System Bus Radio - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fulldecent/system-bus-radio <comment><USER3> Generating music via radio interference goes way, way back. The IBM 1401 (1960's era) could do this:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPk8MVEmiTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPk8MVEmiTI) It could also play music on the line printer by banging out the right sequence of characters. [http://mail.computerhistory.org/pipermail/1401_software/2009...](http://mail.computerhistory.org/pipermail/1401_software/2009-February/000289.html)

Strangely, the 1401 radio music was later set to orchestra and released as a CD by an Icelandic composer: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7408766](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7408766)

<comment> semi-extrinsic Old HP scanners used to have a music-making easter egg: [http://youtu.be/8JwU5mcIwDw](http://youtu.be/8JwU5mcIwDw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those that do not have a Mac or AM radio, I made a small video for you: [https://youtu.be/oXAeGZaka7o](https://youtu.be/oXAeGZaka7o)

It's a Macbook Pro late 2013 and a pretty stock FM/AM radio.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nroc2BtO6NU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nroc2BtO6NU)

There's already a PR with Linux support, it works! There's another PR to play the Super Mario theme, that also works.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't make the PR with the Super Mario theme play on my Macbook. It played only the first two notes than it got stuck there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somewhere out there is the story of the guy who brought his Alto computer and electric guitar to the infamous Computer Club. He set the guitar on the computer and the speaker started playing Mary Had A Little Lamb. He had written a program to set and unset registers at specific frequencies.

<comment><USER7> According to Steven Levy's 'Hackers'[0] it was Steve Dompier's Altair, it was a radio not a speaker, and the tune was the Beatles' Fool on the Hill.

[0] Which it turns out is online at [http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/729/pg729.html](http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/729/pg729.html)

<comment><USER8> Question to Radio Yerevan: "Is it correct that Grigori Grigorievich Grigoriev won a luxury car at the All-Union Championship in Moscow?"

Radio Yerevan answered: "In principle, yes. But first of all it was not Grigori Grigorievich Grigoriev, but Vassili Vassilievich Vassiliev; second, it was not at the All-Union Championship in Moscow, but at a Collective Farm Sports Festival in Smolensk; third, it was not a car, but a bicycle; and fourth he didn't win it, but rather it was stolen from him."

<comment><USER9> (The canonical version says something like "The information is generally correct, but subject to four adjustments".)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about receiving these communications using computer without special hardware? Could this interfere with audio, wifi or some other component in away that could be detected by software?

Quite certainly decent bit rates would be out of question, but would it be possible to pass any information between two computers using this?

<comment><USER11> It would certainly be very difficult. If you could get the bus noise near the 2.4GHz freq range (unlikely), you could use the wifi of the other computer to potentially receive.

Another thing people have experimented with is using the speaker/microphone at above human hearing range. This method usually falls flat because crappy laptop speakers have a hard time going above 20kHz.

One thing I could potentially see working is a laptop with a hard drive generating vibrations with the motor. Then, a smartphone or laptop with an accelerometer could pick up the signal using the coupling through a table.

<comment><USER12> Wifi being so high bandwidth it'd be very difficult. Bluetooth Low Energy supports very small bandwidths and would be significantly easier to generate in the end.

You generally don't get good enough control over the motors or voice coil in a hard drive to be able to make vibrations like that. I'd probably look at controlling the fans instead to get a similar effect and use the microphone to listen for the noise from them.

<comment><USER11> I was thinking along the lines of hard drive spin down/spin up due to power state configurations. The fans would probably be easier, though, provided you could pick up on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very interesting. Reminds me of a similar project from Fabrice Bellard, using a VGA card to broadcast a DVB-T digital television signal:

[http://bellard.org/dvbt/](http://bellard.org/dvbt/)

<comment><USER14> Thanks, this was at the edge of my memory, but I was struggling to recall :-)

I think Fabrice's demo is much more interesting, as it's significantly denser information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if deployed around the world there is a network of radios sync by GPS to receive time encoded encrypted communications signals of every electrical powered devices configured to transmit according to the same principle and all the things about security are just a curtain behind the capability of capturing everything that has already been deployed.

Given that this is CPU and subsystems related doesn't have anything to do with software running... it could be capture and executed by a routine in the CPU out of every possible observance by dedicated circuitry, this would fall under all the requisites mentioned by the poster

        Be emitted by the computer processor and other subsystems
        Escape the computer shielding
        Pass through the air or other obstructions
        Be accepted by the antenna
        Be selected by the receiver

Neurosis off...

Edit: Neurosis on

You know what escapes computer shielding? cables... like the ones with cpus that are used for connecting to external devices...

Neurosis off.

<comment><USER16> Is what you're looking to be paranoid about?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_\(codename\))

<comment><USER17> Also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking)

<comment><USER18> And thus, it's obligatory that someone recommend Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_, in which this features quite heavily.

<comment><USER19> And, within 24 hours or so someone will submit the Van Eck Phreaking Wikipedia page link as a standalone submission on HN.

<comment><USER20> As long as we're making tangential recommendations and expecting to be reintroduced to things within 24 hours, I'd like to throw John Dies at the End into the ring.

<comment><USER21> RF leaks are an old tune, NSA was using it back in the 60's I believe. There was an article in Wired about this topic in 2008[0] Gene Hackman and Will Smith in a movie Enemy Of The State (2009)[1] hinted at this technology.

[0] [http://www.wired.com/2008/04/nsa-releases- se/](http://www.wired.com/2008/04/nsa-releases-se/)

[1] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10)

(edit for formatting)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another bit of prior work was Tempest For Eliza [1], which generated patterns on old CRT screens to play music (arbitrary MP3 files!) on nearby AM radios.

Edit: And here's another one that transmits data over radio by toggling GPIO pins and the UART on a cheap laser printer: [http://www.funtenna.org/](http://www.funtenna.org/)

[1] [http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/](http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/)

</comment><comment><USER23> One more example, from the 70s: TARGET, a text-mode shootem-up on the SOL-20 had sound effects—just put your transistor radio (every kid had one) near the computer while playing. Took a bit of futzing with the tuner, but there used to be more time in the day.

<comment><USER24> Yes. What happened to time? I tried loading a C64 game from tape - and I could not believe that it took that long when I was a kid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is probably the wrong reaction to this article, but it is mostly making me nostalgic for the distinctive musical RF interference that comes from a C64 while it is in a FOR delay loop.

<comment><USER26> That's not the only part of the C64 you could make music out of.

My co-worker told me of a program he downloaded from a BBS back in the day called "Drive Music" that turned his C64's floppy drive heads into a musical instrument.

<comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnMgmlKi_o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnMgmlKi_o)

<comment><USER28> I had this! It was amazing but IIRC it came with a disclaimer that you may need to re-align your drive heads afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There also used to be a program that would transmit audio over radio waves using a CRT monitor.

<comment><USER29> Here it is: [http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/](http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Andrews Airforce Base's Emission Security Information Guide [https://web.archive.org/web/20011117002220/http://www.andrew...](https://web.archive.org/web/20011117002220/http://www.andrews.af.mil/89cg/89cs/scbsi/emsecguide.doc)

</comment><comment><USER31> I am in kind of dark here, where is the antenna? the wires on the system bus? or the copper coil in the speaker? could someone please explain it a little bit more?

<comment><USER32> It's just leakage. Any high power component which can be controlled by the program is likely to do it. Remember that the radio receiver's gain is essentially infinite- the limit is the noise floor. If there is any leakage above the noise floor, you are going to pick it up.

There are lots of related tricks: tune a communications receiver to 455 KHz, and you will pick up the station that a nearby radio is receiving (because it's picking up IF leakage). Also the inverse works: the IF amp is where all the gain is, so if you transmit on 455 KHz, you can jam nearby AM radios no matter what they are tuned to. My dad did this when he was a kid in the 40s with a single tube transmitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's what have been done in 1977 on the MITS Altair 8800 by Steve Dompier at the Homebrew Computer Club. The beginning of the personal computer history.

<comment><USER34> We did this on the zx81 too. I think there was a game that used an AM radio for sound. It was certainly written up in the contemporary computer magazines.

I guess this will be rediscovered every time someone happens to figure out timing loops while they have a radio nearby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Instructions in this program cause electromagnetic radiation to emit from > the computer.

I understand that part. but don't understand the technical details. Could someone elaborate a bit how this works?

</comment><comment><USER36> Just tested on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) and it didn't work. (Although I see in the README it says to run it on an Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, Early 2015). Anyone else get it to work?

<comment><USER37> Works here on a Retina 15-inch mid-2012 MacBook Pro. You've got to have the antenna real close to the machine (talking 10 cm here), turn the dial pretty much to the end of the AM band and then you can hear the tune through loads of AM static.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is the same idea as using an AM radio as an audio tachometer in old cars. You can hear the ignition system hum rise and fall in pitch on the radio as the engine rotation rate changes.

</comment><comment><USER39> Neat. In the 1970s there was a program that triggered the S100 bus of the time and played Flight of the Bumble Bee on a nearby radio.

<comment><USER40> Ha Ha! Yes. I was thinking the same thing. My old college roomie had an old 8080 system (Cromemco??? I can't remember.. it was the pre-Apple II days...) and used to run that program and similar radio noise makers. I think there was some space game that used bus noise for weapon effects.

<comment><USER39> Mine was IMSAI 8080. But I had forgotten- I think one of the Star Trek games did the phasers on the radio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> " _Different results will be achievable with different equipment. Please send your results to firstname.lastname@example.com_ "

I think the barrier to entry for this is raised by the fact that most people don't have AM receivers anymore. If I find one lying around though, I will certainly give this a try.

Ah, and apparently this proof-of-concept works exclusively on OSX for now.

<comment><USER42> Almost all cars still have them, just bring a laptop into a car.

<comment><USER43> BMW i3 has the AM hardware builtin but disabled it in firmware [1] due to the exact same reason: electromagnetic interferences caused poor quality of the AM reception.

Obviously, AM radio on i3s can be re-enabled by firmware hacking - <USER2> "coding". [2]

Even with the full metal body/frame, AM radio noise caused by EMI emitted from EV motor/circuits was still significant. I guess it's still VERY HARD to shield these EMIs.

Full disclosure: I've owned BMW ActiveE and BMW i3.

[1] [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098893_bmw-i3-electric-...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098893_bmw-i3-electric- car-quirk-no-am-radio--but-why)

[2] [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099782_bmw-i3-rex- elect...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099782_bmw-i3-rex-electric-car- coding-unlocks-features-owners-want-and-may-void-warranty)

<comment><USER44> The Tesla Model S has AM. It's fun to tune the radio to an unused frequency and drive around. The radio picks up a ton of noise that sort of emulates just a little bit how a loud gasoline engine would sound.

I hear that they've removed AM from the Model X.

<comment><USER43>
       The radio picks up a ton of noise that sort of emulates just a little bit how a loud gasoline engine would sound.

It's the same behavior in BMW EVs(i3/i8/ActiveE/MiniE). It's not a constant noise on AM radio but really when you press the accelerator pedal hard on a quiet street could you hear the interference. BMW consider that unacceptable based on their "standards".

Apparently a lot ofTesla Model S owners agree with BMW on the subpar AM radio reception and complaint on their forum[1], which was probably why AM radio removed from Model X. I do consider that a surprise feature (of emulating engine revs) albeit it's a bit annoying sometimes.

[1] [https://forums.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/am-radio- station...](https://forums.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/am-radio-stations- make-whir-sound-car-accellerates-and-slows)

<comment><USER45> Funny that alternator whine is the bane of all car audio installers and a similar thing is a feature in EVs :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I did something similar back in the day using CRT monitors that displayed the right image at the right time to produce desired radio waves. The range was very limited, however, and lots of background noise but you could certainly hear the music that was playing if you tuned your radio and brought it real close to the monitor.

</comment><comment><USER47> Usenix paper this code mentions in the README, includes presentation video: [https://www.usenix.org/node/190937](https://www.usenix.org/node/190937)

I'll try to find time to try to transmit some data this way and receive it with my rad1o.

</comment><comment><USER48> Worked great on my MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) with an old panasonic boombox. Very cool!

</comment><comment><USER49> Can this read other data in the system bus?

</comment><comment><USER50> If I put my ear up to my late 2013 rMBP I can actually hear the tune playing without breaking out my SDR. Cool.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wow, if this works, that is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER51> Fascinating!!!

</comment><comment><USER52> RIP Airgap</comment>


Show HN: My weekend project was forging an AK47 into a soup ladle - <AUTHOR> http://izbicki.me/blog/turning-an-ak-47-into-a-serving-ladle

<comment><USER2> Having spent a fair amount of time around hot metal, I would not recommend replicating the author's choice of apparel for this task. It is not unusual for small bits of metal to go flying as you're hammering. If one of these lands on your skin, you're in for some pain.

I was torch-cutting the bolts off of a commercial mower (like the ones they pull behind tractors) once, when a BB sized ball of hot metal wedged between the tongue of my shoe and my foot. My pants leg had managed to tuck itself inside the tongue of my shoe, providing all the opening it needed to get in.

The shop foreman had previously recommended the use of work boots (with a high ankle) and welding chaps when using the cutting torch. I ignored his advice.

On that day, as I squelched my foot in the toilet (it was the nearest source of water), I learned the value of proper attire in a working environment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who was it who said (may be paraphrased), "Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who didn't"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Meh. I'd personally rather be the oppressed than the oppressor.

<comment><USER3> May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countryman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> too bad you can't eat from it.

Isn't there something you could cover it with to make it food-safe?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty sure I could electroplate it with something that would be safe, but I don't think it'd be worth the risk. It's probably getting added to my metal shop as a tool for handling molten metal.</comment></comment>


SMSGupShup (India's "Twitter") Grows To 20 million Users, $150,000/month Revenue - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/04/smsgupshup-indias-twitter-grows-to-20-million-users-150000month-revenue/ <comment><USER2> Well that kind of proves once again that there's not money in this thing. $2m a year in revenue off 20m users. Not to mention the SMS fees which likely mean they are losing cash hand over fist.

<comment><USER3> I could be _way_ off here, but I thought that once you get above a certain level of SMS traffic, you can actually negotiate a rev-share deal with the networks. After all, they're making a LOT of money from their subscribers off all that SMS traffic.

<comment><USER4> Incoming messages in India does not cost anything to the recipient, and smsgupshup is mainly a one to many broadcast system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is totally weird... Being an Indian myself, I agree SMS is a very common communication system here, but I've never heard of this website. AND, I'm not 40+, I'm still in college :-)

<comment><USER6> haha...

me too. I'm still in colg and also working on an sms app. I've done my research and atleast among people I've met... Hackers, college crowd, oldies, etc I haven't seen this get popular.

And as @aak said, this isn't a Twitter competitor at all. It's a Group SMS service (ya the one to which we like to send "good morning" every evening).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't equivalent to Twitter at all. SMSGupShup is a groups platform built on SMS.</comment>


The newest data science articles and tutorials from around the globe, every day - <AUTHOR> http://www.analisted.com <comment><AUTHOR> Would be great to hear your thoughts! Just launched the site. Much appreciated!</comment>


Show HN: Dnstwister – Domain name permutation service - <AUTHOR> https://dnstwister.report <comment><AUTHOR> This is a project I've been working, wrapping the dnstwist library ([https://github.com/elceef/dnstwist](https://github.com/elceef/dnstwist)), to provide a list of domains "like" the one you submit, along with RSS feeds for changes and json/csv exports. I'm look to put email alerting into the mix too.

The idea is to assist in identifying possible phishing/copyright infringement domains.

Any feedback would be very welcome.</comment>


Orbit – open-source design system - <AUTHOR> https://orbit.kiwi/ <comment><USER2> Seriously, what is it? What's a "travel project"?

<comment><USER3> From the About page, it seems this is an open sourced UI library built by the developers of kiwi.com which apparently creates travel products (still unsure what that is). So the UI components are geared towards a travel product type of website.

So its a UI library, theres probably travel niche lingo and components in it.

<comment><USER4> Kiwi has rebranded itself from Skypicker. It's a flight (now other modes of transport) search engine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The website is responsive, but the page is wider than my screen. I have to scroll horizontally to see everything. Not very encouraging for a design system.

<comment><USER6> I viewed it in portrait on my phone and was surprised how usable it was. The default display mode isn't great, but there's tabs/nav at the bottom to let you see the component canvas or demo and then switch back to the component list.</comment></comment>


Twitter's Misbegotten Censorship - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/twitter-censorship-will-only-empower-the-alt-right/507929/?single_page=true <comment><AUTHOR> _" The culture of offence-taking, platform-denying, and heckler-vetoing—now spreading ever outward from the campuses—lets loudmouths and thugs present themselves as heroes of free thought."_

The question is, _" how do you deny audience?"_

<comment><USER2> Lol! (can I lol here?)

Reading _" The culture of offence-taking, platform-denying, and heckler- vetoing"_, my first thought was of the US Congress for the past 20 years or so.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" my first thought was of the US Congress for the past 20 years or so"_

This is a valid point. The quality of discourse, the inability to tolerate diverse ideas without resorting to insults. This is evident not only in the political class in the US but also the UK and the antipodes.

Here's an example of political discourse in Australia: [https://thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/11/12/joh...](https://thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/11/12/john- hewson-the-negativity-opposition-politics/14788692003964)</comment></comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's Anti-Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131010180518-8451-silicon-valley-s-anti-social-network

<comment><USER2> exclusivity is a never ending game.</comment>


Steve Wozniak: The Future of AI Is 'Scary and Very Bad for People' - <AUTHOR> http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244236 <comment><USER2> not sure if that is a typo or artistic license in the opening paragraph.</comment>


Uber insider on why he stayed during worst year ever - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-mission/why-i-stayed-at-uber-50bd46b6c202 <comment><USER2> ugh, I tried to read this but I couldn't make it to the first paragraph</comment>


Would You Bet $100,000,000 on Your Pet Programming Language? (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://prog21.dadgum.com/13.html

<comment><USER2> Typical, but sad myopic thinking that one language should do every possible thing well.

For example, Unix tools were designed to be good for one single task and then strung together using pipes. Each tool is left to decide how to be implemented in the best way possible instead of being centrally imposed. This could be C, Lisp, Bash, Perl, Python. In the end, it doesn't really matter which language each specific tool chose; it only matters that they work.

Another example, the typical video game on your iPhone is written in multiple languages: C, C++, Objective-C, Lua. The build process may include some shell scripts. And if there is a server component, that may have been written in Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP, C, C++, Go, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if there are any languages or language implementations that he mentioned in this post that weren't ready for real-world use in late 2007 but are ready now. D has certainly matured since then.

How about some more recent languages, like Scala, Clojure, Go, and Rust?</comment>


Nokia's Losses Fires Up Finland's Start-Up Culture - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/08/04/nokias-losses-become-finlands-gains/

<comment><USER2> I went through hundreds of resumes from Nortel employees (and a few interviews) while Nortel was bleeding employees. It was pretty brutal, their skill set was irrelevant and the entitlement high. I felt pretty bad for them. The experience leads me to believe that the sooner someone leaves a sinking ship, the better he or she is. Both because they are able to recognize the problem and because they have options available to them.

Can't it be argued that Nokia's losses are due, at least in part, to bad engineering?

<comment><USER3> How do you figure? Have you ever owned a Nokia phone?

The software maybe isn't a glittering example of perfection, but my E72 is the best phone hardware I've ever owned or seen.

<comment><USER4> Well, he could have included Software Engineering in that.

That said, I don't think the _engineered_ part of Nokia's software was bad. In fact, from what I understand Symbian was/is fanastic. But the UI was absolutely awful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm glad Finland doesn't think they should "save jobs" and bailout their big companies. Paradigm shifts and temporarily killing some jobs are the only way to progress. I'm sure Finland will come out better than it was.

<comment><USER6> Finland has successfully brought their economy back from the brink. They definitely did not do it by bailing out failing businesses.

I highly recommend reading "The Information Society and the Welfare State" which covers Finland's economic recovery and business/innovation culture.

<comment><USER7> Actually, we did bail out banks in 90s.

However, drawing parallels to current situation is not necessarily relevant as Finland's economic crisis happened in quite unique conditions due to collapse of USSR. There was no Western European (in political sense) country which was as depended in exports to USSR.

Situation in Japan in 90s seems much more relevant to situation that US and Europe are currently facing. A few hours ago I HN-posted a link to an interesting video where Mr. Koo explains how Balance Sheet Recession (Japan in 90s, US now) is different than traditional recession (he is in favor of fiscal stimulus) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2846561>

<comment><USER6> Ah, interesting. I wasn't aware of a bank bailout. Thanks for the info/link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think raise of startup culture in Finland is quite independent of Nokia's current fall, but Nokia's earlier success has been an ingredient for the raise of the current movement. The godfathers of this movement started their companies in late 90s in either mobile or gaming sectors and are now acting as angels and mentors or serial entrepreneurs. It's clear that Nokia's success did help mobile startups a lot. Success of gaming companies was independent of Nokia and was due to Finnish demo scene, but also for mobile gaming companies, Nokia's presence was an obvious benefit.

However, the raise of the new startup movement in Finland started earlier than Nokia's problems became obvious. I think it's part of the same global startup movement that e.g. Y-combinator has been creating. As it's mostly cultural phenomenon, role models and blogs like Arctic Startup has played very important role. I was part of Jaiku that was acquired by Google, and although it was just a talent acquisition, many people have said afterwards that it really inspired them to become more interested in startups.</comment>


Negotiations Failed: How Oracle Killed Java EE - <AUTHOR> https://headcrashing.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/negotiations-failed-how-oracle-killed-java-ee/ <comment><USER3> The Java ecosystem has been slowly dying for years, it's already the new Cobol at this stage.

I have the impression that a lot of the mindshare has switched to the Node and Javascript ecosystem, especially the frontend devs, via the Typescript / Angular path, which is a natural path to Java developers due to the comfort given by familiar concepts like static types, classes, etc.

When I used to do Java, I always found that Spring was a much better framework than Java EE, and have used it in most projects I've worked.

Oracle did not take a note from the Microsoft book and is really behaving that an evil corporate overlord.

It's clear at this stage that they bought Sun in order to slowly turn Java proprietary, and charge billions to the companies that are now fully Java- based for the next few decades.

I'm glad I saw the writing on the wall and switched, but the problem is that Java is still being taught a lot at schools, and school programs especially universities are hard to adapt and only change every 4-5 years or so.

<comment><USER4> Working in the JVM world I'm always surprised to hear that its dying, the JVM and Java moves faster forward than ever, Graal is about to go 1.0, a bunch of very interesting (very) low latency GCs are in the pipe (for example ZGC and Shenandoah) and lots of other interesting projects like Valhalla promise to keep the JVM relevant for the next 20 years. Oracle have made some moves to monetize on parts of its investment, but the situation is largely misrepresented.

Ref:

\- [https://openjdk.java.net/projects/valhalla/](https://openjdk.java.net/projects/valhalla/)

\- [https://www.graalvm.org](https://www.graalvm.org)

\- [https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/zgc/Main](https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/zgc/Main)

\- [https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/shenandoah/Main](https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/shenandoah/Main)

<comment><USER5> Too little too late, and I highly doubt that (5-year-old) Valhalla will deliver even one of the promised features (value types) in the next 3 years. Remember that the original plan was to have all Valhalla features in Java 10.

Java/JVM was in the ideal position to dominate the software world for the whole 21th century 15 years ago. Instead they did an IE6 and stagnated for so long that their competitors became plain better.

I'd say Java/JVM is now where IE was in 2008. Still massive majority market share, but in decline because people are switching to competitors. LLVM and webassembly are eating JVM's cake, and a multitude of languages like Kotlin, C#, Go, Rust and even Javascript and Python are chipping away at Java's market share.

<comment><USER6> > _webassembly [is] eating JVM 's cake_

It's hard for me to take all the "Java is dying" threads seriously when they don't even seem to understand where Java plays. _Webassembly_? Really? That's a client-side tech, and 99.999% of Java devs ceded the browser battleground pre-9/11.

Java's bread and butter is EAI, ETL, and server-side business application development. Particularly with pieces requiring heavily distributed design. Node might pick away at some of the lowest-hanging fruit (e.g. JavaScript webdevs writing their own REST endpoints to fetch user settings from the database). But most of that crowd doesn't understand what the terms "EAI" or "ETL" even mean. Hell, most of that crowd has never had the experience of working for a company that turns a profit. The next major downturn will be interesting to watch...

And JavaScript is the only JVM-alternative to take seriously at all. Hype trains come and go for Rust, .NET Core, Go, etc. But they never really gain serious traction beyond a non-Java niche area, and/or devolve into endless arguments about generics or whatever.

I've seen zero actual encroachment into anything that earns me money for the past 10 years now, and at this point I'll probably be retired before I have to worry about it.

<comment><USER7> You're right that Java is entrenched in a lot of the enterprise space, but I think you're being quick to dismiss entrants that have gained steam in the last few years.

For example, Go is becoming the default in Kubernetes applications. It's eating tech companies that became large in the last few years like Lyft and Uber. It'll spread to other large tech companies like Amazon or IBM with ease. It will possibly get picked up by a significant number of universities for undergrad courses within a few years as well.

<comment><USER6> Seriously, people. K8s is a container orchestration system. Yes, it's _written_ in Go, like Docker itself. DevOps tooling is a niche area where Go has been very successful. But k8s _runs_ whatever you put into your Docker containers.

I've seen no indication of it changing which languages people choose to containerize (Node containers probably being way more common than Go ones). If anything, easy containerization negates one of Go's strongest selling points (i.e. standalone executables with no need for a runtime environment).

<comment><USER8> Exactly! In the enterprise world, there is a lot of Java and .NET code that isn't going away for a while especially since K8s makes it easier to port to the cloud. In my enterprise, the only other language that comes close in usage numbers is Python, so I think a lot of enterprise folks will opt for that over Go.

<comment><USER9> As someone who works on Kubernetes in the enterprise I would agree - there's lots of go, but it's newer and organized around the teams who were early adopters. And even the early adopters have massive Java, .NET, and increasingly Node footprints.

However I think the rule of enterprise software is that it's increasingly fragmented and diverse - that's partially why Kubernetes and containers were so attractive because it allows operations to unify footprint on prem _and_ have a path to cloud.

Nobody in an enterprise ever stopped using a piece of technology. It lives on forever (and public cloud just gives it new places to live).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oracle makes Java a risk factor in all projects. I stopped approving new Java projects in my team 2 years ago after we switched to Go. This wasn't a decision we took lightly and it took almost a decade for me to be comfortable with leaving Java behind.

But it is the right thing to do. Oracle is not trustworthy.

<comment><USER11> Strange attitude to take when you can just target OpenJDK and then it is completely irrelevant what Oracle does or does not do.

The fact is that every single one of the largest companies has some Java or Scala code within their core platform. And none of them have ever raised Oracle as a risk.

<comment><USER12> The most valuable corporation in the world as of this date uses zero Java for anything "core".

Anecdotally, nearly every CIO/CTO I've encountered in the last few sees Oracle as a huge risk. Most particularly with regards to databases, which are even sticker than applications which have shorter life cycles.

<comment><USER13> You mean the servers Apple has running on WebObjects, JEE and Clojure for iTunes, Apple Maps and their iCloud?

<comment><USER12> Microsoft is currently the most valuable company in the world.

<comment><USER14> And they created a whole language and ecosystem (C# / .Net), even before Oracle bought Sun, so they wouldn't be dependent on a 3rd party for that.

<comment><USER15> Ironically, .NET was created because MS tried and failed to take over the Java ecosystem using an Embrace, Extend, Extinguish approach that ran afoul of SUN's licencing deal with them.

<comment><USER13> Less ironically, Google managed to create their J++.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> « Oracle already started a blocking politics at the Eclipse Foundation's board, where Oracle has a seat, and where _unanimous_ decisions are needed. Oracle now has the power, and apparently will use that power, to block the foundation's future. It demonstrated that power already in a board meeting, where they had the sole vote against an otherwise unaimous move. »

I hope other organisations with a director from Oracle are taking note.

[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/board- members/](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/board-members/)

<comment><USER5> For me it's more a lesson about how unanimous votes, or unanimous - N can become problematic.

In the EU the same is happening. Poland and Hungary have found a loophole allowing them to ignore EU rules and sanctions while still profiting from subsidies and market access.

All sanctions against a member state require unanimous-1 (all states except the sanctioned member) votes and Poland is vetoing all sanctions against Hungary, and Hungary all sanctions against Poland.

<comment><USER17> > Poland and Hungary have found a loophole allowing them to ignore EU rules > and sanctions while still profiting from subsidies and market access

AFAIK this was tit-for-tat: HU & PL closed/sold-off their industry in favor of WEU in exchange for subsidies. Removing these subsidies for any reason would violate the main economic agreement between them and EU. Mind you, there is no significant locally grown industry in those countries anymore (outside of a few state-owned industries), WEU profited from this enormously, especially Germany. As economic potential of this arrangement has been exhausted after 25 years already, incorporating UA is the next move to give EU (primarily DE/FR/NL) some nice economy boost for the next 10 years. EU is essentially playing Sim City.

<comment><USER18> Adding to that: one of the fundamental EU rules was freedom to do bussiness anywhere in EU. That worked in favor of Western countries which had their corporations opening offices in Poland, and making huge profits here.

After some time Poland found some niches for itself, e.g. Polish transportation companies dominate EU market in truck freight. What was the EU response to that? They recently passed change in labor laws, that would make this business unprofitable.

So: common EU market is fine as long as Western countries benefit from it, but Poland or other Eastern countries making money from business in the West is against the rules :)

<comment><USER19> What evidence do you have that the labor laws are a response to polish domination of freight, or that those laws would would somehow only cause polish carriers to become unprofitable?

<comment><USER18> It was explicitly stated by French president Macron, that the goal is to end Polish dominance in truck freight :)

Basically the law change is this:

Now, if you are Polish truck driver employed in Poland, you are subject to Polish tax and labor codes, including things like tax rate, minimum wage, etc. What France wants (and what was passed, but is not in effect yet) is that if said truck driver crosses the border of another country (say, France) he should be subject to that country tax and labor code. Which is riddiculous, because the driver does not change his tax residence, he just enters France for a few days it takes to make a delivery, and then comes back to Poland.

<comment><USER20> Would it also be ridiculous if a factory worker would be employed in one country and just cross the border to do a bit of factory work? All kinds of other local laws apply just by entering a country. How is minimum wage different?

<comment><USER21> _Would it also be ridiculous if a factory worker would be employed in one country and just cross the border to do a bit of factory work?_

It would be ridiculous, because the factory worker would be working at a company domiciled in the other country. That is because, a company in one country can not just open a factory in another country without having an entity in the latter country.

Consider an alternative situation: Franz is employed in Hungary as a writer of fiction, but crosses into Austria many days and uses wifi to work there. Should Franz be paid Austrian minimum wage?

 _All kinds of other local laws apply just by entering a country._

Local laws do apply, but generally one can not just enter another country and work there. Very often one is _specifically prohibited_ from working in another country without a visa.

<comment><USER18> Except the stated goal of European Union is free movement of workers. You can literaly go and work in any EU country, no visa or work permission needed.

But that's not really the situation here: it's a business providing services for customers in another country. You send a driver abroad for a few days, that should not make him subject for local tax and labor laws. If you can prove that said worker spent significant period of time there (most tax treaties use 183 days as a rule of thumb) then that's a different matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I bet Oracle will have its MS pivot moment, sooner that we think, to face AWS, PostgreSQL, IBM/Red Hat, Pivotal Spring offers...

But it was a lot of time wasted:

Apache Harmony/Java

LibreOffice/OpenOffice

MariaDB/MySQL

Jenkins/Hudson

now Eclipse/Java

Right now, they are in sales hurry mode, calling at all occasions technical contacts each time you create a new account to download something on their web site...

...

[https://netbeans.apache.org/](https://netbeans.apache.org/)

[https://cloud.oracle.com/containers/kubernetes- engine](https://cloud.oracle.com/containers/kubernetes-engine)

...

In O/WebLogic, javax.* imports are by default private.

Open9J vs Graal

[https://github.com/eclipse/omr/issues/1118](https://github.com/eclipse/omr/issues/1118)

<comment><USER22> forgot Iluminos/OpenSolaris story - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=33m0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=33m0s)

[https://blogs.eclipse.org/post/mike-milinkovich/update- jakar...](https://blogs.eclipse.org/post/mike-milinkovich/update-jakarta-ee- rights-java-trademarks)

Note: Oracle ECM, WebCenter Content has no simple Virtual Document solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > the worst case possible, as it not only voids the "WORA" (Write Once Run > Anywhere) principle, it simply won't happen in reality: After 18 months > virtually no application vendor really wants to spend the time and money to > update all customers with recompiled versions just for the sake of a renamed > platform with a dubios future.

WORA was never perfect, I would be surprised if there was even a single JRE release that didn't note a breaking change in its release notes. So vendors should have a process to update their releases just for that already in place.

> The future is unclear because Oracle already started a blocking politics at > the Eclipse Foundation's board, where Oracle has a seat, and where unanimous > decisions are needed.

They have no rules to out board members acting in bad faith?

<comment><USER24> If they have such rules, I wonder how many votes they require to use...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well, mmm, good riddance? I suppose this will cause a lot of hardships to a lot of people who need to maintain JavaEE, but the fact that Java EE is no more is nothing but good. It is a nightmare case of overengineering.

<comment><USER26> Time to switch to C#. Funny how it took Oracle to do what C# originally intended to do: kill Java.

<comment><USER27> _hand up_ uh not as experienced as most people on HN, what's the hate for c#? I went from vb6 to VB.net then c# and while I _fully_ admit I'm a casual coder, i haven't had an issue (with what I do, which is voice to string primarily) so far. Is there something better for this I perhaps should look into?

<comment><USER5> The .NET ecosystem is an order of magnitude smaller than the JVM ecosystem. Up until ~3 years¹ ago C#/.NET also meant a fully Microsoft and Windows environment for all practical purposes². This is changing and Microsoft seems to be embracing open source and Linux, but it takes time for a 20 year old ecosystem to fully make the transition.

¹ The story is Steve Balmer was very anti-open source and forbade most interop or support for Linux, so this only could start changing when he left in 2014.

² You always had Mono with is why Unity and GNOME could also use C#, but is was very niche outside of Unity.

<comment><USER28> That fully Microsoft and windows stack has had ripple effects. At least from my perspective in South Asia. First the price was a deal breaker. Second, people who started with C# quickly found their only employment opportunities to be at large companies. Those who started with Java/Node/Ruby had a much wider array to choose from. Third, when people jumped to start their own companies, Java/Node/Ruby/Python/Go won by a large margin. Startups rarely had the cash to spare for Microsoft stack and MS stack guys had to change their skill sets which is a painful endeavour in and of itself. Fourth, after some time people, who had been in the market for years, started discouraging younger devs to committing exclusively to a full MS stack. People rather interpreted it as dumping the MS stack. In my batch, only a dozen or so people were interested in pursuing C#/.Net. By the time we graduated only one person was still pursuing that stack.

TLDR; Price was a big factor which only large companies could afford. Not everyone can be employed by large companies. This had a lot of secondary effects.

<comment><USER29> Funny you should say that because it was Sun Microsystems itself which caused me to switch to C#. Starting out in my career I worked for serial entrepreneurs exclusively to learn from them and one such company used Sun Java for their main product. Hello there! Every time the Java development chatroom crashed for a couple years or so it was me who started it back up. The company I worked for provided that chat software. Sun was not happy with the performance and sent us a letter citing the GPL demanding we host, at our expense, the server for their chats and also a 10 point response plan for turning things around. They claimed that since we used Java our IP was theirs respectively and we were now unpaid employees of Sun. They did not take our revenue (although that was never off the table) but they did assign a tech writer to scream at me over the phone whenever it went down. This "product" was written by a teenager for a coding contest we did and that developer received ~100$. Those agreements you sign off on when installing Java are all about that and sooo much more. This article is about the same thing happening once again under Oracle. Be careful what you agree to- anything I do Java related anymore is OpenJDK. TL;DR here is Java is not evil in itself but the licensing around it certainly is.

<comment><USER30> This sounds very unlikely. So SUN Microsystems claimed that you should run service for them because of GPL that had classpath exception? Even without that exception that is not how GPL works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >But once Eclipse products would be not vendor-neutral anymore, the EF's tax exemption might become void, which would mean a financial fiasco, or possibly mean the end of the organization as a hole.

I think the problem is Oracle's a-hole, in this situation.

<comment><USER31> Do not anthropomorphise the lawnmower.

<comment><USER32> It's not a lawnmower. It's an organization made if people, and it's responsible for it's actions.

<comment><USER26> Here's the full reference -- the point is that Oracle's a-hole is Larry Ellison:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc)

"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' \-- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." \-- Bryan Cantrill

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > And the idea that corporate developers or even frankly any developers are > switching to LLVM and WebAssembly en masse is pretty ridiculous.

There is only 1 popular language released since 2009 that targets JVM: Kotlin. All other target JS, their own bytecode or LLVM: Go, Rust, Dart, Elixer, Julia, Typescript, Swift.

This is a significant difference from 2003-2009 languages which all targeted JVM unless they were Microsofts: Groovy, Scala and Clojure.

<comment><USER13> And all of them have a lot of work to catch up with 25 years of market experience.

<comment><USER33> Because development that happened in _1994_ is really relevant today.

How will these languages ever catch up with innovations like JavaBeans, Java Server Pages, and Java Server Faces?

<comment><USER34> > _Because development that happened in 1994 is really relevant today._

1994? We still depend on tons of features, infrastructure, and techniques developed in the 60s and 70s.

Heck, most of what the JS world considers "state of the art" was already available in 70s languages.

As for the snark, first, the innovations the parents refers to is not "JavaBeans, Java Server Pages, and Java Server Faces", but stuff like rock- solid GCs, tooling, and so on.

And even techniques on the level of "JavaBeans, Java Server Pages, and Java Server Faces" are only going to be resold to several other languages. The JS worlds keeps on piling Java (or older) techniques and syntax.

Heck, they just re-invented the "private instance variables" (with an ugly hash syntax) on their latest efforts...

<comment><USER33> The contention was that other languages had a "lot to catch up" with Java because it's been around for 25 years. So how haven't other statically typed languages "caught up"?

In fact, Java is so far behind C# with true Generics, LINQ - not the syntax the entire linq expressions -> expression trees -> runtime providers that can parse the trees and translate it to a destination syntax, etc. it's laughable. Can anyone say honestly that Oracle has been a good steward over Java or that it has improved as fast as any modern popular language?

And the "tooling" around Java is the main reason that when I had a choice between C# and Java in the mid 2000s, I chose C#. Heck, the Visual Studio 97 was better than most Java tooling is today.

Yeah I played around with the early VB like Java IDEs like JBuildsr. Java's IDE's have never been strong points. Neither have the XML is king mindset.

<comment><USER35> Here we go again with "true Generics". Type erasure makes interop easy (for an almost insignificant cost), including with Java prior to generics. But that's also what makes different languages on the Java platform interop so well (contrast with the CLR, where this is not the case; they've baked variance into the runtime and are paying a high price for that decision). If Java had baked their type system into JVM, Scala, Kotlin, Groovy would have to dance around that. Haskell, for example, erases all types, not just type parameters (well, sort of; it does reify the constructor tag/discriminator, which corresponds to type information in Java), and people get fancy with types in Scala, too. The only real annoyance erasure brings is that you cannot overload a method with another that erases to the same type.

All in all, The JVM is leading not only CLR on all fronts, but pretty much any other runtime. C# compilers and GCs are at least a decade behind Java's. You may argue on how important those things are compared to other tradeoffs, but those are the areas where Java was designed to compete at, and those are the areas where it is leading by a wide margin.

Edit: when Java was first introduced, its original designers stated their intention to construct a conservative, low-innovation frontend language, and a high-innovation runtime. In many respects, .NET has the opposite design. You may prefer one or the other and that's OK, but it makes comparing the two on any single aspect very problematic. Of course Java won't keep up on language innovation compared to .NET, and of course .NET won't keep up with Java on runtime innovation -- they each choose to get their competitive advantage in different aspects.

<comment><USER33> Seeing that generics have been around since 2005 in C#, I think the .Net community has had plenty of time to work around the incompatibilities....

There are other languages that support CLR besides C# and they manage to "work around" generics.

 _All in all, The JVM is leading not only CLR on all fronts, but pretty much any other runtime. C# compilers and GCs are at least a decade behind Java 's. You may argue on how important those things are compared to other tradeoffs, but those are the areas where Java was designed to compete at, and those are the areas where it is leading by a wide margin._

By what measurement? Have any specifics?

[https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/faster/csharp.html)

[https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/acss.2018.23.issue-1...](https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/acss.2018.23.issue-1/acss-2018-0005/acss-2018-0005.pdf)

And Java still doesn't have anything equivalent to LINQ.

<comment><USER35> F# does not have higher kinded types, because of CLR. So no, they don't manage "work around" generics.

Regarding measurements: [https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/)

Also, I am very interested to see new benchmark results once AOT SubstrateVM will be more widely adopted in JVM community. Demo: [https://youtu.be/MN6jNIwl2FQ?t=1136](https://youtu.be/MN6jNIwl2FQ?t=1136)

RedHat already working on a framework which takes full benefit of that: [https://quarkus.io/](https://quarkus.io/)

All in all, with upcoming value types, SubstrateVM adoption, fibers and nice languages improvements like records, future is brighter than ever for Java.

Edit. Regarding JVM vs CLR [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15955685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15955685)

<comment><USER33> And the only person who is saying that is so (with a lot of people disagreeing) is someone who "work[s] at Oracle on VM research"

<comment><USER34> Well, I agree, and I don't work at Oracle. So? Any other conspiracy theories?

<comment><USER33> Care to post benchmarks?

<comment><USER34> Benchmarks of what?

What exactly in BoyRobot777's comment (which I said I agree to) calls for benchmarks to be proved?

Nowhere are benchmark results taken for granted as faster or anything. Grandparent says: "Also, I am very interested to see new benchmark results once AOT SubstrateVM will be more widely adopted in JVM community."

I simply agree with the statement made: "All in all, with upcoming value types, SubstrateVM adoption, fibers and nice languages improvements like records, future is brighter than ever for Java." \-- so, I responded to your comment which seemed to be skeptic of that (and accusing the parent of working for Oracle).

If you were referring to someone else and some other comment, why post your comment as a response directly under BoyRobot777?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If I understand correctly, OpenJDK is licensed under GPL with _classpath exception_ \- and the only thing that is preventing openjdk from being unusable in any commercial settings is a few lines of legalese, controlled by Oracle, on handful of source files in various packages. If Oracle removes that classpath exception legalese in some upcoming jdk version from these source files (which they are fully in control of), openjdk essentially becomes GPL- only.

I guess then openj9, coretto etc would be more appealing but soon enough it feels like there will not be Java left - since those distributions don't/can't call themselves java unless oracle allows them to... and I'm not sure why they would - as apparent by OpenJ9 not being called java.

So is it Java EE is dead, soon followed by Java?

Am I mistaken about any of this?

<comment><USER37> > Am I mistaken about any of this?

You can't revoke a GPL license unless the licensee violated the GPL. Additionally, the GPL has this nifty "Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients" clause. In other words, if you put some code out there under the GPL, there is no way for you to un-GPL that particular code. Even if you bring out a new version of it that isn't GPL any more, the old version still is. (This is quite important to make copyleft work)

<comment><USER38> It sounds like the parent's issue is the other way, that Oracle might remove the classpath exception and then GPL would infect _everything_ , effectively killing commercial opportunities.

<comment><USER36> Yes, that's what I was wondering about

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Oracle never fails to show off how evil they are.

<comment><USER13> While there is some truth to it,they did more research for Java than Sun ever did, and no one else cared to buy Sun.

<comment><USER40> That's, sadly, true. At the time of acquisition, Sun was only a shadow of its former glory...

<comment><USER26> It all started circling the drain when they merged SunOS with System V.

Solaris: So bad I left the company.

<comment><USER40> They still did a ton of cool stuff after that. It was under Jonathan Schwartz that the lack of direction and the overwhelming confusion became painfully obvious, not knowing whether it was a software company trying to profit from and compete against free (as in beer) software, a hardware company narrowing its own niche at the very top or... something totally different.

I kept a couple Type 7 keyboards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> To me this seems like a play against OpenJ9 which is at least partially based on OpenJDK. Rumor has it that AdoptOpenJDK lost their TCK license because they also published OpenJ9 builds.

I'm a bit surprised by this given that IBM is a long time license holder and I can remember JavaOne keynotes where Oracle celebrated IBM "joining" OpenJDK.

<comment><USER42> Where can I read more about AdoptOpenJDK losing its TCK license? Is there any post? Any leak from their team?

<comment><USER43> I searched for this myself. Found a tweet from last year and the current statement on their site. [https://adoptopenjdk.net/quality.html](https://adoptopenjdk.net/quality.html)

> Java Compatibility Kit (JCK) / TCK Compliance

> At this stage the London Jamocha Community CIC (aka LJC) has not been able > to reach an agreement with Oracle to use the Java SE Technology > Compatibility Kit (TCK) under the terms of the OpenJDK Community TCK License > Agreement (OCTLA).

> We will continue to work with Oracle on this matter.

> All AdoptOpenJDK binaries are tested with our suite of functional, > integration, stress, and performance tests, including real workloads from > popular languages and applications. We are very confident in the quality of > our builds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Oracle fights with the open source community and loses, again. They just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. What always happens is the Open Source people say "screw Oracle" and fork the project and the community comes along with them.

The Hudson/Jenkins and OpenOffice/LibreOffice fails were two of the quickest and most obvious. Java EE seems like the same sort of thing, but much bigger and in slow motion.

</comment><comment><USER45> Oracle is a disease. Everywhere it spreads things get bad :/

</comment><comment><USER46> Dumb question... Wouldn't it be possible to fork the namespace to something like javax -> jawax (or java->borneo as someone suggested) and then patch the JVM to alias the javax package to the would-be jawax package (or borneox or whatever) ?

<comment><USER41> You would probably rather write a JVM agent that changes the class references.

Eclipse will almost surely fork the namespace to something jakarta related.

<comment><USER41> Which turns to to be quite easy:

[https://twitter.com/rafaelcodes/status/1125032183167688706](https://twitter.com/rafaelcodes/status/1125032183167688706)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> (Not an expert on all the Java nomenclature / standards / politics)

What does Eclipse foundation have to do with Java EE? Does this news sabotage their use of OpenJ9 somehow?

<comment><USER48> After Java SE has become proprietary-like software, it was reported that Java EE division would be handed to the Eclipse Foundation. And that was good news because it meant that Java EE would be managed independently from Oracle but now we see that Oracle wants to make Java EE dependent on themselves, and that is bad news :::

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Oracle is a cancer.

Android may get infected one day which is worrisome.

What about MySQL.

Google should have bought Sun in the first place, unfortunately all they could see is its searching with ads.

Google better buy Canonical now before Oracle or other evils do it.

<comment><USER50> If anyone buys Canonical, I'm betting on Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I propose to mimic the intended move of the Indonesian government to move the capitol from Java to Borneo by forking OpenJDK/Java to OpenBDK/Borneo. If Oracle wants to keep the Java(tm) trademark, they can keep it.

<comment><USER13> Are you going to replace the 99% OpenJDK developers that are on Oracle's paycheck as well?

<comment><USER52> Yes. The Java ecosystem is far larger than Oracle. Java can absolutely thrive if Oracle were to cease to exist tomorrow, or if everyone else[1] decides to move to a fork.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19827875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19827875)

<comment><USER13> Again, where are those contributors?

Companies that just repackage Oracle's work don't count.

<comment><USER53> Pivotal is hiring for JDK/JVM development. Worldwide. If you're at Oracle and you want out, drop me a line or do a search for "JDK" at [https://pivotal.io/careers/openings](https://pivotal.io/careers/openings)

Several companies outside Oracle already employ JDK folks (IBM, for example). I expect that increasingly our partners and competitors will do the same.

<comment><USER13> So which JEPs on OpenJDK are being done by Pivotal? I fail to find them.

IBM does minor contributions to Java, and mainly follows the language specification non their own JVMs.

IBM was also the only company that bothered to make an initial proposal to acquire Sun, but withdrew it after Oracle's.

<comment><USER53> That Oracle employees are the dominant contributors _today_ is only evidence of the state of the world _today_.

Oracle is not owed indefinite fealty by folks locked into serfdom. Everyone working on the OpenJDK is entitled to work on it with someone else paying them.

<comment><USER13> So many words and no JEP contributions to show.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Are new systems being constructed in Java .. when starting on new projects Java was at one time (about 6-8 years ago) the leading alternative for Corporate IT (if they weren't a Microsoft shop). I doubt it very much.

Oracle is playing this not-so-good role, that Microsoft used to play, under Steve Ballmer, monopolistic, and evil.

I found Java hideous, the gratuitous OOP taken to extremes put me off. Spring came in, and you had class names that were a hundred characters long - <USER2> actual line of code was shorter than the class name. The problem with Java (and every programming language has its own achilles heel) - is everything has be class oriented - however much you try to bolt on, on top of that , to make it seem not so. . Java kills creativity, and expressiveness in software by its bloated syntax and OOP. We took up Java because at the time alternatives were few, but now its on its way being the new Cobol - this will sound ridiculous if you still are fully or partially, inside its bubble

I ran from our Java shop. My software architect mocked me "you'll be back in 6 months" \- instead, he quit the Java shop and stuck his head outside of the Java bubble and realized there was life outside.

</comment><comment><USER55> We all love Java, however we need to decouple the Language from the ecosystem that the new owner of Java, Oracle, wants to enforce upon customers.

Oracle made a clear business decision and will go forward squeeze every single dollar they possible can thru legal means, not from innovation or services.

<comment><USER56> How are they squeezing dollars here? They don't seem to be demanding payment, or at least not directly.

I read the board notes. This appears to be a disagreement about trademarks and compatibility licensing. To be called "Java" you need to be compatible with the Java specs, and also have a trademark license. That's how they enforce that the platform can be reimplemented but it's seamless to users. Seems Eclipse Foundation doesn't like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> how hard will it be to work out a script, that update the namespace automatically? it would even be possible to do that in the bytecode level I think.

I think Eclipse Foundation is f*cked, not by Oracle but its bureaucracy, and inability to reinvent itself.

<comment><USER58> > how hard will it be to work out a script, that update the namespace > automatically? it would even be possible to do that in the bytecode level I > think.

Java has reflection, so classes can be loaded by name at runtime (and the name might have come from a XML file somewhere, or be the result of string concatenation); also, the name of a class can be easily obtained so code can depend on that (for instance, a logging configuration XML file). That's before considering that some libraries generate classes on the fly (by dynamically generating and loading bytecode, which include class names).

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> .NET Core will welcome this round of Java orphans with open arms.

<comment><USER13> First it needs to sort out its history of not being compatible with all .NET Framework libraries.

<comment><USER33> The world is moving on from .Net Framework - including Microsoft. .Net Framework is definitely the new COBOL. It's basically in maintenance mode. Any company would be crazy to start a new greenfield project using .Net Framework and should have some type of plan to move to Core.

[https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/10/10/net- key...](https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2018/10/10/net- keynote.aspx?m=1)

 _The presenters said it will still be released with Windows, as it 's a component of Windows itself, so it will be supported for the lifetime of Windows. Microsoft is just going to be making highly compatible targeted improvements to .NET Framework after version 4.

So you shouldn't feel pressured to move off .NET Framework, but just know that it's going to be much more highly targeted compatible fixes kind of going forward and we recommend that all new development that you start on .NET is on .NET Core if possible_

<comment><USER13> I know what Microsoft wants, I spend most of my time as .NET dev.

That doesn't change the fact that many libs don't run on .NET Core, or outside Windows for that matter, specially the ones that depend on C++/CLI.

<comment><USER33> So instead of tying your horse to one dead end platform - .Net Framework - you're okay with tying your horse to two? It was clear that C++/CLI was a dead end a decade ago.

When Microsoft mentions thier "strategies" for various .Net languages, you notice which one is missing?

[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/the-net-language- strat...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/the-net-language-strategy/)

I'm very much a .Net fan but it makes about as much since as a developer to tie your fate to .Net framework or Windows only development in general in 2019 as it did for all of the companies not to move from VB6 after .Net was the future.

Even Azure host more Linux VMs than Windows.

<comment><USER13> I tie my horses to the platforms that customers pay for, instead of religious rants.

I even use C, if that is what customers want to have done for them.

Those Azure Linux VMs happen to run on Hyper-V hypervisors.

<comment><USER33> So it's "religious" not to tie your career to a platform that the vendor and the market are both moving away from? If I chose my language and technology choices based on what I like and not marketability, I wouldn't be going near React, Node or any of the cool kids stuff.

I would rather not end up like old VB6 developers trying to find a job in 2008.

I know a developer who worked in a company for 20 years got laid off and complained about "ageism" because no one would hire him and all of his experience in 2017 was in Windows Forms and Web Forms.

Yes, I've been there done that too. Mid 2008, I had been at a company doing C++/MFC and VB6 and felt stuck and unhireable. I was in my mod 30s then. I wouldn't dare tie myself to a stack that even the vendor is saying is being deprecated in my mid 40s.

I've also left a job before when the .Net product I was hired for couldn't find a market and they wanted everyone to switch and do PHP. All 14 developers left within six months. We all knew the danger of working in old tech.

<comment><USER13> Religion is the way you happen to defend your switch to . NET in every HN thread, even more than I bash C for, and from your story a certain uncertainty regarding what you got on the CV.

Selling services is so much more than tech stacks.

<comment><USER33> So you have forgotten about the threads that you responded to where I was advocating for native desktop apps over cross platform apps, where I spent years doing C++/MFC, Like this quote: _But seeing that I like the optionality of working for any of the dozens of companies that have job openings continuously for JavaScript, C#, C, C++, and even Python, I think I'll stick with those...._

<comment><USER13> It is hard to keep track of all answers, just complains about being stuck in tech X and how .NET has saved your life from whatever.

Which yeah, might have been the point, but hardly a picture of the global job market.

<comment><USER33> You mean it's hard to keep track, even though you've responded to the posts?

But if the post is concerning Java wouldn't it be kinda of silly to bring up C++, C, Python, and JavaScript/TypeScript?

What I did say that it was foolish from a long term career perspective not to see where the market is going and stick with a platform that even the vendor said is maintenance mode as far as .Net Framework and Windows Forms - or even Windows only development period. If I did that, I would still be writing C++/MFC apps and VB6.

My animus toward Java is more that Oracle is a horrible steward of the platform and before that Sun was.

<comment><USER13> Just because I responded to all posts doesn't mean I am able to remember everything.

It is also foolish to have senior devs focus on selling themselves as Language X dev, without any other skill to offer.

I would rather have a VB 6 guy on the team that can do proper software architecture design, speaks fluently two European languages across our customer sites and is able weight what really matters across the delivery pipeline, than someone that knows all the cool and latest of .NET Core, without anything else as added value.

<comment><USER33> So what are the chances that someone who is doing VB6 in 2019 and is talking about he has been maintaining a legacy combination VB6 app that interfaces with C++/ATL DCOM objects is keeping up with the latest advances in architecture, development practices, etc. compared to someone who does a show a history of transistioning as technology changes?

<comment><USER13> In the world of enterprise consulting, a great one.

Because again, that person has more than one hat to wear, instead of being stuck in coding silo.

<comment><USER33> As I said, having experience with modern technology is just "table stakes" to get your foot in the door _if_ you want to stay at least partially hands on.

With the few unsolicited offers I've gotten to work for consulting companies just through my network - the travel requirements just won't work for me right now - I kinda of know the requirements that most consulting companies are looking for.

Few of them are looking to do desktop Windows applications. Yeah some are looking for ways to run legacy Windows applications "in the cloud", but most are looking for a way to convert them to the web and I haven't come across any that actually want to start new greenfield desktop applications or for that matter .Net framework applications. Sadly, most aren't even looking at .Net Core. Hopefully that will change.

Don't get me wrong, until I chopped everything off of my resume I did before 2008, I did get a few recruiters who were looking for those older technologies, but why would I waste my time gaining experience in older technogies when there is a ridiculous amount of money to be made as a "digital transformation consultant" or by knowing cloud infrastructure and how to architect on top of it (pretty good at it), and the entire Docker ecosystem (learning it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think universities stifle writers. I think they don't stifle enough of them"

\--Flannery O'Conor.

Java EE and CORBA had to go. It didn't matter who pulled the plug.

</comment><comment><USER61> The beauty of the JVM is that I could make a class loading agent that fixes 'the problem' of the package renaming at runtime.

</comment><comment><USER62> _heads over to Python_ :)

<comment><USER13> Good luck with the performance over there.

<comment><USER40> The hot parts we can implement in C. There's not much overhead in crossing over to native code.

<comment><USER11> So I have to learn Python and C.

With C being an incredibly difficult language to get right.

So difficult that languages like Go and Rust were invented.

<comment><USER40> Only if the performance of your hot Python parts is a deal breaker, which is almost never.

In almost 20 years, I did it once. And it wasn't _really_ needed, but I wanted to know how much it'd be improved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Is Java separate to Java EE? Does this news have any impact on Java in general?

</comment><comment><USER64> Java would be better off if even Microsoft owned it.</comment>


A Federal Effort to Push Junk Food Out of Schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/health/nutrition/08junk.html?ref=health

<comment><AUTHOR> Schools should have to offer nutritious food. They have been doing so successfully since I was a child. How depressing for the overweight students. "Alright kids, no more candy and sodas here anymore, because of an obesity problem in this country." At that point, those poor kids who are picked on for their weight will become harassed because their "fat asses" ruined it for everyone. These people don't think!

<comment><USER2> That might be a bit of a stretch. I don't recall the administration of any K-12 school I attended ever explaining their reasons for doing anything (to the parents, maybe, but even that was rare). Though, even if the schools did explain the change, surely they'd be a bit more delicate than shouting "blame the fatties!" over the intercom system.

Admittedly, I might secretly be an optimist.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that they wouldn't be so crass about the whole thing, but kids are smart. It's not hard to figure out why a school might ban candy bars and sodas, then to assign blame to those they think are the cause of it. That sounds rather child-like to me, does it not?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: EU firms: Data Protection compliance if processing credit cards in USA? - <AUTHOR>

Startups based in the EU:
If you are processing payments or storing/vaulting credit cards using US services, how are you complying with the Data Protection Directive [1]?
Is the service Safe-Habor-registered? [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_95/46/EC_on_the_protection_of_personal_data
[2] http://www.export.gov/safeharbor <comment><AUTHOR> I am asking in general, but am specifically interested in Spreedly.

They are storing credit card data (which counts as "processing" "personal data") for many EU firms but don't appear to be Safe Harbor accredited.</comment>


Tulsa Remote - <AUTHOR> https://tulsaremote.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the best put-together economic development campaigns I have seen. Kudos to people behind this, it's a compelling case!</comment>


Ask HN: How does employee feedback work at your company? - <AUTHOR>

How does your company give feedback to its employees (annual performance reviews, 1-on-1 meetings, peer reviews)? What tools do you use to do this?<p>If nothing formal is in place, how do you keep expectations aligned between management and employees? <comment><USER2> Annual/biannual performance review.

Its sounded at first you were looking for feedback from employees which is equally if not more important.

</comment><comment><USER3> We have no feedback program at all. Works OK in our tiny little company.</comment>


Google Translate for Android Now Works With Photos - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/08/10/google-translate-reads-text-photo/ <comment><USER2> Would it be possible to make this functionality available offline? I figure devices are powerful enough today to not experience too big of a delay when translating images, but I assume the engine would need quite a bit of storage? When you travel you need something like this offline, not online.

<comment><USER3> I think the problem is more storage than power. I don't know exactly how Google Translate works but I've heard it uses human translated information as a corpus in an attempt to get natural-sounding translations (as opposed to the goofy old babelfish type translations).

Eg. Someone is translating something from Russian to English. They'll look back into their history of web pages which have human-translated Russian and English versions to see if any phrases in Russian match what they are actively translating and if they do, they'll attempt to incorporate the human-created English translation of that into their translation. The data allowing for this must be absolutely huge.

Having said that I'm sure they could do an offline version which didn't use the fancy human-translated corpus data and just gave you the crappy babelfish- style translation, which in a lot of real-world situations is good enough to get the gist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is fantastic - I tried it just now for Polish => English, and the interface is very good, letting you highlight parts of the image that you want translated.

Until now, when I've found a notice that makes _no_ sense to me, I've resorted to taking a photo and then translating with a dead-tree dictionary once I got home. This app is going to make it a _lot_ more difficult not to give in to temptation and cheat with Google.

Whilst Google's Polish translations are pretty bad, they do the job for translating random verbs, which give you enough. Something about using sitting down with a paper dictionary helps the words stay in my head though.

<comment><USER5> With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away.

<comment><USER4> _With technology, nobody ever needs to retain information ever again. It's just a Google away._

That's a different - although interesting - discussion. You get so much more from learning a language than just retaining information. I'd liken it to learning the piano; whilst plenty of people are happy to press a button and hear sounds come out, sometimes it's really nice to sit down and play, you know? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google, p-p-please make it available for iOS. Come on, make love, not war.

<comment><USER7> remember all those ios-first apps android users had to wait months for? karma is a bitch. :)

<comment><USER8> To be fair this is exactly the same as it has always been. Google provides exclusive features for its services via private APIs that only Android can use. Everyone else has to use the public API, including Apple. As a result Google-developed applications for their services that can utilize those private APIs are better than the Apple-developed programs that hook into Google services.

The good "iOS first" or "iOS exclusive" apps still are and still launch that way. Google services have always been different story. Just like Gmail before it and Maps before that, Google has no problem acting fair and while slowly and deliberately widening the gap between their private API and their public one.

Recently it bit them in the ass and they lost iOS mapping which brings in plenty of real advertising revenue. I'm not sure doing it again with your core business, search, is such a great idea.

It's worth keeping in mind who is really being hit by karma here. When Google shafts iOS like that, it cost them more money than anyone else. It really is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure I understand your response to zalew.

You have an issue with how Google's private APIs are better than their public APIs, and argue that ultimately this hurts Google most, right?

While that's a fine point, what does this have to do with how Google has released its _own_ apps on iOS before Android in the past?

EDIT: The iOS Maps controversy aside, I'm also not sure why Google Translate getting an update on Android would impact Google's "core business" of search.

<comment><USER8> Because iOS first makes sense from a financial standpoint. Android first just spites iOS at the overall expense of Google. The Maps API thing was just an example of how they pushed it too far.

My point being, it's fun to go Ha! at the "other side" and all but let's not lose sight of the bigger picture. iOS users have had plenty of reason to be smug because they made companies more money than Android, and that includes Google. It's easy to look at this and other Google apps and assume that it's the Android user's turn to be smug and the tables are turning, but I would very much argue that they are not.

I guess what I'm saying is, I wouldn't bother reading too much into this. The status quo in mobile is that way for a reason and that reason hasn't changed: money

I'm additionally arguing why this is a dumb decision, because I want to and not because its actually related to the parent comment.

As for your edit, I personally hold translate pretty close to search. If I'm bothering to translate something, it's usually something I want to search or just searched up. This feature won't by itself, my point is just that Google should be careful when choosing to widen the gap because it could eventually build up and bite them in the ass like it did with Maps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video. But like many startups the big boy's "everything is free" philosophy is going to hurt their business model.

<comment><USER4> _World Lens is able to do this real-time on live video._

Not for Polish, they're not. They also sadly don't support my beaten-up old ZTE Blade. Google translate has them beaten for both.

Edit: regarding the "everything is free" philosophy, I would glady pay for Word Lens. If it ran on my phone. And supported Polish. Neither of which I see as being terribly likely in the future. _goes on rant about how much I'd pay for a Polish lexicon in a format I can run some fun statistics against_

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Have been playing around with this feature and notice that there is a clear boundary when it comes to performance. It comes down to the size of the letters. If you scan a lot of letters it does recognize the words, but the letter recognition turns out to be poor. As soon as you zoom in a bit the performance will improve drastically.

All in all, neat feature :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Youdao dictionary Android app has the similar function to translate the word in live camera long time ago.

You can check the last screenshot in the app page [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dic...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youdao.dict&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd actually recommend the salmon just below the ham on the menu ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is one reason why I wish the Nexus 7 had a rear-facing camera.

<comment><USER7> it's wifi only, so it would be useless anyway in most travels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow. Didn't know Google translate didn't have this feature until now. That is something Bing on Windows phone could do for almost a year now...

Nice feature. Useful if you travel a lot.

<comment><USER2> I think the functionality was available in Google Goggles before.</comment></comment>


China Is Trying to Wipe Taiwan Off the Map - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/china-is-trying-to-wipe-taiwan-off-the-map.html <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of China by any means, but whenever the topic of the Chinese stance towards Taiwan comes up, I feel that people in the west get a feeling as though it's an unparalleled and egregious denial of reality and that they're crazy for sticking their fingers in their ears.

But we do basically the same thing with Palestine. It's recognized by basically everyone (including a majority of UN members) except the US and Israel. What bugs me most is that neither Google or Apple maps label Palestine as a region. I can understand denial of a region in the context of the craziness that is geopolitical grandstanding, but I cannot understand how the average everyday employees at these companies can justify going along with it and purposefully encoding and forwarding on this ridiculous notion in their map offerings.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/10/google- ma...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/10/google-maps-accused- remove-palestine)

<comment><USER3> It's not unparalleled. We literally did the same thing in the months leading up to WW2[1] and we're doing it today with Crimea/Russia.

It's appeasement. It's easier to do because it just delays the inevitable conflict, though history has shown multiple times that it always ends in bloody conflict.. In the case with China, we're plugging our ears and looking the other way while they prepare to stomp all over the South China sea and Taiwan.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement#Conduct_of_appease...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement#Conduct_of_appeasement,_1937%E2%80%9339)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have a product, not very good at being a sales person - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
My wife and I have been working away on a app / tool for certain businesses and we finally are at a point where we want to approach some businesses to get them to help us beta test, it's stable but we want to get feedback for improvements and build a user base.
However neither of us are good at or even like the idea of approaching people to try selling them something, so I thought about reaching out here for some tips and suggestions. Do we just have to suck it up if we want to have a shot at this?
cheers.
Edit:
- We are wanting to replace an existing process that we have identified certain businesses go through when interacting with their clients with a more 'modern' way and want them to join our platform to help them with that. There is an initial set up which for now we are happy to do for them and a bit of change in their process but we feel that it broadens their reach and makes them appear more 'modern'.
- re cost: we are thinking of going with a monthly subscription cost at a price we feel will be easily covered by their first transaction through the new system. we want to make the barrier as low as possible and are thinking of offering the first group their first year free as a way of saying thanks for joining us and helping us build up. <comment><USER2> You've already defined the target market for your app/tool-- so don't "sell", rather show & tell them. Engage you target buyers in a conversation, share with them what you're working on, seek their specific feedback. If they like your demo, they will convert to buyers. The mindset is vital, you're not selling, you're there to help solve problems. But you must reach out first.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. So essentially something like: call and set up appointment saying something like "we've been working on a tool for your industry and we would like to share it with you and get your thoughts and suggestions"?

<comment><USER2> Yes, be transparent about who you are. Try to make a friend out of your target user, learn about them. As part of the feedback loop, you may even ask-- what do you think a app/tool like this should cost? Early adopters/promoters who provide good feedback could earn a discount. Book suggestion: Gitomer's "Little Red Book of Selling"\-- basic premise "people don't like to be sold, but they love to buy."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The strategy would differ a bit based on the product, the market it serves, the value, and what they're willing to pay. Can you elaborate on whether the product is B2B solely, what you're thinking they'd pay for it, and what the end result is to them? Also, could help us if it's a direct net benefit the business receives or something that isn't quantifiable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply I will edit the post now with some answers to your questions

Edit: is that helpful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wouldn't offer it for free. Especially not for a year. Thats a long commitment.

I would go in with a price and then offer them a free trial. I think assigning a monetary value will be important for feeling out potential price points your market would tolerate. And it will make them take you more seriously.</comment>


Waymo CEO says its tech would have handled Uber self-driving incident safely - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-selfdriving-waymo/waymo-ceo-says-its-tech-would-have-handled-uber-self-driving-incident-safely-idUSKBN1H1006 <comment><USER2> I believe it. As a former (albeit a very unimportant L3 SRE in a distant and unrelated division with no nonpublic info whatsoever about Waymo) Googler, the only thing that impressed me about my time there was the engineering culture, which despite the inevitable dilution from becoming so large, was very strongly oriented towards valuing software safety, hygiene, correctness, processor etc, compared to other shops anyway.

Even when i observed other types of dysfunction, it tended to go down in a way that demonstrates valuing software safety, and something else would be sacrificed, or at the very least it cost a lot more political capital to override that particular cultural value than most any other.

I've never worked at uber but when it comes to carefulness, well, their reputation precedes them and needs no rehashing here.</comment>