Oracle is dropping the ball here. They appear to only see value in the trademark, but not in the people. I predict the brand value to shift over to Jenkins fairly quickly.
It seems to me like they realize that Hudson would be a good asset for them in some way and since the code was so long ago open-sourced, they feel like their only move left to play is this (dubious) trademark of the name.
The other half is this is that it seems like they want to avoid any sort of bad PR over a pretty visible OSS project which was under their (inherited) hosting umbrella (java.net) moving to other hosting platforms because Oracle's platform is so unreliable or just flat-out not popular.
I think Jenkins is a much better name. Even after seeing a Hudson demo and seeing the butler character I quickly forgot what "Hudson" was supposed to evoke.
I was under the impression they were using the brand in an attempt to get the people to do what they wanted (use their crappy open source infrastructure).
Sounds like the respective sides reached agreement on all of the really substantive issues, but flopped on the most trivial yet most symbolic one. Oracle could gain a fair bit of goodwill (or perhaps reclaim some of what they've lost due to this charade) by just granting the trademark to the core devs (for free use by anyone, presumably). They could still sell Oracle Hudson Enterprise Continuous Integration Server or whatever.
Beyond that, I'd think their partners (e.g. Sonatype, which has its own commercial hudson-based product) would prefer to not be faced with a choice between Oracle Hudson and OSS Jenkins (where the latter would surely have the majority of heat and light).
I think it will damage their business in the long term, as today's developers gradually move to business positions.
Before Oracle acquired Sun, I was neutral toward them, and didn't really care. I thought they were a big enterprise vendor, with a supposedly very good (but pricey) database. If I were given the money to use their DB, I would use it.
Now, I really hate what they represent. 10 years from now, as a CTO, I will try my best to consider other options, even if I have the "money" for an Oracle DB. I already love Postgres, but with Oracle's recent behavior, I will push even more toward good open source projects and away from bloated enterprise solutions.
Plus, Postgres / RethinkDB / other OSS databases will be better in 10 years ;)
I am currently evaluating alternatives for a new architecture at my company. Clojure on the JVM is on my list, but I'm really nervous about Oracle. I realize the community can fork the VM (or just move down the Harmony road), but I don't want to get caught in the middle of the battle.
Every time Oracle does something like this, it pushes further away from selecting it. Guess I need to brush up on my Erlang.
I've never quite followed why unrelated actions are thought to be somehow indicative of how Oracle is or is going to manage the JVM. Assuming you were going to be using their implementation anyway, extracurriculars like this Hudson drama seem entirely unrelated -- especially given the continued emphasis on OpenJDK (which has a GPLv2 + classpath license).
JVM languages like Clojure, Scala, JRuby, etc. would seem to be an entirely safe choice AFAICT. I'd be interested in hearing concrete contrary theories.
If the Hudson debacle was an isolated case, I'd agree with you. But Oracle have been alienating a lot of people in the open source community, and this incident isn't going to reassure anyone of Oracle's intentions.
And whilst the OpenJDK is open source, Oracle have made it pretty clear that they are not above using trademarks and patents to enforce their control over the JVM.
I guess my response would be, "So?". The question is whether the JVM is a reasonable, safe, and reliable platform to build upon. While Oracle's actions vis à vis various projects haven't been what many would have preferred, AFAIK they've stated their intentions for OpenJDK pretty clearly -- and the recent folding of IBM and Apple into that project is no small endorsement. As for control of their VM, yeah, I'd expect that (the Google issues are entirely separate from the JCP drama, etc, which is SOP since long before Oracle came around).
FWIW, I say most of this to reassure myself more than anything else, given my investment in the JVM. If there are real substantive reasons to be concerned – essentially, indications that Oracle has likely just lied about their plans for the JVM, or something more than the vague warnings I usually see – I want to be the first to know.
The JVM is safe for precisely as long as it's in Oracle's interests for the current situation to pertain. Oracle aren't capricious per se, but they are the very definition of capitalism, red in tooth and claw, in a way that Sun famously weren't. If they see a way to monetise the platform that as a byproduct happens to close it down as an open venue, I don't think that would stop them for a second.
I don't think the JVM is in any particular danger of disappearing, otherwise I wouldn't be still programming in it :)
However, a technology controlled by a single vendor, even one as large as Oracle, is at greater risk than one that is an open standard with several competing implementations. I'd be happier if Oracle were encouraging alternative JVMs, rather than suing them or withholding testkit licenses.
It's a function of stability: I want to limit the number of variables that can impact my company. If things go south between Oracle and the rest of the open community, it will cause distraction as the dev community switches to the open VM (with no guarantee it is 100% compatible thanks to no compatibility tests) and I switch over to the open VM (with no experience as to its scalability and stability).
There is no doubt that a year later, all would be fine, but in that year, my pain was increased (potentially, obviously). Would I re-write code for this potentiality? Not a chance. Does it factor into my decision for a new architecture? Absolutely.
The short of it is that I don't trust Oracle. I haven't for many years, but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they purchased Sun in hopes Sun's culture might impact Oracle's. They have proven they are going to behave exactly as I expected them to. My company won't have infrastructure from companies I don't trust.
Just thought I'd throw this out there that a really nice alternative is luntbuild http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/ and if you are an open-source project you can use quickbuild for free (or pay for it if you are commercial): http://www.pmease.com/
Jenkins is a great name, by the way.