Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/May 23

Today in 1995 the C++-like programming language Java was first released to the public. Java had enabled operating system independent software and became very popular and influential, while the necessary execution environment remained closed source for years (the “Java trap”). Google’s Android is based on Java technology and incited Oracle to buy up Sun and start dismantling it, mainly to leverage Java in a lawsuit in the hope of getting a share of the profits from Android.