Comment by mike_hearn

Yeah, but a lot of the features they're adding or just talking about adding to C# are already in more modern JVM languages like Kotlin / Scala / Ceylon.

Kotlin in particular has quite a lot of the things like people like in C# (no full equivalent to linq though), and some things that are only pencilled in tentatively for the version of C# after next, like full nullability in the type system. And you can convert Java files to Kotlin with a single keypress, and your entire project still compiles, so there's a migration path for Java devs to Kotlin whereas there isn't one from Java to C#, really.

So yes the Java language moves slowly. However Oracle/Sun have barely been trying with the Java language: the bulk of their efforts are going into things like upgrading the standard library, better virtual machines, better support for more types of languages, better performance etc. I think they've pretty much bitten the bullet on letting other companies run with language research and development (like JetBrains)