Comparison of the Java and .NET platforms

Comparison of the Java and .NET platforms.
.NET
Open Source Evolution and Patent Issues
The Mono project, designed to offer a cross-platform implementation of .NET, initially sought to avoid patent or copyright issues. While it gained traction, the 2006 agreement between Microsoft and Novell provided partial legal protection to Novell's customers but did not address broader concerns about patents, leading the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to advise caution. The FSF's revised aimed to close loopholes Microsoft had exploited.
The landscape changed in 2014 when Microsoft began open-sourcing many core .NET technologies under the Apache License and established the .NET Foundation. This led to the open-sourcing of ASP.NET MVC, Entity Framework, F#, Roslyn (C# and VB.NET compiler), and other frameworks. Microsoft's goal was to broaden .NET adoption across multiple platforms, including Linux and macOS. By June 2016, Microsoft released .NET Core 1.0, a lean, cross-platform version of .NET.
By 2020, .NET Core evolved into .NET 5, and in subsequent years .NET 6 and .NET 7 were released, unifying the previously separate .NET Framework and .NET Core. The framework is now fully open-source, with active contributions from Microsoft and the broader community. .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI) has further consolidated cross-platform capabilities, enabling developers to write applications that work on Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS from a single codebase.
Traditional Computer Applications
Desktop Applications
Java's and Swing libraries offer extensive features but have not significantly impacted the desktop market. In 2006, Java 6.0 was released, emphasizing desktop integration, followed by JavaFX, which aimed to compete with technologies like Adobe Flash by providing a modern framework for building rich client applications.
However, .NET remains the more popular framework for developing desktop applications on Windows, offering Windows Forms, , and previously Silverlight. With tight integration into the Windows platform, .NET applications benefit from a native look and feel.
Java has made inroads with the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT), particularly in environments like Eclipse, but Swing and AWT have not reached the same level of desktop adoption.
Server Applications
In server applications, Java and .NET continue to compete closely. Java EE (now Jakarta EE) and ASP.NET remain strong contenders in building web-based dynamic content and applications.
As of 2023, Jakarta EE has evolved under the Eclipse Foundation and continues to serve large-scale enterprise applications. Meanwhile, ASP.NET Core has seen widespread adoption due to its performance improvements and cloud-native capabilities.
In terms of market share, Java and .NET remain dominant players. While Java previously had stronger adoption in the enterprise server space, ASP.NET Core has made significant strides in modern cloud and microservice architectures. Both platforms support containerization technologies like Docker and orchestration tools like Kubernetes.
Embedded Applications
Mobile Applications
Android, one of the most significant mobile platforms, continues to be heavily based on Java. However, over time, Kotlin has become the primary language for Android development due to its more modern features and better integration with the Android ecosystem. Android's Dalvik virtual machine and later ART diverged from standard Java implementations, but Java remains an important language in Android development.
Microsoft has invested heavily in cross-platform mobile development through Xamarin, which it acquired in 2016. By 2023, .NET MAUI (an evolution of Xamarin) allows developers to write cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows using a single codebase in C#. This has made .NET a more viable competitor in mobile development.
Home Entertainment Technologies
Java has found a niche in digital television and Blu-ray players, particularly through the BD-J interactive platform, which was accepted as the official tool for Blu-ray disc development. Java's presence in set-top boxes and digital TV has also expanded, with applications like Home Media Engine using Java-based extensions.
The alternative, HDi, developed by Microsoft and Disney for the defunct HD DVD format, used a combination of XML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, HD DVD's failure left BD-J as the primary interactive platform for high-definition media.
Runtime Inclusion in Operating Systems
.NET/Mono
Microsoft has continued to promote .NET as its primary development platform for Windows, shipping the .NET runtime with various Windows versions, starting from Windows XP. .NET is pre-installed in newer Windows versions, and Visual Studio Code, a lightweight, cross-platform code editor, has become one of the most popular IDEs for .NET development.
Mono, the open-source implementation of .NET, allows and .NET applications to run on Linux, macOS, and BSD-based operating systems. Mono’s inclusion in these operating systems, and the cross-platform capabilities of .NET Core (now .NET 7), has further solidified .NET's presence outside Windows.
Java
As of 2023, Java is not pre-installed on Windows or macOS. However, it remains widely available for installation on all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Java is also bundled with many Unix-based commercial distributions, and the open-source OpenJDK has become the de facto standard implementation for Java development.
OpenJDK is included in major Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora. This version of Java is fully open-source, passing all compatibility tests, and it can run major applications like Eclipse and NetBeans.
The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) can still be downloaded as a web plugin, but the plugin’s size has been a common critique. However, Java’s support for Rich Internet Applications (RIA), combined with improvements in Java 6 that introduced a new consumer JRE edition, has somewhat mitigated these criticisms.

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