Previously, Oracle supplied the engineering resources to develop new features and to maintain old releases.
Now, Oracle provides the first but not the second. The community can step in and do the second. If it is forked, then the community needs to step in and do both.
So getting free of Oracle has a cost, the cost of losing engineering resources for new features. Whether it's worth it would depend on how much value you place on those two things.
Clearly Oracle is trying to steer people toward revenue-generating things. I don't see a problem with that in and of itself, especially if the community can provide a free alternative.
It seems like this could push things either direction. On the one hand, many companies may just pay Oracle for support and that may become a common (and expected) practice. So that would shift some control toward Oracle. On the other hand, Oracle is stimulating the community to get involved in maintenance, and that may build some momentum for community contributions, causing the community a larger role in Java development, which would shift some control away from Oracle.
Previously, Oracle supplied the engineering resources to develop new features and to maintain old releases.
Now, Oracle provides the first but not the second. The community can step in and do the second. If it is forked, then the community needs to step in and do both.
So getting free of Oracle has a cost, the cost of losing engineering resources for new features. Whether it's worth it would depend on how much value you place on those two things.
Clearly Oracle is trying to steer people toward revenue-generating things. I don't see a problem with that in and of itself, especially if the community can provide a free alternative.
It seems like this could push things either direction. On the one hand, many companies may just pay Oracle for support and that may become a common (and expected) practice. So that would shift some control toward Oracle. On the other hand, Oracle is stimulating the community to get involved in maintenance, and that may build some momentum for community contributions, causing the community a larger role in Java development, which would shift some control away from Oracle.