Interesting...
Take what Larry is saying and what his posturing means...
Oracle/Sun is looking where they have an advantage and how to exploit their advantage.
People don't really care if the underlying tools are open or not. Only that they work and that they are 'free' to use and develop with.
An example, the JVM. Sun and IBM offer JVMs but they are closed. Meaning they control their JVM. You are welcome to build your own and there are open sourced versions of the JVM. Yet the majority of java users are on either Sun or IBM's JVM. The point is that the price point (free) and level of support makes it viable.
If JavaFX works, easy to implement and its 'free', then you will have adopters. If it reaches a critical mass, then it will be viable. Having Sun and Oracle stand behind JavaFX could offer enough support and credibility to make it viable.
Consider this the first step in bringing Oracle in to the spotlight and in a better position to compete against IBM. If the other stories are true, then Oracle is getting ready to relaunch the 'network is the computer' pitch.
Today's main competitors are IBM, Oracle/Sun with Cisco being a dark horse in this race.