Well, the last time I tried Ubuntu 3d screensavers wouldn't work properly, meaning the screen went black and I had to enter my password with no visual feedback to unlock. Also the screensavers weren't configurable and were generally an example of all that was wrong with ubuntu, linux and everything.

From TFA:

This is a workaround. Oracle is being plain about this and at least making an effort not to break applications.

From Wikipedia: In 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized and the concept of a world-wide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks called the Internet was introduced.

Check mate!

If you use the offline installer option from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html it doesn't try to install the Ask Toolbar or any other software. I just tried.

You know, Philip K. Dick invented a similar game using computers in he's book Galactic Pot-Healer in 1969, well before the Internet, Google or TCP existed. Probably before computer assisted translation was practical.

java does auto update for years now on Windows. what is your point?

When Sun announced that they were going to open source Java they got a lot of bashing of people here because they didn't want to believe it or because Sun was slow in its process. Some things are not instantaneous (code reviews, packaging, third party licenced components, etc) and people should not have unrealistic expectations on this. But they Sun was true and open sourced the main components of Java. I don't know if Oracle plans to continue on this path with the remaining components but they are not the most important ones IMHO.

surely complex javascript implementations deeply integrated in browsers will have no security problems at all...

Sorry, you are saying that there are security bugs in older versions of the JRE that allow drive-in attacks when Java is used only in the server-side? Please provide some examples because I'm interested.
Of course, if companies that spend millions in applications can't update the old versions it can't be blamed all on Java, could it? And yes, I know very well how companies work.

It was not a fork, rather Java was open sourced as OpenJDK.

Sun open sourced the main components of Java 6 as OpenJDK. Notably exceptions are the Java browser plugin and web start. IcedTea was a fork by Redhat but now they are OpenJDK contributors. What people refer simply as Java covers a lot of different things (compiler, library, plugin, hotspot jvm, etc).
Read the article on wikipedia for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenJDK.

you mean in your country it is?

from the Wayland faq it seems that the X developers have a different perception of the X protocol:

If X developers don't want to keep it going and prefer to develop Wayland then feel free to fork X and carry it from there. I understand that open source works that way.

You are wrong, like most people in Slashdot... mmh, wait a second...