The simple answer to all such questions is "because the Java Language Specification says so".
In many such questions, it would be possible to imagine how the feature under discussion might have been allowed. The language designers had to make judgements about what features would be useful, understandable, easy to implement in compilers/JVMs, and encourage good programming. Static methods in interfaces would fall down on several of those criteria.
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Ådne Brunborg
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Another answer is that they can. But such interfaces are called "abstract classes" and not "Interfaces" . Abstract classes and Interfaces are very similar in nature - they are both abstract (i.e. cannot be instantiated), and defines method signatures.
The difference is mainly that abstract classes can define method implementations as well - including static methods.
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Ilja Preuss
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All methods in an interface are abstract. Static methods cannot be abstract, because they aren't polymorphic.
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Anupam Sinha
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Thanks to all of you for your replies. It was helpful.
I agree. Here's the link: http://ej-technologies/jprofiler - if it wasn't for jprofiler, we would need to
run our stuff on 16 servers instead of 3.
subject: Why can't interfaces define a static method
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. Abstract classes and Interfaces are very similar in nature - they are both abstract (i.e. cannot be instantiated), and defines method signatures. 