[HN Gopher] Oracle's JDK 17 - Free Again for Commercial Use ___________________________________________________________________ Oracle's JDK 17 - Free Again for Commercial Use Author : sharjeelsayed Score : 141 points Date : 2021-10-31 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.infoq.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.infoq.com) | xony wrote: | anyone moving back? .. me , No.. | occamrazor wrote: | Still a shitty license: | | > [For LTS Oracle JDK versions] security updates will be | available for a total of three years. After that period, further | use of the Oracle JDK in production requires a commercial | license. | | Apparently the business model is having commercial customers | deploy Oracle JDK and suing them as soon as they forget to | upgrade after three years. | [deleted] | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | I mean, I hate Oracle as much as the next person, but I don't | really see a problem with "stay current or pay for LTS". | simion314 wrote: | I interpret this that if you want more then 3 years of security | issues fixes you have to pay, it is similar on how other | companies charge for extended support, if you don't like it you | update faster. | | But what is your opinion, everything should be free for big | companies to use and then who pays the developers? Even in | Linux world you need to pay to get extended LTS support. | pseudalopex wrote: | Maybe the author meant continued updates. But they said | continued use. | | The person you replied to didn't say anything against paying | for support. | occamrazor wrote: | I read it as after three years the Oracle JDK cannot be used | any longer without a license, there is no option to continue | using it in production without support. | monocasa wrote: | Reminds me of the free for non commercial use VirtualBox | plugin that makes itself super easy to install by random | endusers, and then phones home so that enforcement on the | sales side is almost automated. | phendrenad2 wrote: | That seems like a mistake, but it's very problematic if true. | Having to go through a grueling JVM version update every 3 | years, or more often if you can't jump 3 years worth of JVM | updates at once? Brutal. | whartung wrote: | You also can not distribute it for no fee, which impacts anyone | that wants to, say, do a desktop app and ship a bundled | executable, which is, arguably, a key tenet of the | modularization effort done in JDK 9 to make the JRE lighter and | more nimble. | tyingq wrote: | s/Oracle OpenJDK/Oracle JDK/ | | They can't sue you for using OpenJDK. | occamrazor wrote: | thanks, I fixed the terminology in my post | qalmakka wrote: | Guess it didn't work well for that. Thankfully projects like | AdoptOpenJDK exist, so there are basically zero reasons to touch | their stuff ever again. | znpy wrote: | Friendly reminder that oracle has no customers, only hostages. | Schnitz wrote: | For most companies, unless you haven't switched already, I assume | this won't matter. Why switch back from Azul or whatever unless | there's a strong reason to? Nothing is preventing Oracle from | trying to monetize their JDK aggressively again. | pjmlp wrote: | OpenJDK is also their JDK. | Longhanks wrote: | The GPL however isn't theirs. | chungy wrote: | Oracle is in a nice position where they could discontinue | or relicense OpenJDK, much in the way they did to | OpenSolaris. | | Let's be grateful they haven't done so yet. I'm not | convinced there is sufficient talent to carry on OpenJDK | without Oracle (contrary to the OpenSolaris-illumos | situation). | phendrenad2 wrote: | > Let's be grateful they haven't done so yet | | Why? Wouldn't the community come together and implement | any features Oracle tries to lock away in their | proprietary version? | IshKebab wrote: | Well that's what you hope would happen. Is there even | still a big Java community? Android is by far the biggest | community of users and they have moved on to Kotlin. | krinchan wrote: | You're confusing language with the compiled bytecode | virtual machine that it runs on. OpenJDK underpins almost | all of the VMs out there. Sure Android has it's own JVM, | but kotlin, scala, closure, jruby, jython, and more all | still need to be compiled against a JVM and then run | inside it. | | All non-android JVMs depend heavily on OpenJDK. | Vespasian wrote: | Also a lot of backend shops use Java or JVM backed | services | pjmlp wrote: | I really would like to see all the haters prove me wrong. | oaiey wrote: | Same with .NET. The stunt Microsoft pulled a week ago | made me think that .NET needs a OpenJDK-like model ... | until I realized that without the 200 devs from Microsoft | no one will care enough to continue developing .NET. | | Surprised that Java is in the same position. | Hello71 wrote: | i don't think that's consistent with history. there used | to be a large number of Java implementations; by far the | biggest reason why they (almost) all died out is because | Sun agreed to open up their implementation. IBM still | maintains J9, and while that's only part of a full Java | implementation, I don't see any reason why Apache Harmony | or GNU Classpath couldn't be revived and combined with it | for a high-performance Oracle-less Java implementation. | there is major precedent for this in the form of | GNU/Linux, where substantial parts of the userspace are | provided by GNU, but the kernel is a separate project. | echelon wrote: | I guess Oracle saw that enough orgs were opting out of JDK 17 | adoption? | | They'll have to boil the kettle much slower, like Microsoft and | Apple do. | EdwardDiego wrote: | 17 only reached release in September. | floix wrote: | True. It's not really new and not really free: https://www.th | eregister.com/AMP/2021/09/16/oracle_jdk_free_l... | kaba0 wrote: | Based on the Inside Java podcast, the reason was more along the | line to ease installation in cloud environments. This new | license is legally installable without clicking accept license, | etc. | | Also, making the last 1.5 (LTS+1 year into the next LTS) years | free probably doesn't mean a serious profit loss, as those | primary come from things running Java 8 for another decade | still. | vbezhenar wrote: | Yet no official Oracle JDK docker image. That's weird. | Am_I_Right wrote: | Yeah, right. As if I'm ever going to allow anything Java-related | on anything I manage again. | | "This application requires JRE #" -- end-user Googles JRE # and | downloads/installs it. | | End-user organization gets sued by Oracle lawyers for 10K site | licenses for JRE #. Sure, they COULD have downloaded | OpenFerretMongrelAsphalt JRE Pi, but yet, here we are... | foepys wrote: | Isn't the recommended way of distributing Java applications | nowadays to bundle a custom JRE with it? Wasn't project jigsaw | especially created to be able to just bundle libraries and/or | classes the application requires instead of the whole JRE? | tadfisher wrote: | Yes. The official stance of the OpenJDK organization is that | there is no such thing as a "JRE" anymore, and applications | are expected to use jlink or similar to bundle a customized | Java runtime. | | The distributions that matter here are for the JDK, which | simply provides the "full" Java runtime along with developer | tools such as javac and jlink. | Am_I_Right wrote: | Yup, you go and explain that to, say. Ubiquiti. Their network | management software still requires end-users to download JRE | v8 (and noothing else: it won't work). And, once end-users do | that, they get sued by Oracle. But, serves them right, right? | easton wrote: | Install OpenJDK's v8 JRE instead. | | sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre-headless -y on ubuntu. | Works fine with UniFi Controller. (what do you think they | use on the cloud key?) | [deleted] | vips7L wrote: | This isn't how Java works anymore. The developers are supposed | to be packaging the JVM with their application. | d0mine wrote: | For some languages developers package a whole browser for | their app. | elric wrote: | No, they're not. It's a silly idea with a pretty specific | target audience. Most shops don't have time to waste on | keeping their customers' JVM up to date by re-releasing their | applications with new JVMs. | | This feature is mostly useful when you want to ship a | particularly stripped down version of the JVM for footprint | reasons. | blandflakes wrote: | With docker, effectively we're ending up in that world | anyway (lamentable though I find it). | tinus_hn wrote: | Similarly the VirtualBox plugin package Trojan horse. | spicybright wrote: | What is that? | KindOne wrote: | Please see these Reddit posts: | | (Apr 2018) - https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/8ff | cg3/oracle_is_... | | (Sep 2019) - https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/d1t | tzp/oracle_is_... | saxonww wrote: | VirtualBox is GPL2, but the 'extension pack' is under a | personal use and evaluation license that doesn't cover | commercial use. You're supposed to buy an Enterprise | license for that. | | The extension pack covers "Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 | devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot | for Intel cards." according to the website. | johannes1234321 wrote: | My understanding of those (thus maybe wrong) is, that | they are built on too of third party licensed code and | patents. Thus opensourcing is hard and would require | reimplementation. Thus choice is this model or nothing. | One could also create those modules as open source | versions, but there doesn't seem to be enough interest by | independent folks ... | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | There most certainly is a world of options between "all | open source" and "aggressively litigious jerks". | | https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/04/oracle_virtualbox_ | mer... | billyjobob wrote: | The JRE hasn't existed since Java 10. | Am_I_Right wrote: | Oh, sorry for being so dumb. I'm just an Ubiquiti customer | wanting to download the JRE v8 that their software requires. | Guess I should just... use LISP to write my own solution? I | don't know, again, I'm just ignorant and dumb, apparently... | kaba0 wrote: | Citation needed. Oracle JRE was free for personal use. | tinus_hn wrote: | But is use in a commercial environment personal use? | jimbob45 wrote: | Oracle has proven themselves to be a litigious organization. | You're not wrong that there are _probably_ safe ways to | interact with their organization 's products but why bother | when there are alternatives from companies that don't have | such dirty legal histories? | listenallyall wrote: | You don't have to like (or use) Java or Oracle to recognize the | JVM is an incredible platform to build upon. | | > OpenFerretMongrelAsphalt | | Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Your loss. | nightfly wrote: | It went from Java to OpenJDK, to Eclipse Temurin (formerly | OpenJDK from Eclipse Adoptium) or something. If that doesn't | seem like a big mess to use I don't know what to tell you | frant-hartm wrote: | If you follow Java & ecosystem at least a bit you needed to | read one or two blog posts from reputable community members | to figure out what the situation is and what to use. | | To compare I find a licensing situation on mid-size (50+ | direct dependencies) or larger project much harder to | comprehend - you need to figure out what licenses are used, | if they can be used at all due to the requirements and | company's policy, if they are compatible with each other | and what's required for distribution. | tyingq wrote: | It is confusing from the outside though, trying to decide | if you should use Java from your distro, from Oracle, | Azul, Amazon Corretto, AdoptOpenJDK, Eclipse Temurin, or | Red Hat OpenJDK. Which ones have might have builds for | your various platforms, what support they might offer, | how closely they track OpenJDK, etc. | | One good example is what is meant by "LTS". You get | different answers to that question depending on which JDK | it is.[1] | | I don't remember another language where it was ever this | confusing. | | [1] More detail: | https://www.javacodegeeks.com/2019/07/long-term-support- | mean... | listenallyall wrote: | I mean, just picking the best Linux distro for you or | your company's particular use case is more confusing than | this. | tyingq wrote: | Linux was like that almost from day one, so it's | expected. It's much less expected for a language. | listenallyall wrote: | The JVM isn't a language. Kotlin, Scala, Clojure, and | Java are languages. I'm quite pleased there are an | abundance of options when picking a runtime. Yes, Oracle | has not been a good steward, so having numerous open and | free alternatives is a positive thing. | tyingq wrote: | That's true, but a little pedantic. If you look at it | from the lens of "I've picked a language (java), now I | need to build and run/deploy things", it's a confusing | ecosystem. There's good arguments for why things are the | way they are. But there's not really a good argument that | it's straightforward and simple. | listenallyall wrote: | You are not making a coherent argument. Once you have | decided you're building your server app in Java, it is | MORE difficult to evaluate and decide Ubuntu, Debian, Red | Hat, CentOS, etc. than it is to pick a runtime. Whether | it has been like that "from day one" to use your term, is | irrelevant. Secondly, having choice is GOOD. Yes it adds | a bit of confusion but I'd rather have options than not. | If you want some overriding authority to make all the | decisions for you, go build on iOS. | tyingq wrote: | Why is the comparison to operating systems and not other | development languages? | didibus wrote: | Most other languages don't offer long term support. | | You can't run an old version of Python and continue to | get security and performance backported fixes. Same thing | with GO or Ruby or Swift. | | I can't remember what Microsoft does for .Net, but I | suspect you also need to always be on the newest CLR to | get updates. | | I think this is one of the major differences with the | JVM, in a way, it has more options and vendors which | should be a good thing, but it seems to mostly confuse | people. | davey48016 wrote: | https://dotnet.microsoft.com/platform/support/policy/dotn | et-... | | Dotnet LTS versions have three years of support. LTS | versions come out every two years, so there is a year of | overlap. | | The non-LTS (which they call Current) have 18 months of | support. | Am_I_Right wrote: | Oh, yes, silly ignorant me. Real-world scenario: someone | downloads the Ubiquiti network management software. It | requires end-users to download JRE v8 (and nothing else: it | won't work). And, once end-users do that, they get sued by | Oracle. But, I'm just soooooo ignorant... | kstrauser wrote: | Yep. It's safest to classify using Oracle software as a | business risk. After a due diligence evaluation it may be an | acceptable risk, but you darned well better research it before | assuming everything will be fine. | Pet_Ant wrote: | Isn't the cat out of the bag already? | voz_ wrote: | Oracle is such a scummy, useless company. Die already! | amachefe wrote: | Why would anyone talk them seriously again. | | Thay did this same thing with OpenOffice. | | At the rate things are going, MySQL would also get this in the | next 10yrs. | | Oracle wants to extra as much resources as possible from any | product. And when they realise the tech world has moved on, would | try to throw a hinge to the wheel. | appleflaxen wrote: | Great; now put virtualbox under a more liberal license. | mberning wrote: | The longstanding disaster of Java version numbering and licensing | continues. How long until they reverse course on this? I don't | know of any other popular language with a such a sordid history | in these areas. | matsemann wrote: | Meh, not a disaster in practice. Our team has spent less than | 10 minutes thinking about this the later years. | | For server stuff one points to a matching dockerfile, for | distributed stuff one bundles the jre with the tools since | java9. | PedroBatista wrote: | Fuck them, that's what I have to say. | | And also thank you, for giving many companies the necessary push | for them to realize Oracle's JDK was not the only game in town | and many other's could deliver a perfectly fine JDK. | | There's few things worse in this business than being labeled an | "unreliable partner" and Oracle is being seen as just that even | at big companies. Oracle's wisdom to pull this kind of bullshit | is already legendary, the Open Solaris train-wreck, the MySQL | writing on the wall, the OpenOffice implosion, the JDK shoot-in- | foot, those samurais at Oracle's board sure know what they're | doing.. | ChuckMcM wrote: | From the article -- _Providing Oracle OpenJDK builds under the | GPL was highly welcomed, but feedback from developers, academia, | and enterprises was that they wanted the trusted, rock-solid | Oracle JDK under an unambiguously free terms license, too. Oracle | appreciates the feedback from the developer ecosystem and are | pleased to announce that as of Java 17 we are delivering on | exactly that request._ | | Translation, everyone stopped using our stuff in favor of the GPL | version, that sucked so we changed the terms on ours to be free | for commercial use. I bet they collect data and resell it but | that is just a guess. | laurent92 wrote: | Don't forget that Oracle was guilty of shipping the AskBar as | part of the JRE for the general public. That's right, a malware | which uploaded your browser history and redirected any 404 to a | commercial advertising page, wrecking the web and the | understanding of it for everyone. | | Oracle is not to be trusted. | bitwize wrote: | Didn't Sun do that too? | chungy wrote: | It's probably the same binaries, no added stuff. But yeah, it | must have hurt them when the bean counters tallied it up :) | | It's also probably worth financially supporting Oracle if you | make substantial money from Java-based software. Oracle is by | and large responsible for the platform that you are using. | mehrdada wrote: | > _It 's also probably worth financially supporting Oracle if | you make substantial money from Java-based software. Oracle | is by and large responsible for the platform that you are | using._ | | Mmm... That's an interesting theory, but one does not really | know if the money will be spent on tightening down the Java | platform and legal attacks or technical improvements[1]. In | practice it probably does not matter either way as that | company is not cash-constrained in any shape or form. | | [1]: https://www.globalnerdy.com/2011/07/03/org-charts-of- | the-big... | cercatrova wrote: | > when the bean counters tallied it up | | If you're making Java, you'll have to count up the beans | [deleted] | mrtweetyhack wrote: | Free today, not tomorrow. Just keep them guessing | marginalia_nu wrote: | The company I was working for at the time spent a not | insignificant amount of money and effort migrating away from | Oracle JDK when they first pulled this shit. | | It was a B2B outfit, had maybe 30 customers running a dozen | different products that the customers hosted themselves. The | product was critical to business and the customers were large and | part of critical infrastructure. Even a short outage would have | made it into the news. What I'm saying is it wasn't a place where | you could just hope for the best while migrating JVMs, everything | needed to be tested and re-tested from every imaginable angle. | | This was extremely expensive, but in the long run, it was still a | lot cheaper than ponying up for oracle licensing costs. | | I don't work there anymore, but I doubt they are repeating the | process to migrate back, especially given how well OpenJDK works. | Cullinet wrote: | can I ask you for some illumination of the licensing costs | components involved with remaining licensed by Oracle? | | this page https://dzone.com/articles/how-much-does-java-cost | | gives $28,500 pa for a 200 core runtime | | that sounds negligible compared to the engineering investment | that was preferred instead. | | the logic of a commercially supported license is obviously the | engineering depth of the original author's knowledge and in | particular being able to refer to the authoritative / canonical | answers | | were savings the only objective? | | if so, what did the savings get? anything better? | awill wrote: | negligible? It all depends on how much hardware you have. If | you're a startup, you don't want scaling to cost you anymore | than the hardware. | | I remember reading years ago about the FB vs MySpace fight. | MySpace was (I think) .NET on Windows with SQL Server. Every | extra machine cost a fortune in licensing. Whereas every FB | machine was PHP/MySQL. It matters. | murderfs wrote: | > that sounds negligible compared to the engineering | investment that was preferred instead. | | Can you trust Oracle not to raise the pricing in the future, | given that they've raised it once already? | Sparkle-san wrote: | >Can you trust Oracle | | No | marginalia_nu wrote: | I don't have exact figures, but I'd guess our customers | really weren't too enthusiastic about getting bullied into | vendor lock-in with Oracle, which through this very act had | already demonstrated their unreliability and willingness to | renege on existing terms. That may have been the bigger | reason for migrating. Staying on Oracle was definitely an | option, but nobody wanted that. | chrisseaton wrote: | > The company I was working for at the time spent a not | insignificant amount of money and effort migrating away from | Oracle JDK when they first pulled this shit. | | What did you migrate to? Another build of the OpenJDK? But it's | the same code, isn't it? What's the difference that mattered to | you? | flatiron wrote: | I did a migration too. 20+ year legacy code base. It was a | 2-3 day effort. To adopt open jdk | chrisseaton wrote: | > It was a 2-3 day effort | | Right but why? I'm not an expert in the difference but | isn't it literally exactly the same code and functionality? | What were you doing in that migration time? | tauwauwau wrote: | It's generally related to the infrastructure. Like | migrating Dockerfiles, Jenkins, SonarQube servers. | jonhohle wrote: | There are packaging differences between various JVMs. | Some of these are relatively minor (explicit or optional | dependencies on X11 or other libraries), others are a | bigger issue (how the Java keystore integrates with paths | configured for system certificates). | IceWreck wrote: | You'd be better off using JDK builds from your distro's repos. | chrisseaton wrote: | Many systems either don't provide a modern JDK at all (for | example macOS), or provide a pretty old JDK (for example I | think Debian Stable only provides 11.) | seba_dos1 wrote: | Debian stable provides LTS releases - and the latest one was | 11 up until a month ago. | mastax wrote: | Fwiw Debian Bullseye has OpenJDK 8 (for Nvidia?), 11, and 17. | 11 is the default. | ptx wrote: | Maybe. Debian says[1] that their OpenJDK package will get | "security updates on a best effort basis, but users should not | expect to see updates for every quarterly upstream security | update." | | I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Will the Debian package | have unpatched security vulnerabilities for several months at a | time? | | [1] https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/release- | notes... | IceWreck wrote: | You could use Alma Linux / Rocky Linux or any other RHEL | likes which will get updates as long as RHEL does. | nick__m wrote: | I think that means that the Debian maintainers appear to be | understaffed and you should use the Correto or Zulu | repository if you care about security updates. | seba_dos1 wrote: | This applies to OpenJDK 17 in bullseye specifically, which is | a special case because it wasn't released yet when bullseye | was being released. There's the previous LTS version of | OpenJDK (11) available in bullseye as well. | exabrial wrote: | I actually thought Oracle's move initially was actually a good | thing: It brought some much-needed diversity to OpenJDK builds. | | Very pleased to see this move as well. It's taken a very very | long time, but it's encouraging to see Oracle finally understand | the open source ecosystem. | computronus wrote: | I agree that the blossoming of additional JDK distributions, | spurred on by Oracle's initial license change, was a good | thing. I'm a happy AdoptOpenJDK / Temurin user, at work and at | home. | | However, I don't see any benefit to this latest change in their | stance. Everyone already had to wade their way through the | confusion from that initial licensing change, and many (most?) | spent a lot of time and effort getting to a new stable | configuration on a different distro. Why spend more effort, | again, to run back to Oracle JDK? I think most organizations | have better things to do than deal with all this. | | Also, who's to say Oracle won't change their licensing deal | once again for Java 21? | kaba0 wrote: | Oracle commit 98%+ to the OpenJDK project, that they finished | open sourcing and opening up paid only features year to year, | to the point where OracleJDK and OpenJDK are pretty much | identical. | | Contrary to their litigious image, they are more than great | stewards of the ecosystem and they do undertake open-source. | tinus_hn wrote: | Because if they don't, the Java ecosystem is dead. | pjmlp wrote: | Indeed, specially because in spite of all the hate, no | other company bothered to acquire Sun assets (with the | exception of IBM that quickly withdrew their offer). | | Without Oracle, there wouldn't exist Java 17, MaximeVM made | into GraalVM, J/Rockit JIT cache as OpenJDK DSA, J/Rockit | monitoring as Flight Recorder,.... | | And everyone could enjoy Java 6 with the JIT and GC | improvements the FOSS community is known for, when there | isn't some big corp sponsoring the work. | vbezhenar wrote: | gcc is pretty advanced compiler and, AFAIK, it's | independent from big corporations. I wouldn't deny the | possibility for Java to live under truly open source | umbrella. | VWWHFSfQ wrote: | Almost all of GCC's development is done by employees of | big corps, often as their sole job. Red Hat, IBM, etc. | Hello71 wrote: | looking at last 1000 commits to gcc, it seems like about | 80-90% of emails are associated with "big corps". | however, this doesn't tell the whole story. according to | https://lwn.net/Articles/867540/, over 85% | (100%-6.8%-5.0%-1.6%=86.6%) of Linux kernel changesets | are supported by employers, but nobody sensible would | claim that Linux is not community developed. whether it | is because of historical project culture, or BDFL, or | simply a large number of contributing organizations, | there is clearly a substantial difference between Linux | and OpenJDK development methodology. | josefx wrote: | It also avoided licensing accidents. Oracles JDK always came | with non free components and making the entire JDK non free | made stories claiming that they "accidentally" triggered one of | the commercial features and had to pay thousands in licensing | fees unlikely. | rob_c wrote: | Not knowing the details. Doesn't this impact the sun<->google | Java android suit? | halestock wrote: | It doesn't, and that suit is finally dead and over with: https: | //en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America.... | rob_c wrote: | I suppose but would that impact any future complaints. | Probably not I suppose but I'll not pretend to be a legal | expert | tyingq wrote: | Guessing they didn't like everyone flocking to things like Amazon | Corretto. I don't see this move gaining anyone back though. | michaelcampbell wrote: | I'm not really in that space any more but I haven't heard of | ANYONE "flocking" to Corretto. OpenJDK, sure. | vecplane wrote: | Android Studio recommends versions of Amazon's Corretto | distrubutions. That could be a JetBrains IDE feature though, | not certain. | tyingq wrote: | I don't think Oracle would be unhappy with providers like | Eclipse. I suspect they are less happy with people going to | Azul, Amazon, RedHat, etc. | jffry wrote: | Well I'll break your anecdote. I "flocked" to Corretto for a | production JVM-hosted system that ran on EC2 at the time that | the Oracle distribution was re-licensed. | | My reasons, aside from just licensing concerns? It came with | a public long-term support commitment, and was deployed by | AWS themselves on internal services before it was released | publicly. | baud147258 wrote: | I remember the same argument of long-term support from the | tech lead when he decided that the software we deliver to | our clients would use the Correto JDK. | rStar wrote: | java 11 fo life yo | rStar wrote: | oracle could have not been morons and gotten the entire world | stuck on java 11, but as we all know, oracle has one product, | and it's called vendor lock in. | stunt wrote: | Oracle has been doing amazing work for OpenJDK and Java, it's | just that Oracle's JDK isn't a great business model. Glad that | they realized that too and I hope it doesn't stop them from | putting resources behind it. | 1cvmask wrote: | It seems they were not in a dominant position in terms of market | share. Anyone have a clue how low Oracle's market share was? | | "Surveys suggest that Oracle's JDK distributions are not the most | popular Java distributions anymore. Developers seem to prefer | OpenJDK distributions from AdoptOpenJDK (now Eclipse Temurin), | Amazon, Microsoft, Azul, and other vendors. These organizations | also provide commercial support for their distributions. In the | case of Eclipse Temurin, Azul offers such support." | kaba0 wrote: | Oracle JDK is pretty much the exact same as OpenJDK and Oracle | commits 98%+ of all commits to the project. It's hard to define | a market when most of it is freely available. | pjmlp wrote: | People hate Oracle so much that don't stop two seconds to | actually think who does the work and keeps the lights on | OpenJDK. | marktangotango wrote: | Who does the work is immaterial to a lot of people. When | Oracle bought Sun, literally everyone knew they'd move to a | paid commercial license eventually. Which they did. I | personally am amused at this sequence of events. It | happened to other Sun products as well; open office, and | mysql primarily. Commercial licensing didn't work for those | open source projects either. What did Oracle actually gain | from the Sun acquisition? With this news it seems like | nothing. No tears shed for Larry. | sharms wrote: | Just to specific answer the question of what did Oracle | gain, I believe they made back all of their investment | across their Exadata line of products which were sold to | large commercial enterprises, running on custom SPARC | silicon. | pengaru wrote: | You sure about that SPARC bit? According to [0] v1 ran on | HP commodity hardware, and the subsequent history | repeatedly mentions intel xeon processors... | | [0] https://flashdba.com/history-of-exadata/ | kmonsen wrote: | They got an Android lawsuit against Google over Android. | pjmlp wrote: | Rightfully so, we don't need Google's own flavour of J++. | monocasa wrote: | Apparently not rightfully so since the courts struck it | down. | pjmlp wrote: | Unfortunately, hence the Java community got screwed by | your employer and now have to put up with Android Java. | monocasa wrote: | I'm not employed by Google, and never have been; not | everyone who disagrees with you has been paid off to do | so. | pjmlp wrote: | Except no one else bothered to acquire them, so they were | fine with uncle Larry putting the greens on the table. | mulmen wrote: | It's more like nobody wants to do business with Oracle. The | products themselves are fine. It's the pray-we-don't-alter- | it-further licensing that's a dealbreaker. | atsjie wrote: | > The products themselves are fine | | I beg to differ. The majority of their products are | flawed and outdated. I'm not talking Oracle DB or Java | but the vast amount of other apps they sell. | | They bought lots of stuff, pull funding from development | and redirect it to sales. Then they sell it to fit their | vision; but nothing integrates cleanly and you'll be | spending massive amounts of money on consultants who | understand product A & B and how to connect them. | | A java-dev can't do that; you need that A and B knowledge | + integration skills. Those consultants are very hard to | find and good effective ones nearly non-existent. The | fees are enormous regardless of whether you use Oracle | consultants, Oracle partners or freelancers. If you do | manage to find cheaper consultants (offshoring most | likely) be prepared for terrible quality as well. | | Ow, and once you're finally comfortable with their stuff | after spending all that money, be sure to make a | reservation for the unexpected additional license fees | they'll slap on you because you failed to remember the | fine print. | xpressvideoz wrote: | It is ironic that the very distribution that is not recommended | by @pron (AdoptOpenJDK) is the most widely used one! | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28821316 | outjected wrote: | The simple reason is that they made it the easiest to install | and keep updated with deb / rpm repos. | | Unfortunately they migrated from adoptopenjdk to adoptium | back in September and have yet to provide repos. | | Microsoft however makes it very easy to install their build | in linux. | | https://docs.microsoft.com/en- | us/java/openjdk/download#linux... | tyingq wrote: | Seems expected. Everyone moved away when they announced it | wasn't free anymore. | https://support.oracle.com/knowledge/Middleware/2511229_1.ht... | laurent92 wrote: | And it wasn't possible to perform unattended installations, | because they required to approve the license manually ("y" | from keyboard input), so Oracle JDK was excluded from any | Ansible/Puppet/Docker deployment or Linux distribution. | Immediate roadblock. | Spivak wrote: | You can absolutely programmatically have apt make arbitrary | selections like this with debconf. | | debconf-set-selections is your friend. | carlhjerpe wrote: | yes | apt install whatever could work too. | JazzXP wrote: | Wow, what a moronic decision by Oracle. Automating | installations is so important, if you're deploying 1000 | servers, to not be able to automate (even just for the one | character button) is stupid. | [deleted] | flyinprogrammer wrote: | I wonder if Docker Inc will learn from this. | easton wrote: | They probably can't. Every other business model they've tried | hasn't worked. Their only other option is a buyout, and I can | only assume Microsoft hasn't offered them enough money yet, | because otherwise I assume that would have happened years ago. | oneplane wrote: | They won't because it's not the same situation and not the | issue at hand. | | If you want to make a comparison: Docker is more like Sun. They | will have three options: | | 1. Go bankrupt | | 2. Get bought | | 3. Find a way to make money | Pet_Ant wrote: | But what else is Docker to do? It feels like some companies | should be bought out jointly by the tech giants and turned into | charities since they have no business model but provide | excellent value to the ecosystem that isn't capturable. | Z3lgius wrote: | This feels like a bait and switch | overgard wrote: | Dumb question, but what's the difference between the Open JDK and | the Oracle JDK? Are they separate codebases? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-31 23:00 UTC)