I think this has less to do with Java per se and rather the types of candidates you will see in 'safe' languages.
By safe, I mean, easily employable languages.
People working with haskell, clojure, scala, factor or whatever more obscure language probably aren't doing it because it makes them employable.
Plenty of people working with Java, PHP etc are doing it because it makes them employable. That doesn't mean that all PHP, Java etc developers are only interested in getting a paycheck but given the pool you are selecting from, you are more likely to select such a person at random then if you were selecting from a pool of developers working in a 'purely for the love of it' language.
I've started doing Java development for a day job again and between that and other projects, have met plenty of people who are java developers who are quite the opposite of what you have seen so they are out there. I've also met plenty of people who fit the stereotype you are talking about.
By safe, I mean, easily employable languages. People working with haskell, clojure, scala, factor or whatever more obscure language probably aren't doing it because it makes them employable.
Plenty of people working with Java, PHP etc are doing it because it makes them employable. That doesn't mean that all PHP, Java etc developers are only interested in getting a paycheck but given the pool you are selecting from, you are more likely to select such a person at random then if you were selecting from a pool of developers working in a 'purely for the love of it' language.
I've started doing Java development for a day job again and between that and other projects, have met plenty of people who are java developers who are quite the opposite of what you have seen so they are out there. I've also met plenty of people who fit the stereotype you are talking about.