Has Java started becoming legacy? May be "YES".

The history shows that any Programming language staying popular for about 10 years starts attaining the new status of "Legacy" by losing its popularity to new languages. From COBOL to C, C to C++, C++ to Java has proven this. It has been just over 10 years since Java started enjoying its popularity over C++. How long Java can still continue that status is a question.

What is next after Java? It could be the newly becoming popular Dynamic languages.

Java lacks some of the features offered by many recent Dynamic Languages like Ruby, Python, Groovy etc. Is that a problem for Java as a language? I would say "Yes it is in this modern Internet (Web 2.0/Rich Internet Applications(RIA)) and RAD (Rapid Application Development) age. Java as a language lacks dynamisn, suffers expressiveness and human-cenric readability. I believe that is enough for Java to be marked as a legacy language to lose its popularity over the increasingly growing user base of Dynamic/Scripting Languages. Also some of the recent frameworks like Rails and Grails has proven what kind of frameworks can be developed by dynamic languages. Frameworks like these are just impossible with non-dynamic languages.