pre-Reader shutdown or post-Reader shutdown? &quot;How soon will Google shutdown awesome product X?&quot; is practically a meme on HN. Not that HN is a homogenous blob anyways.<p>&gt;The fact is that Google forked and frozed the Java eco-system.
Now in 2016 we are stuck with a Java 6 and a half<p>No, that was IBM. As I recall, Apache Harmony[1] was already in existence by the time Google adopted it - they weren&#x27;t the &#x27;forkers&#x27;; they merely popularized it. IBM was Harmony&#x27;s main benefactor - IBM and Sun were Java frenemies at the time. My favorite moment of the tiff was IBM&#x27;s delightfully subversive naming of the &quot;Eclipse&quot; project.<p>&gt;Google just managed to do what Microsoft failed at<p>Had I mentioned that before the Sun purchase, Oracle also supported[2] Apache Harmony? Sun was steadfastly refusing[3] to provide the TCK needed for Harmony to be officially certified as &#x27;Java&#x27;<p>That said, I&#x27;ll take Java 6.5 over Java ME <i>any day</i>. Sun was absolutely clueless on mobile, and ME was a very bad idea and a terrible platform to develop on.<p>1. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20061208140800&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;harmony.apache.org&#x2F;faq.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20061208140800&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;harmony.apa...</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.oracle.com&#x2F;dagastine&#x2F;entry&#x2F;apache_harmony_thanks_for_the" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.oracle.com&#x2F;dagastine&#x2F;entry&#x2F;apache_harmony_than...</a><p>3. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apache.org&#x2F;jcp&#x2F;sunopenletterfaq.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apache.org&#x2F;jcp&#x2F;sunopenletterfaq.html</a>