Although I am in the process of advocating for new ownership, I am not going to overlook the tremendous work that has been done by the Glassfish team of product managers and engineers, even though it seems like they ditched product marketing, in favor of developer outreach, they achieved incredible penetration in a saturated marketplace, that most had assumed had solidified around WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, and SpringSource. But along came Glassfish, and it upended the economics, as well as the delivery cycle of the Java EE specification, to create a viable contender. It is sad to see it die in the arms of Oracle, but I do not fault, whatsoever, the people behind the project, it is first-rate, it was always honest and open, and though Sun did not know how to quantify their investment in an app server program, dating back to the time I launched Sun ONE Application Server 7. But it is still there, and there is still a sliver of a chance it will survive, it just has to be in the arms of another corporate entity. I don’t know if Google will ever get around to saving it, by giving Oracle their Linux implementation in exchange for controlling interest in the Glassfish properties, but at least it is possible, and at least Oracle has something that Google just may want, or even need. They don’t need Sun’s servers, they don’t need Oracle’s database, they may never use the Fusion ERP set, in-house, or as a supported platform for their enterprise push, but Glassfish would give them something to give back to developers, and keep them in the conversation when discussing Enterprise Java, which is not going to die, any time soon. Glassfish after five years introduced the best clustering solution in Shoal, the best ESB solution in JBI, and the best open source system, even considering what JBoss continues to achieve. Its just not in Oracle’s interest to keep it around, and therefore, it is time to do a deal. App Engine is nice, it compliments the cloud story at Google, but its not realistic to expect the myriad of Google enterprise AdWords customers to deploy on the cloud for some time. Its a testing ground, a play that keeps clients in the game as the cloud shakes out what it really wants to be. But by having an app server program, a Google account rep. does not need to say Guice in the face of .Net, they can repeat the extraordinarily successful mantra of Java on the server, and maintain credibility. It gives Oracle a return on investment, even as people continue to blind themselves to the reality that Solaris is dead. No one is coding to it, only legacy apps are reserved for Solaris, everything is on Linux, and with the slow death of Novell, there really is only Red Hat as a supplier, and that is too much control in one vendor’s hands, especially if IBM buys Red Hat. What would an Oracle Linux program look like, if it were given access to Google’s version of it in the datacenter? It would immediately remove the need to copy and fork Red Hat, and put the engineering teams of Google and Oracle OS working together, with a combined R&D that would not be matched even if IBM were to buy Red Hat, and it would give Oracle cache, at a time that they desperately need to show something for their inflated Sun acquisition. There does not seem to be much clarity on the hardware strategy, even considering what Fujitsu is saying about Sparc, so Oracle needs something, and they do not need the cost of a second app server program, even if it is the Reference Implementation, so let’s do a deal, and get the two heavy weights of Silicon Valley software on the same side of the competitive argument. Glassfish needs a home, and I just don’t have the resources to pull off a fork, and Google probably doesn’t need the drama that would come with a fork, why not just give Oracle their flavor of Linux, and get an app server in-house. So, as we celebrate the 5th year of Glassfish’s existence, why not give it a second-life, and extend Enterprise Java in to the only competitor in a position to fight proprietary extensions, whether that be from Apple or Microsoft. I know I sound like a broken record, but what would the eco-system look like, if Oracle and Google were to work together on Java: it would provide cross-platform portability between the two vendors, and along with JBoss, there would be three guaranteed platforms to deploy to, and that makes a marketplace. Google does not need to ditch Spring, and IBM would be forced to stay in the standards game, whether or not they buy Red Hat and get JBoss. Its a natural win-win, and all Google has to do is give up their secret sauce on Linux, which actually helps them in the medium-term, as Oracle account reps carry Google Linux in to accounts, and gets Google a place in the enterprise. Follow on that with WebLogic and/or Glassfish, and you have a competitive hedge against anything Microsoft does with .Net. From there a true inter-operable applications marketplace is within reach, and could even extend to Java components, that will be part of the cloud, eventually. I congratulate all the Sun people, whether employees or not, who contributed to making Glassfish relevant and viable, but now it is time to turn it over to a company that can truly invest in it, and with Google you have an entity with favorable resources to take on .Net on the server, whether thats Great Plains, BizTalk, or Visual Studio. I may be myopic sometimes, but this one makes sense, and it is time for Oracle to get a deal done, and time for Google to get value for their Linux asset, by getting Oracle to sell it. Give Glassfish away, let Google make money off of the account control that they would exert with Glassfish in their arsenal, and let WebLogic get completed with Fusion. I have yet to think of a reason why not to do this, other than Google’s historical reluctance to give up their secret sauce, or Oracle’s reluctance to have competitors in their markets, but this one makes sense, its a calculated risk, that helps the Enterprise Java developer. Neither Google nor Oracle wants to see Java EE die on the vine, and so by working together, they extend its life and quite possibly counter the coming push by Microsoft to convert enterprises to .Net. Please give me a reason not to do it. Technology Industry