Well, since my last post the profile for Project Vector has been raised, at least a little bit, which I plan to take credit for, though I probably don’t deserve it. There were longer pieces from the IDG News Service and ZDNet, though they did little more than summarize Jonathan Schwartz’s announcement blog post. Slashdot launched a discussion of the topic, which was the usual mishmosh: a lot of jokes about how slow Java is (yawn), and some genuine jeremiads from Java developers on how Sun has botched Java as a desktop language (I found this one most evocative).But what about new insight? Well, one of those Slashdot commentors pointed out a line I missed from Schwartz’s blog (emphasis added):This creates opportunity for everyone in the developer community — and specifically, for any developer (even those not using Java/JavaFX) seeking to reach beyond the browser to create a durable relationship with their customers. Wait, what? Suddenly the Java Store is going to be a just plain software store. Maybe they should keep the Project Vector name — it’s snappier anyway. This reminds me of Dan Baigent’s complaint that Sun constantly messed with the Java brand (originally posted on his Sun blog, then removed by his bosses, but preserved for posterity here) by slapping the word “Java” on the names of things that weren’t Java related. Why would Sun want to spend valuable time and energy approving and hosting non-Java apps?Also of note is the question of how this relates to the process of the Sun-Oracle merger — it does seem like a big move to make when the ground is shifting so dramatically. InfoWorld’s Pete Babb speculates that it’s a move to stave off headcount reductions in the Java group post-merger, while The H notes that Sun employees aren’t allowed to make “forward-looking” statements without approval from the transition team, which indicates that Oracle has given Project Vector its blessing — at least for now. Software Development