Beware Fake Microsoft And Amazon Emails Exploiting Java Security Vulnerability
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/09/04/beware-fake-microsoft-and-amazon-emails-exploiting-java-security-vulnerability/
I almost blogged on this last week when I heard that Oracle had taken so long to put out a fix. Now, it seems, even the fix is a POS and leaves the software with vulnerabilities. Oracle has a very long history of taking its sweet time with fixes (most particular security fixes) and it seems that they have transferred this attitude to Sun’s Java developers. While Sun was often a bit frustrating in its support for Java (they made it half-way open source, but not really, and for certain classes of users there were licensing fees (much like MySQL, something else I object to using if there are alternatives)), it seems Oracle has taken it to a new level. Java is well established now, so any reversal will take a long time, but it seems to me that unless Oracle changes its behavior (something, based on their past, that seems inconceivable to me) more and more architects and designers will start to turn away (somehow I doubt C or C++ will get the love instead, too bad for me). Once an organization has made the decision to move away from a technology that process is slow, but it is sort of like continental movement: inevitable. It won’t matter that suddenly things take a turn for the better, the decision was made.
Not that I am a huge fan of Java; I prefer working at areas where there are resource constraints (where Java is a poor choice) and with computers getting so damn fast and cheap there are fewer places where there are any resource constraints and it seems my passion is eroding my career prospects. A good friend of mine keeps suggesting I go over ‘to the dark side’ and focus on Java (this is not to say I am unfamiliar with the language, indeed, my dad started to push it on me when it was still in alpha and I have written a couple of small applications over the years). I have so far refused, but that refusal looks more and more like a mistake as time goes by…
