Comment Re:What are the negative consequences? (Score 1) 436
If you are a Java developer, you can run Java on your own server and provide an HTML5 interface on the client, or a Cocoa interface on Apple platforms. That is how Apple themselves use Java. Cocoa and HTML5 both have auto installs and auto updates built-in, and are therefore consistent with consumer use. Whatever is on the server can be as nerdy as you like, but what is on the client has to be consumer grade. Flash and Java are not consumer grade.
Understand that Apple makes consumer products.
Yeah, but keep in mind that Apple has also been selling itself for years into the academic and research communities, and a lot of us are using Java for number crunching because it is reasonably cross platform and reasonably performant. This screws that community big time. HTML5 and Javascript are irrelevant for what we're doing. Yes, we can install OpenJDK, but at this point that involves turning on X11, JRF licensing restrictions, or building from source. As a developer that's feasible, for our end users its not. It's Apple's call if they want to keep serving that market or not, but I'm certainly going to point out to them that I won't be spending $10,000/5 years on hardware from them in the future.