Oracle Lawsuit: Silicon Valley Web JUG Poll

In this unscientific poll of Silicon Valley Web JUG members, we had roughly 14% of the JUG members (171/1202) participate in the poll. The one poll question was in regards to Oracles current Java patent lawsuit against Google. And the answers were:

• Strongly Support Oracle (2)
• Support Oracle (4)
• Don't Really Care (5)
• Support Google (31)
• Strongly Support Google (129)

The poll was open for JUG members only for one week. I have now closed the poll in order to publish the results. In the pie chart below, the For slice represents the total of all the votes in support of Oracle in this lawsuit. The Against slice represent are total of all the votes in support of Google. The Neutral slice represents all the votes from people that don't really care one way or the other about this issue. Click on the chart below to be taken to the raw poll data.

Just to be clear, I realize the opinions of our JUG members have no bearing on the legal action. However, I think it is still useful information. It supports my earlier claims that regardless of whether Oracle is in the right here (not clear at this point), they are paying a heavy price in the public perception arena for their first major action as the new steward of Java.

If their own die hard Java fans like me are not happy about this action, one can only imagine what others that already have a negative opinion of Java make of the current situation. There are two things though that Oracle could do independent of the lawsuit that would immediately dramatically improve their standing with Java enthusiasts such as myself. They simply need to reintroduce and follow through on these two earlier JCP resolutions (which Oracle voted in favor of when Sun was the steward of Java) and truly open source Java as has long been promised.

That's All Folks!