The Java Store really ought to be one of the biggest bits of Java desktop news since the platform came into existence. At last, a quick and easy way for customers to get Java apps, and for Java developers to connect with customers directly! Sure, it's following in the footsteps of Apple's iPhone App Store, but nobody's actually managed to pull off a desktop version of this yet, so Sun could be as much on the cutting edge as anybody else. Now that the Java Store is in beta, I thought I'd take it out for a spin and see how it works!

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Spring 3.0 is here, which should be of interest to the people who use it. Of whom there are many! For good reasons! This is how The H puts it:

The Spring Framework was founded in 2002 with the aim of simplifying the programming of enterprise Java applications.

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Well, the big showdown in Europe between EU regulators and Oracle ended in smiles and positive talk all around, which is about the last thing anybody expected from all the tough talk that had been flying back and forth. My take is that in the game of chicken, Oracle blinked first, releasing a list of MySQL-related commitments yesterday afternoon that pretty clearly aim to assuage European regulatory opinion.

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Java EE 6 has arrived, and with it its reference implementation, GlassFish 3! Its varying components will not be news to anyone, particularly, who has been following along, but they are still varied and interesting. There are good roundups at InfoWorld and Developer.com.

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Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's greatest contribution to the English language came with his discussion of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." Known unknowns tend to encourage one to seek out the truth or the future course of development, but unknown unknowns can be paralyzing, as we wait for the picture to clarify before making decisions. In light of the the merger limbo Sun's been in, with all the unknown unknowns that entails, it makes sense that we've had very little direction from the company on Java's future -- and certainly very little from the top executives.

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Version 6 of Java Enterprise Edition has finally been approved! But the vote from the Java Community Process experts committee was not unanimous, and with headlines like "Java EE 6 meets with muted approval," you'd assume that some of the voting organizations have serious problems with the spec, right?

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Ha ha, of course not, because JCP voting is now well-established as a way to complain about the state of Java in general.

JavaFX sure was an interesting topic of conversation around this blog for while -- Java to compete in the RIA space! Make a grand play for relevance in the Web 2.0 world! -- until suddenly it wasn't, with everything up in the air in light of the Sun-Oracle merger, and who knows what the priorities will be for all these embryonic technologies. With the merger on indefinite hold, however, we might as well check in to see what's up!

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Here's what's made me antsy as a Java blogger over the past few months: the fate of the technology has hinged on the EU's approval (or disapproval) of the Sun-Oracle merger; yet the EU gripe that's held the whole thing up is centered on MySQL. I care nothing for MySQL! Well, that's not really true, but I'm not writing a MySQL blog, darn it.

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We spend a lot of time here at Java To Go talking about the long term future of Java, both in the "What will happen when/if Oracle and Sun finally merge" sense and in the "Is Java dying/stabilizing/becoming uncool" sense. But that can often skip over the more concrete and immediate future of the language, which is being plugged away on despite these distractions.

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If you're worked up over the post-merger future of the Java platform, you owe it to yourself to read Peter Wayner's longish piece on this very Web site! It is quite soothing, and you can imagine it being read aloud in the calm, ration voice of a public radio announcer.

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Is Android a Java platform? It's certainly Java-esque, in the sense that for the most part you write apps for it in Java code. But it's not blessed by Sun or tested for compatibility -- in fact, it's incompatible with standard Java in several specified ways; its VM isn't an official JVM; and, to make things wackier, the Java it's based on is Java SE, not Java ME. This drives folks like Hinkmond Wong, Sun's Java ME blogger, crazy.

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Oh, I'm sorry, have you been bored by the Sun-Oracle merger drama because it's been all about MySQL and Java has been reduced to a baffled bystander? Well, get ready for some ancillary Java-related corporate drama that has the added benefit of being pretty hysterical!

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As predicted by everybody, the EU has issued a formal objection to the Oracle-Sun merger. In particular, the European Commission worries that Oracle will hold back on MySQL development, presumably to prevent the open source database from becoming a rival to Oracle's much pricier high-end offerings.

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Some people just don't have much patience! For instance, the big news in the snack food world this month was that Utz and Snyder's of Hanover were going to merge -- except then the two companies called it off, citing the protracted review process that they had to endure. The total time they were held in limbo by regulators? 15 days.

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Hey, Java fan, are you still anxious about the fate of future Java-related technologies after the Oracle takeover? Well, fear not, because Oracle has put an updated FAQ on the subject! They actually discuss two of the products people have been most agitated about -- GlassFish and NetBeans -- by name, with varying degrees of reassuringness. The mentions are actually short enough to reproduce here in full.

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